Both the EPA and Doge just put the kibosh on nearly $70 million of Biden grant money headed to lefty groups for some environmental justice crap.
Here’s the news via NY Post:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency teamed up with the Department of Government Efficiency to put the kibosh on more than $67 million in grant money once earmarked to push ex-President Joe Biden’s “environmental justice” mandate, The Post has learned.
The EPA and the Elon Musk-led DOGE this week flagged 21 grants totaling $77.1 million previously awarded to 20 lefty nonprofits and universities, and the Trump administration will withhold $67.4 million in payments yet to be made, officials said.
The biggest loser is Vermont-based Institute of Sustainable Communities, which has yet to receive $12.4 million of the $16 million it was promised under two separate Biden-era grants to serve as a “National Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center.”
The Biden administration created three such national centers as part of its Justice40 Initiative requiring 40% of the “overall benefits” of most environmental and infrastructure programs to “flow to disadvantaged communities,” including Native American tribes. Another 18 regional centers were also created.
It’s unclear what will happen to the centers without the funding.
Another group losing funding was the San Diego State University Foundation, which was tapped to help bring “environmental justice” to “underserved” “tribal, indigenous and Pacific Island communities” and had yet to receive nearly $4.2 million of its $5.1 million in grants, according to a spreadsheet of the cuts reviewed by The Post. Part of its funding was to support a regional center at the university.
Others losing grant money they’ve been banking on include the New Orleans-based Deep South Center for Environmental Justice ($8 million), the Minneapolis Foundation ($7.6 million) and Baltimore-based Green & Healthy Homes Initiative ($7.2 million).
The affected organizations did not return messages.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin hailed his agency and DOGE’s actions as another example of “wasteful spending end[ing] with the Trump Administration.”
“We will make sure every penny spent by EPA goes towards protecting human health and the environment, and Powering the Great American Comeback,” said Zeldin, who earlier month announced his team separately rooted out $20 billion the Biden administration squirreled away at an unnamed outside financial institution to prevent environmental grants to “far-left activist groups” from being cut.
“I am proud to partner with DOGE to restore fiscal responsibility and accountability in our government,” added the ex-Long Island Republican congressman.