EPA Head Lee Zeldin's Moves So Far

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For those of you who have joined since the beginning of the show 45 minutes ago, I'll say again that with so many things happening all at once in the new Trump administration and the pushback to it, it's easy for things to fall through the cracks if they're not the shiniest object at any given moment. One thing we're doing is to continue a Health & Climate Tuesdays series. A Health & Climate Tuesdays series. Those stories like the RFK thing was not one of the lead headlines today through at least the first 100 days of the new administration.

Now, we'll continue with our Tuesday Health & Climate series by turning to the state of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Trump. Earlier this month, on the 12th to be exact, Lee Zeldin, the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced that he had uncovered evidence of a massive fraud perpetrated by the Biden administration. Here he is in a video posted to his social media.

Lee Zeldin: The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over. The American public deserves a more transparent and accountable government than what transpired these past four years.

Brian Lehrer: Zeldin, who some of you know, is the former member of Congress from eastern Long Island. He was the Republican nominee for governor against Kathy Hochul last time out. Zeldin claims that Biden's EPA had "parked" roughly $20 billion at a private bank "rushing" to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day, but the money Zeldin is trying to recover was approved by Congress in 2022 for a program known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, also known as the green bank initiative.

It was a program that actually had bipartisan support. Yesterday, Democrats in Congress asked Zeldin to end his campaign, saying the effort is illegal. Joining us now to discuss the administration's attempts to claw back President Biden's funding for green energy infrastructure and more climate-related news coming out of the EPA already is Lisa Friedman, reporter covering climate policy and politics at The New York Times. Hi, Lisa. Welcome back to WNYC.

Lisa Friedman: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: This money that Zeldin is trying to claw back was "green bank funding" from the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The program received $27 billion under the Biden era 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, according to your New York Times. Can you explain what the green bank program is, what it's supposed to do?

Lisa Friedman: Sure. [clears throat] Excuse me. Yes, the green bank was part of a law passed in 2022 called the Inflation Reduction Act. That law, despite its name, was fundamentally a climate and clean energy law that was aiming to invest billions of dollars over 10 years into wind, solar, nuclear, though many might not consider that clean, but zero-carbon energy sources to help transition the country away from fossil fuels. As part of that, there's a program called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, loosely known as a green bank, that helps leverage private capital for clean energy projects. As part of that, Congress directed $27 billion to that. In the last weeks of the Biden administration, it signed contracts for about $20 billion of that program.

Brian Lehrer: Funds for this program were held in Citibank accounts under eight nonprofit grantees. I see in his online video, Zeldin claims he found these funds, what he refers to as gold bars "parked" at this "outside financial institution." Let's take a listen to a bit more of that video for context before I ask you to fact-check it.

Lisa Friedman: Sure.

Lee Zeldin: Fortunately, my awesome team at EPA has found the gold bars. Shockingly, roughly $20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA. This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history. It was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight. Even further, this pot of $20 billion was awarded to just eight entities that were then responsible for doling out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion with far less transparency.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, as you've explained, this money was approved-

Lisa Friedman: Break that down.

Brian Lehrer: -by Congress and already granted. When he talks about gold bars in that clip, and my engineer just told me that there may have been a problem with that clip and some of our listeners may not have been able to hear some or all of it, but when he talks about gold bars, it sounds like that Senator Menendez corruption scandal. Maybe he's actually referring to that to make it sound like something's tainted. This is, what, congressionally appropriated money that's in Citibank, which is what he's referring to as an outside institution?

Lisa Friedman: Exactly. Let me break this down in a couple of ways. First, the gold bars. All of the money from this law, from this law passed by Congress and signed by President Biden, has been tainted with this gold bars rhetoric. Where does that come from? Around December, Project Veritas, a group that is known for doing underhanded videos to try to ensnare members of the opposite political party, it's a hard-right group, did caught an EPA employee on tape saying that it felt like the Biden administration was throwing gold bars off the Titanic in what this person described as a rush to get money out. My understanding is that this person was not involved in any way in the contract negotiations or discussions with groups, which is a very heavily regulated process that every agency goes through when it decides whether to give a group funding from a law and enacts those contracts.

Brian Lehrer: There are no gold bars. That's a metaphor.

Lisa Friedman: There are no gold bars, and yet that video, that Project Veritas video, has been the so-called evidence that a lot of these efforts to investigate Biden-era funding have been based upon.

Brian Lehrer: What's the money doing at Citibank? Is that controversial?

Lisa Friedman: What is the money doing at Citibank? When money is given to grantees, there's a system in the government from which, let's say, you, Brian Lehrer, are granted money from the government for a project. You can draw down money-

Brian Lehrer: Don't start any rumors.

Lisa Friedman: -[laughs] a few days before you need it. For a program like this, which is charged under statute with leveraging private capital, the whole purpose is to create an innovative financing structure that can do more sophisticated private finance for clean energy projects. My understanding is that this money was held in Citibank under the names of eight nonprofit grantees.

This is something that hadn't been done at EPA before but had been done many times at other agencies in the past. Citibank was then asked to freeze that money by the Trump administration Justice Department, which is now conducting an investigation into those funds. I think it's important to note that the Trump EPA did not reference any specific instances of misconduct and the EPA has not announced any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Citibank either.

Brian Lehrer: Well, on Sunday during an appearance on Fox News, Zeldin went after one grant recipient of this program, Power Forward Communities, a climate-focused nonprofit with ties to former Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, Stacey Abrams. The group received $2 billion in grant money recently is what he said. You can tell me if that's a true fact. According to Zeldin, the group had only received $100 back in 2023. Are you familiar at all with this group and why Zeldin is focusing on them, singling them out?

Lisa Friedman: Loosely, I think that they are digging through all of the funding trying to find examples of things that they can bring before Congress and say, "We think this was done improperly." Again, the EPA has not brought any evidence of wrongdoing in the granting of that funding. If that happens, we will write about it.

Brian Lehrer: You and your colleagues at The Times have reported that this green bank program has actually had bipartisan support. Can you talk about the context for that and when that was?

Lisa Friedman: Sure. The idea of a green bank has been around for a long time. In the case of the Inflation Reduction Act, it has been used to help spur programs that get solar panels on roofs or energy-efficient tankless water heaters into businesses. Increasingly, I will say that while this effort at one time had Republican support, it was widely called green doggle by Republicans when it became part of the Inflation Reduction Act. I think you'd be hard-pressed these days to find much Republican support for this program. It's been tainted by efforts to question the funding around it.

Brian Lehrer: As we talk with Lisa Friedman, reporter covering climate policy and politics at The New York Times, about this so-called gold bars controversy that Lee Zeldin, the new head of the EPA, is trying to amplify or create an impression of. If anybody has any questions or comments as we go on to some other EPA-related news in this first month and a little bit of the Trump administration with Lisa, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text.

Last Tuesday, a top administration, a Justice Department prosecutor, reportedly resigned rather than sign an order demanding that a bank freeze federal clean energy funds. Then yesterday, a group of Democratic lawmakers asked Zeldin to end this campaign, saying it was illegal. Can you talk about this latest escalation? Do legal experts believe the Trump administration can just take back money that was already awarded by Congress and then out the door of the agency?

Lisa Friedman: Sure. Let's take a step back here. Since the Trump administration, since President Trump was inaugurated, there have been efforts at all levels, not just EPA but at the Department of Energy and elsewhere, to freeze all money related to the Inflation Reduction Act. That doesn't just involve money that was enacted in law but hadn't gone out yet. The administration had also been stopping money that had been contracted months ago and for companies and nonprofits and states that were moving forward in some cases with fairly large projects. Notably, a lot of this has been in Republican states and districts.

The Inflation Reduction Act, the money that it flows through this law for clean energy, almost 80% of it is going to states, companies, and nonprofits in Republican districts. That has created a lot of tensions in Congress, especially among lawmakers who might not like the law, which was passed entirely by Democrats, but do care deeply about the projects and jobs that are coming to their districts. When it comes to the money going through EPA, as we talked about, that's been a fierce target for this administration. One prosecutor resigned over this. Democratic lawmakers have argued that they see a pattern of political interference with US prosecutors and they argue that this is one example.

Brian Lehrer: You're right that there is evidence that several agencies are still blocking funding. What are you hearing from the organizations that are relying on this money?

Lisa Friedman: Money is slowly being released. We just reported the other day that money for clean school buses, which had been blocked by the EPA, is starting to be unfrozen, but it's happening all in a way that is very haphazard. There's very little information coming from the agencies themselves. In part, that's because the administration has directed employees to not have conversations with anyone outside of the agency without express approval by supervisors.

Now, in many cases, that means the point people on certain grants can no longer talk to their grantees. There's a black hole of information that is trying to be filled by organizations and other groups that are in touch with grantees, but it is a very haphazard and slap-shod situation at a lot of these agencies. A lot of lawmakers feel that the funding is being left purposefully unclear whether this money is flowing and for how long it will flow.

Brian Lehrer: This is one of the stories starting to emerge from the Trump administration on various fronts because they've been using such blunt instruments that then they have to go back on like this Elon Musk order that every federal employee has to list five things in writing that they did last week to be productive or lose their jobs in a day. Now, the Trump administration above Elon Musk's head, which I guess must mean Trump himself, says, "No, that's not really the policy." You had an article the other day. I'm going to pull up your headline. It's Confusion Abounds at the National Park Service, Which is Hiring After Firing. That's kind of in the same bucket, right?

Lisa Friedman: Exactly. Just take the National Park Service. The agency fired about 1,000 full-time park employees. Then about 2,000 seasonal park employees who were about to be hired were told that their job offers had been rescinded. Then you had Interior Secretary Doug Burgum saying, "Oh no, the National Park Service is going to hire more than 5,000 seasonal park rangers." Even that number doesn't comport with the memos that we've seen coming out of the Park Service, which indicated it'll be about 7,700 summer hires. There's mass confusion happening in the federal government right now. Most people feel that it is by design.

Brian Lehrer: To your headline on one of your articles about this clawback, the headline is Trump is Freezing Money for Clean Energy. Red States Have the Most to Lose. Why do you say red states have the most to lose and are they hearing it yet from representatives from those red states?

Lisa Friedman: Yes, so one of the points that I was making earlier was that the money from the Inflation Reduction Act overwhelmingly, nearly 80%, goes to red states and districts. Why? A lot of different reasons. In some cases, these big solar or wind projects can be built more easily in rural areas. In some cases, it's been by design. The Biden administration directed a lot of money to red districts. Maybe for political strategy. I can't get inside their heads.

Whatever the reasons, it is clear that the elimination of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is not just happening with this freeze, there is separately an effort in Congress through a budget bill effort to eliminate parts or maybe all of the Inflation Reduction Act. It's not entirely clear yet. That will hit red states more deeply than blue states because that's where the jobs are starting to flow and the factories are being built.

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes, "Can we address the lies that Zeldin is pushing? He's knowingly lying and falsely accusing Biden and others of fraud. This cannot be allowed to stand and he and others who do this need to be prosecuted." I know you cover climate policy. You're not a legal analyst, but it does seem to be that your reporting is establishing that they're falsely accusing the Biden administration of fraud with respect to the disbursement of this money that was authorized by Congress. Am I overstating that?

Lisa Friedman: I think that does go too far. We have asked for evidence. Overwhelmingly, the evidence that seems to be being put forward is this Project Veritas video. A court will decide whether that is evidence of wrongdoing. We have not seen or reported on evidence of fraud. The agency has not offered that.

Brian Lehrer: We'll leave that a little undetermined for the moment, but there isn't evidence that's been presented fraud at this point. Peter in Park Slope, you're on WNYC. Hello, Peter.

Peter: Hi, Brian. Longtime sustainer, first-time caller. Thank you very much. Keep up the good work. I want to ask your guest. Lee Zeldin ran against Hochul. He had a policy of doing fracking in New York State. That is to say, he supported fracking. I'm concerned about New York State. I remember Bloomberg saying when he was mayor that he had his staff look at the cost of a major collateral damage, let's say, to our aquifer from fracking.

He said at the time, it would cost New York State $9 billion to repair the fracking in New York State. Bloomberg has all the financial and technical people at his disposal from Bloomberg financial, having worked for the firm a long time ago. I just want to know what Lee Zeldin could do to damage our aquifers and impose fracking on states that really don't want it. Can you answer that?

Lisa Friedman: Sure. Yes, Lee Zeldin, when he ran for governor, pledged to reverse New York's ban on hydraulic fracturing imposed in 2015. It's a technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock that, as you say, environmental advocates say can contaminate the groundwater. EPA oversees hydraulic fracturing along with state governments through the Clean Air Act. The Trump administration, President Trump as a candidate, pledged to reverse dozens and dozens of regulations overseeing environmental protection. Ones directly overseeing fracking have not been on the list, but that doesn't mean that it might not be in the future.

Brian Lehrer: I think the caller asked a good question about the chain of command there or who has the ultimate say. I'm thinking about congestion pricing, which was a state policy, but it needed federal approval. In fact, it was environmental approval that it needed from the federal government. The fracking ban, which Governor Cuomo at that time was very much for and imposed as a policy, I don't remember if just at the gubernatorial level or with the state legislature, that was a state policy. Is there any authority by which Trump, and it would be the Trump administration, whether it's Zeldin or even some other agency, could come in and say, "No, New York State, you have to frack"?

Lisa Friedman: I am hesitant to say no because we have seen this administration impose authority where people did not think that there would be presidential authority. I think what we can expect to see from this administration are very aggressive efforts to impose the President's vision, and that is one of more fossil fuel development all over this country and looking for ways to fight state efforts.

Brian Lehrer: That was another one of your articles from the other day, headline, Trump Administration Moves to Fast-Track Hundreds of Fossil Fuel Projects. That's the other shoe, right? As they're trying to claw back funding for green energy projects, they're trying to fast-track fossil fuel projects.

Lisa Friedman: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: On Zeldin himself, before we wrap it up, do I remember correctly that he was a member of the Republican Climate Caucus or something like that?

Lisa Friedman: Of course, he was a member of the--

Brian Lehrer: He was not an anti-climate extremist? Go ahead.

Lisa Friedman: Yes, absolutely, he was a member of the bipartisan-- it was called the Climate Solutions Caucus. There were local efforts to encourage him to join this caucus for a long time. He would often speak about how his district on Long Island was surrounded by water and acutely aware of the impacts of things like rising sea levels. At the same time, he was often, I'd say, careful about using the phrase "climate change" and spoke more broadly about conservation.

He had a mixed score from the League of Conservation Voters. That's an environmental group that tracks votes from members of Congress. They gave him a 14% lifetime score. It's low, but it's higher than most other Republicans. I think also true in this administration is that one's personal feelings about issues, climate change, for example, might not matter. Mr. Zeldin has made very clear that he is there to realize President Trump's vision for the country. That is a vision of more fossil fuel development, more burning of fossil fuels, and treating climate change as a problem that does not require a solution.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, those are our Health & Climate Tuesday segments for this week. We'll keep doing them, at least through the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Again, part of the premise here is that there are so many big things happening that some of these health and climate stories that we're always very interested in on this show are getting lost in the sauce, at least from the major headlines in most news organizations. We've talked about RFK Jr.'s early actions now that he's been confirmed in our earlier segment. Now, we just talked in this segment about some of what Lee Zeldin is doing at EPA. We thank Lisa Friedman, who covers climate policy and politics for The New York Times. Lisa, thank you so much.

Lisa Friedman: Thank you.

 

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