Climate United is hopping mad that $7 million of their lovely slush fund money was frozen by Lee Zeldin at the EPA.

A multibillion dollar dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency and several nonprofit organizations escalated on Saturday when one group sued the E.P.A. and Citibank, seeking access to grant money that has been frozen under President Trump.

Climate United, a nonprofit organization, claimed that the E.P.A. and Citibank have illegally withheld a nearly $7 billion award announced last April. Citibank has housed the funds as part of a green financing program to finance projects that address climate change.

The funds are part of a larger pot of money, $20 billion, that have been swept up in controversy after Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, called the green financing program a “scheme” that was “purposely designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.”

Now, some of the nonprofits say, their bank accounts are frozen and that they are struggling to pay staff.

Oh, but there’s much MUCH more to this than just having those grant awards frozen. It’s about looking into where those billions of taxpayer dollars are going, and who is benefitting. It also involves determining if the organizations are legitimate. 

And, therein lies the rub. You see, Climate United is brand spanking new. 

In one case, former Vice President Kamala Harris handed over a check for nearly $7 billion to Bethesda, Maryland, based group Climate United Fund, which does not appear in the IRS’s charities database, and has no federal filings.

The non-profit fund had only been incorporated in Delaware on November 30, 2023, according to public records, five months before Harris handed over the cash in April 2024.

The Climate United Fund then announced “the historic investment” in a press release, noting the group’s work “delivers benefits like cleaner air…and increased energy security.”’

However, because the company is so new, there is no publicly published accounting of how it plans to spend the $7 billion.

Stop right there for a moment. As someone who has been involved in reviewing grant applications, one of the absolute requirements involves informing as to HOW/WHEN/WHERE/WHY money will be spent. Another requirement involves detailing the results of those expenditures. 

Yet, here we have the Climate United Fund proffering up none of that, and they were going to get handed $7 million of our tax dollars?? They aren’t the only ones who have suddenly benefitted from the Biden Administration largesse. 

Power Forward Communities entity was handed a whopping $2 billion, even though they’ve only been in existence for barely a year. Guess who the legal counsel is for Rewiring America, who is affiliated with Power Forward? 

Her explanation about needing that $2 billion in order to buy refrigerators is definitely a spin for the ages! Yet, Stacey Abrams isn’t the only one who benefitted from the Biden Administration shoving billions of dollars out the door. 

In mid-February, the New York-based eco group Inclusiv—which received $1.9 billion last year as part of the EPA’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program—transferred $651 million to 108 credit unions across 27 states and Puerto Rico. The group said the credit unions would use the funding to offer financing for green energy projects such as solar installations and electric vehicle chargers within their jurisdictions.

Inclusiv initiated the transfer on the same day that EPA administrator Lee Zeldin discovered that the Biden administration had parked $20 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund funding in accounts at an outside financial institution, limiting federal control and oversight of the money. In collaboration with the Department of Justice, Zeldin ultimately froze the accounts, but not before Inclusiv completed its transaction.

Pay attention to the dates. This happened THIS YEAR after President Trump was sworn into office, and after he was already lining things up to bring all funding outflow to a screeching halt. The problem with all the money that dropped into the 108 credit unions laps is that now the EPA has ZERO idea where the money is going. None. 

NEW: The same day EPA chief Lee Zeldin uncovered a Biden-era scheme stashing $20B earmarked for 8 climate NGOs at an outside bank, one of those NGOs initiated a transfer of $651 million to 108 credit union accounts.

EPA tells me it now has no oversight over those taxpayer funds. pic.twitter.com/E3G8eX5aUy

— Thomas Catenacci (@ThomasCatenacci) March 8, 2025

All of which raises serious ethical and legal concerns, especially when you also consider that John Podesta is involved in this now upwards of $370 billion mess.

“Ethically speaking, it’s concerning,” said Laurie Styron, CEO of Charity Watch, an independent charity watchdog group.

“What was the purpose of creating middlemen entities when there are so many established groups in the climate space with good track records? What was the value-added in [by] doing it this way, especially with such large sums of taxpayer funds?”

And yes, I checked. Many of the named entities aren’t listed on any charity watchdog site, at all. 

However, the Climate United Fund obviously doesn’t care about the optics of this. They want their slush fund back and they are suing to get it. Not only that, but you can darned well bet that they’ll do everything they can to get their grubby hands on the money AND refuse to tell American taxpayers where it will be spent. 

This EPA mess is yet another MAJOR reason why fraud and waste needs to be identified across the entire government and shut down ASAP. 

Feature Photo Credit: created by Darleen Click Adobe Photoshop CC