A federal judge in Washington temporarily barred Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin from terminating billions of dollars in grants to climate groups after he expressed concern that the financial funding was riddled with waste and corruption.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled Tuesday that Zeldin had not provided sufficient evidence to back his claims that federal grants handed out to Climate United, Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities were a “$20 billion ‘gold bar’ scheme” characterized by“self-dealing and wasteful spending,” as well as “incidents of misconduct, conflicts of interest, and potential fraud.” President Donald Trump’s EPA further failed to give the climate groups sufficient notice or opportunity to respond to claims of corruption, Chutkan wrote.

Recommended Stories

• Trump escalation against Houthis has major effect on oil
• Colorado congressman pushes to lift restrictions on public land for drilling
• A closer look at the women leading the conservative climate movement 

“In the termination letters, EPA Defendants vaguely reference ‘multiple ongoing investigations’ into ‘programmatic waste, fraud, and abuse and conflicts of interest’ but offer no specific information about such investigations, factual support for the decision, or an individualized explanation for each Plaintiff,” Chutkan wrote. The EPA did not give the plaintiffs “an opportunity to object and provide information challenging the action when it unilaterally terminated their grants,” the judge continued.

Zeldin pulled the funding last week, writing in a press release that “the Biden EPA parked tens of billions of taxpayer dollars at an outside financial institution in a manner that deliberately reduced the ability of EPA to conduct proper oversight.”

The funding in question comes from grants awarded last year through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, commonly known as a “green bank,” that was approved by Congress through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Under the Biden administration, those funds had been deposited at Citibank, the “outside financial institution” Zeldin referred to.

Under the terms of the judge’s order, the EPA is blocked from recouping the funds. The three groups that sued the EPA for terminating grants received under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will still not be allowed to access the money sitting at Citibank.

Climate United is fighting to access $7 billion in grant funding, the Coalition for Green Capital is seeking $5 billion, and Power Forward Communities wants to recoup $2 billion. Five other nonprofit groups received the remainder of the $20 billion total, per Politico.

RUNDOWN: THE GREEN GROUPS THAT GOT THE $20 BILLION IN ‘GOLD BARS’ FROM THE EPA

Zeldin said Tuesday in a statement posted on X that the grants were awarded “in a manner that deliberately reduced the ability of EPA to conduct proper oversight.”

“I will not rest until these hard-earned taxpayer dollars are returned to the U.S. Treasury,” he said.