Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin lambasted members of the press Monday morning over coverage of the agency’s legal battle to stop the release of $20 billion in grants for nonprofit climate organizations.

Zeldin held a media conference from the EPA’s Washington headquarters Monday ahead of a trip to San Diego in honor of Earth Day.

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Tensions peaked in the last 10 minutes of the hourlong conference when the administrator directly questioned articles about whether the EPA had produced sufficient evidence to support the sudden termination of the funds from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, written by members of the press present.

“We come into this office, fulfilling our pledge to Congress to get to the bottom of this, and as we overturn different rocks and we find more evidence of waste and abuse, there are some members of the media who have dug in further into saying that there’s no evidence,” Zeldin said.

“Every time a new piece of evidence comes out, there’s some in the media saying, even with more conviction, that there’s no evidence,” he continued, singling out the New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico.

For weeks, the EPA has sought to cancel the $20 billion in funds that were set to be distributed among eight climate-focused organizations.

Zeldin has accused former President Joe Biden’s administration of improperly distributing these grants by routing them through Citibank, where the majority of the funds have been frozen since mid-February. 

The administrator has dubbed the grants “gold bars,” in reference to a video filmed last year in which a former EPA employee said the Biden administration was attempting to push out grant money as quickly as possible before the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

“It truly feels like we’re on the Titanic, and we’re throwing, like, gold bars off the edge,” the former employee is heard saying in the video.

Zeldin pointed to this video again Monday, claiming that it was evidence of “waste and abuse.”

“If I was in a court of law, and I played the video of the Biden political appointee saying that they’re throwing gold bars off the Titanic, that would be considered evidence,” the administrator said. “Evidence of what? Evidence of waste and abuse.”

He went on to list a number of other examples of “evidence” that the EPA has found of waste and fraud regarding the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program.

This included alleged emails from the program director, Jahi Wise, from January 2023 regarding its design.

“What would you call that when people who are part of these recipients, who are former Obama appointees?” Zeldin asked.

“I mean, someone made a reference earlier, asking me about the $2 billion that went to the Stacey Abrams-linked NGO,” he continued. “When I said unqualified recipients, you say that’s an allegation. Do you have evidence? Well, I would say that an NGO that receives $2 billion in 2024, that received $100 in 2023, that is evidence that they’re not qualified.”

Zeldin also pointed to an amended account control agreement for the grants, claiming that it was being amended to reduce EPA oversight.

Additionally, Zeldin listed a number of former Obama administration officials now involved with some of the climate organizations calling for the release of the funds, saying it pointed to “self-dealing and conflicts of interest.”

“How is that zero evidence?” Zeldin said. “How is it no evidence? How can any paper — Politico has written it, Washington Post has written it, the New York Times has written it. Others have written that there is no evidence.”

When pressed on whether he was confident that a court would uphold or support that evidence in an official ruling, Zeldin continued to criticize media coverage of the case and asked journalists in the room why they had not written a story listing each piece of evidence he had mentioned.

Some of the materials brought up Monday, such as the January 2023 Wise email, have yet to be made available to the public.

When asked if he would make the email and other related materials available, Zeldin said he would be happy to release anything as long as it is approved by government attorneys.

Zeldin first attempted to terminate the funds completely last month, but he was blocked by a federal judge who ruled that the government had not provided sufficient evidence of wrongdoing.

“EPA may terminate the agreements for ‘waste, fraud, or abuse,’ but this requires ‘credible evidence of the commission of a violation of Federal criminal law involving fraud, conflict of interest, bribery, or gratuity violations found in Title 18 of the United States Code or a violation of the civil False Claims Act,’” District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in her ruling. “At this stage, EPA Defendants have not provided the ‘credible evidence’ required.”

Three of the eight climate groups, Climate United, Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities, have sued the EPA to release $14 billion of the funds to continue funding their climate projects in low-income communities.

The groups saw an initial win in Chutkan’s preliminary injunction last week, which called on Citibank to disburse expenses that the groups incurred before the funding freeze started.

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

However, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked the ruling one day later to give itself more time to consider Chutkan’s full opinion.

The appellate court has set a deadline for later this month for the involved parties to file an emergency motion for stay pending appeal and to file a response or reply.