Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin took a New York Times reporter to task over media bias in reporting on efforts to expose fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars under the Biden administration.
During a press conference on Monday at the EPA, Zeldin confronted New York Times reporter Lisa Friedman over an April 2 story she had written in which she accused him of making “explosive accusations against the Biden administration” with no evidence, regarding the mishandling of $20 billion in climate grants.
Using the reporter’s own words, Zeldin fired back at the reporter and dared other media outlets, including the Washington Post and Politico, to back up their reporting that there was “no evidence” of wrongdoing.
Friedman responded to Zeldin’s rebuke by asking, “Could you point us to where a judge has found that there’s waste?”
Zeldin continued to hold Friedman’s feet to the fire, saying, “It’s not that easy for you, Lisa. See, because you guys are writing stories. These are your words. These aren’t the judge’s words.”
The EPA chief went on to say that reporters from certain news outlets“are willing to sacrifice [their] own integrity and the integrity of [their] paper to make a claim that there’s no evidence.”
The controversy stems from a $27 billion slush fund established by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) which Zeldin says engaged in “self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients and reduced oversight” as it rushed $20 billion of taxpayer money to eight non profit groups after Trump won the 2024 election.
Those funds are currently frozen as federal law enforcement investigates the GGRF for criminal activity after an EPA official was caught on undercover video bragging that the agency was, “trying to get the money out as fast as possible before they come in and stop it all. … It truly feels like we’re on the Titanic and we’re throwing, like, gold bars off the edge.”
Zeldin told reporters at Monday’s press conference, “I have a duty to make sure that we don’t light on fire billions of dollars of tax dollars. And I’m not going to stand before any member of the media and get bullied into lighting billions of dollars on fire.”