Climate Group Sues EPA Over Frozen Billions in Bank Accounts
23 hours ago
3,100
One of the groups that received billions of dollars from an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions is suing the EPA and Citibank after the group’s bank accounts were frozen.
“This isn’t about politics, it’s about economics,” Climate United CEO Beth Bafford said in a statement. “We’re going to court for the communities we serve—not because we want to, but because we have to.”
Climate United, a public-private investment fund, is among eight groups awarded a total of $20 billion last year through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed by Congress in 2022.
In the suit filed Saturday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Climate United said they and other GGRF recipient groups have been unable to draw money from the accounts for three weeks with no explanation from the EPA or Citibank.
The U.S. Treasury Department designated Citibank the financial agent for money EPA awarded last year under the GGRF.
“Citi has been working with the federal government in its efforts to address government officials’ concerns regarding this federal grant program,” a spokesperson for Citibank said in an email to Newsweek Saturday. “Our role as financial agent does not involve any discretion over which organizations receive grant funds. Citi will of course comply with any judicial decision.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has criticized the GGRF as “a green slush fund” and pledged to claw back the funding.
“We don’t know where it’s going, we don’t have the proper amount of oversight,” Zeldin said in an appearance on Fox News Thursday. Zeldin accused former President Joe Biden’s administration of rushing the funding out the door in its final weeks before President Donald Trump took office.
An organization granted money under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is suing the EPA after the agency froze bank accounts holding the funds. An organization granted money under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is suing the EPA after the agency froze bank accounts holding the funds. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty
In its lawsuit, Climate United said Zeldin’s charges are false. EPA used a “rigorous, transparent, competitive process” for its selections, the group said, and the agency was required by law to obligate the GGRF funds by the end of September 2024, well before the presidential election.
The group argued that its contract with the EPA includes “robust reporting and accountability measures” to ensure oversight. The EPA’s website includes details on the selection process and workplans for the recipient groups.
Climate United was awarded $6.9 billion through a portion of the GGRF called the National Clean Investment Fund which was designed to leverage private financing for projects that improve energy efficiency, cut energy bills and reduce pollution.
The group said its grant requires it to use about 80 percent of the money on projects in low- and moderate-income communities, rural communities and tribal communities.
Before filing its lawsuit, Climate United sent the EPA a letter on Tuesday requesting an explanation for the freeze on the accounts and laying out its legal argument.
An EPA spokesperson told Newsweek via email on Friday that “the FBI recommended a freeze due to their ongoing investigation.”
That investigation has already been marked by controversy at the Department of Justice (DOJ) where a senior prosecutor abruptly resigned after a dispute over whether there was sufficient evidence to order the freeze on GGRF accounts.
In her letter of resignation, which was published by The Washington Post, former prosecutor Denise Cheung described her “concern about the current lack of evidence of any apparent crime.”
As Newsweek reported last week, a prominent legal scholar called EPA’s freeze on the bank accounts “strikingly illegal,” and raised concerns that the agency was acting without proof of any fraud.
Georgetown Law professor David Super told Newsweek that if there was evidence of misconduct the EPA should have given Climate United and other grantees notice and an opportunity to respond.
“There’s a danger that prosecutors will be pressured into putting together false investigations and false charges to back up the politics,” Super said.
A legjobb élmény biztosítása érdekében olyan technológiákat használunk, mint a cookie-k az eszközadatok tárolására és/vagy eléréséhez. Ha beleegyezik ezekbe a technológiákba, akkor olyan adatokat dolgozhatunk fel ezen az oldalon, mint a böngészési viselkedés vagy az egyedi azonosítók. A hozzájárulás elmulasztása vagy visszavonása bizonyos funkciókat és funkciókat hátrányosan érinthet.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
