EPA promises billions to organization whose chief is key Democrat donor

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in August obligated billions of taxpayer dollars to a left-wing nonprofit whose CEO called for the “end” of carbon-emitting companies and for the U.S. to engage in a “world-leading mission” with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to phase out fossil fuels.

“We’re engaged in the world leading mission, or we hope, with China, of changing the way that everything is organized in society, the way that heating and lighting and air conditioning and transportation take place,” CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital(CGC), Reed Hundt, said during a CGC webinar held on Aug. 23 that outlined how the nonprofit plans to spend the massive grant award. A week prior to the webinar, the EPA awarded the CGC $5.1 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program that Republican lawmakers have warned could potentially fund entities with ties to the CCP.

Hundt, also the co-founder of CGC, is a long-time ally of former Vice President Al Gore and frequently donates to Democratic candidates. On Wednesday, Hundt attended a Harris Action Fund event in Washington, D.C., that Gore headlined.

According to a tax filing the CGC submitted for calendar year 2022, the nonprofit had just under $2 million in its bank account. The EPA’s inspector general has cautioned that this program in addition to the IRA’s $3 billion Environment and Climate Justice block grants provision is at increased risk for waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars.

“$27 billion of the Agency’s $41.5 billion in IRA funding for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or 65 percent, has already been spent, and approximately 85 percent of all IRA spending is set to be obligated by the end of fiscal year 2026,” EPA’s Inspector General Sean O’Donnell wrote in testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Environment subcommittee prior to a Sept. 19 oversight hearing on the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. “This pace of spending escalates not only the risk for fraud but also the urgency for oversight.”

The IRA, passed on a party-line vote by Democratic lawmakers in which Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote, notably did not provide any funding to the EPA’s inspector general to conduct oversight over the $41.5 billion awarded to the agency.

During the CGC webinar, Hundt also suggested that climate change cooperation take center stage in the Biden administration’s relationship with China. According to the CGC presentation slides, the real U.S.-China rivalry is “leading the race from carbon to clean.”

House Republicans have voiced concern that the IRA’s investments in green energy will benefit China and make the United States more energy dependent on the CCP. According to a recent Heritage Foundation report, China accounts for 80% of solar component production and cobalt refining capacity, an important component used in the production of electric vehicle batteries.

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s ‘rush-to-green’ agenda is lining China’s pockets, a nation that is leading in global emissions, with zero oversight. That is dangerous and unacceptable. We must ensure that no taxpayer dollars are used to prop up China, which is a threat to human rights, the environment, and national security. Innovation, not regulation, is the key to reducing emissions and unleashing American energy dominance,” said Republican Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Environment Subcommittee, in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

During the webinar, Hundt also appeared to call for the elimination of the entire U.S. fossil fuel industry. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than half a million Americans were employed by the fossil fuel industry as of August 2024.

“All of the burning of carbon, all of the businesses and all of the buildings that burn carbon, whether it’s oil, whether it’s gas or whether it’s coal they have to be moving off of the carbon platform and onto the clean power platform. They have to change. If they don’t change, they have to end,” said Hundt. “We need to have a very, very rapid move from carbon to clean. Time is short.”

Another slide from Hundt’s presentation claims that fossil fuels have “fouled the planet and distorted our democracy.”

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who helped author the IRA, has consistently defended the climate law as having an “all-of-the-above” energy approach despite the EPA’s decision to award billions of taxpayer dollars to nonprofit groups like the CGC that advocate for eliminating the coal and natural gas industries.

Manchin’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The EPA declined the DCNF’s request for comment. The CGC did not respond to a request for comment.

On Aug. 16, the EPA announced the agency obligated the full $27 billion to selected awardees, effectively denying a future Republican trifecta the opportunity to claw back the billions in funding via the budget reconciliation process in the event Republicans keep the House and take back the presidency and Senate in November.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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