EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has made criminal referrals alleging that Democrat operatives engaged in brazen self-dealing with billions in green energy grants — funneling taxpayer cash through nonprofit shell games to politically connected insiders under the noble banner of "saving the planet." The referrals went to the EPA Inspector General and the Justice Department, which means this isn't a sternly worded letter. It's a prosecutorial invitation.
Shocking. You mean the $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund wasn't just about making the Earth cooler? Who could have possibly predicted that a slush fund created by the Inflation Reduction Act and administered by Obama and Biden loyalists would end up enriching Obama and Biden loyalists?
Zeldin, as reported by Just The News, laid it out in terms even a congressional staffer could understand: "It's about self-dealing." He noted that "as you look through all of these pass-through entities, you're seeing so many connections to former Obama and Biden administration officials and Democratic donors." Eight nonprofit "cutouts" were used to move the money around, because apparently the quiet part needed a few extra layers of plausible deniability.
Let's talk about the crown jewel of this grift. Power Forward Communities — an outfit linked to none other than Stacey Abrams — received a cool $2 billion from the fund. That's billion with a B, for an organization that reported just $100 in revenue the year before it got the award. One hundred dollars. You could earn more selling lemonade on your front porch for a weekend.
Then there's Jahi Wise, the former director of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, who personally oversaw $5 billion in grants before quietly slipping out the door. Another $20 million went to a group called Young, Gifted & Green, which sat on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Zeldin didn't mince words about the pattern: "The whole thing just feels criminal."
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, has been barking up this tree for months. "As the Biden administration was collapsing in 2024, it lawlessly rushed out billions in cash to left-wing interest groups," Fitton said. He's not wrong. In the spring of 2025, the Trump EPA revealed that roughly $20 billion had been shoved out the door in a last-minute green-money bonanza before the adults took back the keys.
Zeldin has now canceled or frozen approximately $29 billion in EPA grants as the investigation expands. The Trump EPA announced measures to recover the funds back in February 2025, but litigation remains pending in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Abrams, for her part, offered the kind of defense that only a career politician could deliver with a straight face. "Let us invest the money of America in lowering the cost for Americans," she said. Heartwarming. Except the "investment" went from taxpayers to a $100-revenue nonprofit run by her political allies. That's not investing. That's laundering with extra steps.
Zeldin made one thing crystal clear about where the recovered money is headed: "We're not taking money from left-wing NGOs to give them to right-wing NGOs. This is about getting that money back to the taxpayer."
Criminal referrals are now on prosecutors' desks. Not op-eds. Not tweets. Not "concerns." Actual referrals to actual law enforcement. The green energy gravy train didn't just run off the rails — it was a heist from the jump, and the receipts are finally catching up to the crooks.