Minnesota fraud scandal sparks push to scrutinize billions in Biden-era energy grants

FIRST ON FOX: As a sweeping fraud scandal grips Minnesota, a conservative energy watchdog is encouraging lawmakers to scrutinize billions of dollars in Department of Energy grants they say were rushed out the door in the final weeks of the Biden administration, warning that internal red flags were ignored and taxpayer money may have been exposed to waste and political favoritism.

Power the Future founder and director Daniel Turner sent a letter to Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations United States Senate, and Republican Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, on Monday calling on lawmakers to examine grants and loan guarantees approved under the Biden administration's Department of Energy, Fox Digital learned. 

"As allegations of widespread fraud among government programs in Minnesota rightly horrify the American taxpayer, on behalf of Power The Future, I write to request immediate congressional oversight of the Department of Energy (DOE) unprecedented grant and loan activity conducted during the final weeks of the Biden Administration," Turner wrote, referring to the 

The letter turned lawmakers' direction to the final months of the Biden administration, when "former Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm authorized tens of billions of dollars in so-called ‘clean energy’ grants and loan guarantees, an amount that exceeds many years of prior Department activity," according to the letter.  

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"These funds were rushed out the door, despite warnings from the DOE Inspector General that internal controls were insufficient and that the program should be paused pending further review," the letter continued, pointing to a Department of Energy Inspector General report that recommended the department halt its $400 billion green bank over conflict of interest concerns. 

"Those warnings were ignored," the letter states. "The funds were distributed anyway."

Turner pointed to a Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office granting roughly $710 million as part of a 12-state affordable energy initiative four days before President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office. 

The allocation to New Jersey was "followed closely by Secretary Granholm’s acceptance of a senior role overseeing energy policy for New Jersey governor-elect Mikie Sherrill. This troubling sequence of events raises legitimate questions about whether federal resources were deployed with political or personal considerations in mind rather than objective public interest," the letter stated. 

Sherrill appointed Granholm to co-lead an action team on "Making Energy More Affordable and Reliable" back in November after her gubernatorial election. 

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"This episode reflects a broader pattern increasingly familiar to the American people: oversight mechanisms function, red flags are raised, and yet taxpayer dollars are still lost, only for accountability to be discussed after the money is gone. Public confidence erodes when internal warnings are dismissed and transparency is treated as optional," Turner wrote in his Monday letter. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Sherrill's transition team for comment regarding the letter, Granholm's role and response from the former DOE chief, but did not immediately receive a reply. Fox Digital also reached out to Biden's office for comment on the letter. 

Climate change was a cornerstone of the Biden administration, with the then-president repeatedly casting it as an existential danger and "the single greatest existential threat to humanity. He argued his administration was correcting the ship on the climate through laws such as the Inflation Reduction Act’s sweeping clean energy tax credits and incentives, and cracking down on EPA rules aimed at cutting emissions from power plants and oil and gas, among other initiatives.

Power the Future urged Congress to conduct a full accounting of all DOE grants and loan guarantees approved during the final six months of the Biden administration, review Inspector General findings that were overridden, and examine political or financial ties between grant recipients and senior DOE officials.

"Congress must not allow these funds to vanish without answers," Power The Future said, adding that taxpayers deserve transparency and accountability for how their money is spent.

After returning to office, the Trump administration moved to halt and reassess Biden-era climate spending, with Trump signing a day-one order positioning the U.S. to "unleash" domestic energy and shift away from what the White House has framed as a "globalist climate agenda."

"Under the Biden Administration, green energy spending was sold to taxpayers as transparent, accountable, and carefully scrutinized," Turner's letter continued. "As the episode involving former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams securing $2 billion dollars worth of grants reveals, this was not always the case. Instead, it increasingly appears to have operated as a shield for rushed, massive federal expenditures timed to avoid meaningful review and now embedded within state and political ecosystems."

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The Biden administration came under fire from Republicans following the IG report, using it like ammo to argue the Biden-era Loan Programs Office was pushing money out too fast without proper guardrails, while the Department of Energy discounted the 2024 IG report as based on "mistaken facts and misunderstanding of the law."

"LPO is in full compliance with both the Department’s conflict of interest rules and the Federal Acquistion Regulation ("FAR")," the department wrote in a response letter at the time.  …. "Indeed, despite a months-long audit involving over one hundred contract files, OIG has not identified any organizational conflicts of interest."

Lawmakers and voters have taken a heightened interest in fraud as it relates to taxpayer funds as a sprawling COVID-era scheme involving money laundering came to light in Minnesota in the lead up to the holiday season. Investigators speculate the fraud could exceed $1 billion and rise to as high as $9 billion. Suspects arrested in the alleged schemes are mostly from the state's large Somali community.

"The large-scale fraud in Minnesota, where federal funds intended for public benefit were systematically abused despite warning signs, underscore the risks of allowing massive sums of taxpayer money to move with limited scrutiny. Just as lawmakers are calling for congressional investigations into Minnesota, Congress should call into question the Biden Department of Energy’s late stage grantmaking in a similar fashion," Turner added in his letter to lawmakers.