Tag: epa

EPA officials prepare to ditch fiction justifying Green New Deal

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is about to bury the unscientific idea that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. Dropping this “endangerment finding” represents the beginning of the end for the great global warming hoax.

Under President Barack Obama, the agency in 2009 declared the molecule that enables plants to grow and humans to breathe an enemy of the planetary thermostat. This decree vested the EPA with authority to regulate CO2 as if it were a nasty substance equivalent to black soot, lead, radon or asbestos.

But the public never embraced any of the austerity measures peddled as a remedy for this supposed ailment. Consumers didn’t want to pay extra taxes on cars, nor did they endorse the abolition of affordable sources of electricity. Even Senate Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the Green New Deal.

The package of socialist measures designed to “achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions” flopped 57-0 in 2019 before being crushed 99-0 in the Senate two years later. Undeterred, President Joe Biden implemented the deal’s main provisions administratively. His Inflation Reduction Act allocated billions to the EPA for distribution to any organization claiming to have a “climate solution.”

Nonprofits signed up for cash rewards for spreading the global-warming gospel. A vast array of public subsidies was lavished on economically unsustainable energy projects. These endeavors had a remarkable tendency to be staffed by the friends and political allies of progressives.

Newly sworn-in EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin pulled the plug on the scheme. “We will review every penny that has gone out the door. The days of irresponsibly shoveling boat loads of cash to far-left, activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” he said earlier this month.

In one instance, an individual who left a company to take a position at the EPA “tossed his former employer $5 billion of your tax dollars,” Mr. Zeldin wrote on X, referring to a large EPA grant the firm received.

Mr. Zeldin’s review discovered a $20 billion EPA slush fund the prior administration had moved into private financial institutions as officials sought to empty the agency piggy bank before President Trump’s team arrived. This dubious use of public resources has been referred to the agency’s inspector general.

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Biden Soros-Linked EPA Official Tossed $5 Billion to Former Employer in Last-Minute Biden Heist – Lee Zeldin Responds

The Biden EPA’s “gold bar” scandal is growing by the day.

A Soros-linked Joe Biden EPA official awarded $5 billion to his former employer, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Jahi Wise, a Soros-linked senior EPA official, was tasked with overseeing Joe Biden’s $27 billion climate slush fund program.

Wise was the director of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). The GGRF awarded grants totaling $20 billion to 8 entities. Wise awarded his former employer, Washington-based Coalition for Green Capital, $5 billion.

The Washington Free Beacon reported:

The senior Biden administration official tasked with directing former President Joe Biden’s $27 billion climate grant program oversaw a $5 billion grant from the program to his former employer, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Jahi Wise joined the Environmental Protection Agency in December 2022 as the founding director of the newly created Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or GGRF, according to his LinkedIn profile. In April 2024, while Wise served in that role, the EPA announced that it would award GGRF grants totaling $20 billion to just eight nonprofits, including the Coalition for Green Capital, a Washington, D.C.-based group that received $5 billion as part of the announcement and where Wise previously worked as the director of policy. There is no indication that Wise recused himself from that process.

Wise departed the Coalition for Green Capital in January 2021 to join the White House Climate Policy Office as a special assistant to the president, a position he held until he joined the EPA less than two years later.

EPA chief Lee Zeldin called this a conflict of interest in a statement to the Free Beacon.

“The story of the Biden EPA’s gold bars never stops,” EPA Chief Lee Zeldin told the Washington Free Beacon in a statement. “The waste and abuse was so deeply interwoven in the last administration that not only did the leaders who oversaw this not bat an eye at billions of your taxpayer dollars going towards partisan pet projects, but serious conflicts of interest were ignored. That should have raised red flags.”

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Unhinged Democrat Lawmaker Resorts to Scare Tactics to Smear DOGE’s Efforts to Ferrot Out Government Waste at the EPA 

Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continue to discover extraordinary waste by the U.S. government, and the shutting off of the taxpayer-funded tap is making Democrats panic.

One congresswoman even resorted to baseless scare tactics to try to smear DOGE’s work and distract Americans from how their funds have been misused.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) bizarrely posited that because of DOGE, Americans would have to start boiling their water to protect themselves.

Stansbury told a gaggle of reporters, “‘I don’t think there is anyone in America that wants to wake up tomorrow and find out that they have to boil their water because the EPA’s workforce has been escorted out of the building.”

“So DOGE is already here. These guys have already hacked the system.”

Stansbury, however, failed to address the impact of waste by the EPA on American’s safety.

The Gateway Pundit reported that an EPA advisor was caught by an undercover video from Project Veritas admitting that the agency rushed to allocate billions of taxpayer dollars to climate change initiatives just before President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Brent Efron, a special advisor at the EPA and instrumental in implementing Biden’s climate agenda, spoke to a Project Veritas operative about the rush to disburse funds two months before Trump’s inauguration.

“Now it’s how to get the money out as fast as possible before they [Trump Administration] come in … It truly feels like we’re on the Titanic or throwing gold bar off the top edge.,” Efron said.

EPA head Lee Zeldin made it clear that the “gold bars” are American tax dollars, and he will focus on ending the excessive waste at the agency.

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EPA Threw Away BILLIONS Ahead of Trump Presidency

There is still outrage surrounding the elimination of the EPA. People do not realize just how much money this agency blew through on absolutely nothing. Biden admitted that the Inflation Reduction Act, the most expensive spending package in US history, was about CLIMATE CHANGE at its core and had nothing to do with inflation. Those at the EPA called the act “Biden’s climate law” and were eager to spend the proceeds. Efron told an undercover journalist that they were preparing to spend the money as quickly as possible right up until inauguration day.

The EPA was aware that Trump would likely eliminate their impractical agency. “We gave them [nonprofits] the money because… it was an insurance policy against Trump winning. Because they aren’t [a government agency], they’re safer from Republicans taking the money away,” he said. The EPA awarded nonprofits between $50 and $100 million EACH toward the end of Biden’s presidency.

The Biden Administration effectively permitted this agency to “throw gold bars” off the edge of the Titanic and needlessly spend public funds. All of these investigations lead to the same conclusion. The government provides nonprofits with a large sum and those agencies then funnel the money to smaller agencies, whether its related to climate change or funding terrorism. This is precisely why Trump attempted to freeze all federal funds upon taking office.

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EPA head Lee Zeldin reveals no real oversight of shocking $20B that Biden admin funneled through Citibank: ‘Tip of the iceberg’

A $20 billion Biden administration green-energy slush fund was collecting interest at a private bank and is being distributed without proper oversight, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin reveals in an exclusive interview.

President Joe Biden’s EPA parked $20 billion at the financial institution, which The Post has learned is Citibank, as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. But the awardees weren’t announced until August 2024 and Citibank was not brought in until September — after Biden’s disastrous June debate performance led him to withdraw from his re-election effort in July, making for a very different race with Vice President Kamala Harris the Democratic nominee.

Zeldin’s team is looking into whether former EPA employees are working at any of the grantees, which include the Opportunity Finance Network (receiving $2.29 billion), where vice president Laura Silverman says she brings “economic, financial, and social justice to communities,” and the Native CDFI Network ($400 million), which has featured Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as a speaker. Power Forward Communities, a $2 billion recipient, has no list of employees on its website — but does have openings for government affairs VP, communications VP and special assistant.

The others: Climate United Fund (which got the biggest grant, nearly $7 billion), Coalition for Green Capital ($5 billion), Inclusiv ($1.87 billion), Justice Climate Fund ($940 million) and Appalachian Community Capital ($500 million).

Here Lee Zeldin tells The Post’s Kelly Jane Torrance why it was “a high priority for me and my great team to get to the bottom of these questions as quickly as possible.”

This was on our radar during the transition, when the video was posted online at the beginning of December of the Biden EPA political appointee admitting on camera they were “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”

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Lee Zeldin Just Discovered $20 Billion Laundered by the Biden Admin

In a video announcement shared to social media Wednesday evening, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin revealed that approximately $20 billion in taxpayer funds have been discovered laundered into external financial institutions during the Biden administration.

Zeldin underscored the urgency of accountability, declaring, “One of my very top priorities at EPA is to be an excellent steward of your hard-earned tax dollars. There will be zero tolerance of any waste and abuse.”

The controversy goes back two months when a video of a Biden EPA appointee referring to taxpayer funds as “gold bars” being “tossed off the Titanic” went viral.

“The gold bars were tax dollars, and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it,” he explained.

“Fortunately, my awesome team at EPA has found the gold bars,” he stated. “This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history and 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.”

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Climate Hustle: EPA Advisor Admits Sending Billions to Climate Groups Before Trump Takes Office

An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advisor has been caught on hidden camera admitting that the outgoing Biden administration is funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to climate organizations as a hedge against the incoming Trump administration.

Brent Efron who is a special advisor for implementation for the EPA, was recorded by Project Veritas bragging about sending tens of billions of dollars in grants to climate nonprofits as “an insurance policy” against Trump’s promises to rein in government spending.

Efron exhibits zero shame as he laughingly equates the frantic effort to get as much money as possible to climate-related allies as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”

When asked where that money is going, Efron responds, “Nonprofits, states, tribes,” explaining that the effort would continue, “until the Trump people come in and tell us we cannot give out money.”

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PFAS Found in Sludge Used as Fertilizer Can Contaminate Milk, Eggs and Meat

U.S. regulators on Tuesday added to growing concerns about the long-standing practice of using sewage sludge to fertilize farmland, releasing a report warning that chemicals contaminating the sludge pose heightened human health risks for cancer and other illnesses.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said two types of hazardous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) widely found in sewage sludge, a byproduct of wastewater treatment, can contaminate the milk, eggs and meat that come from farm animals raised on agricultural land where the sludge has been applied.

Those “exposure pathways” are among multiple ways in which people can be at risk, the EPA said.

The agency focused on perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), two well-studied types of PFAS chemicals linked to testicular and kidney cancer as well as liver problems.

The EPA last spring designated PFOS and PFOA as hazardous substances under the so-called Superfund law and announced the first legally enforceable limits for the two chemicals and four other types of PFAS in drinking water.

The EPA said that though the majority of U.S. food crops are not grown with the use of sewage sludge as a soil conditioner or fertilizer, because of the “extreme persistence” of PFOA and PFOS in soils, land where sewage sludge was applied years ago may still be contaminated.

The agency’s draft risk assessment, which was made publicly available on Jan. 14, said that “under certain scenarios and conditions,” land-applying or disposing of sewage sludge containing 1 part per billion or more of PFOA or PFOS “could result in human health risks exceeding the agency’s acceptable thresholds for cancer and noncancer effects.”

The draft assessment models health risks for people who live on or near contaminated sites or who eat primarily food or drinking water from PFAS-contaminated areas.

The report will be available for public comment over a 60-day period and may help the agency determine regulatory actions it might take under the Clean Water Act, said the EPA.

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Green energy law to crack down on HVAC units in new year

The new year will ring in new “green” requirements from the Environmental Protection Agency for heating and air conditioning units that threaten to hike prices and, for the first time, require flammable refrigerants in residential and commercial HVAC units.

The new rule has triggered special training requirements for technicians and fire departments as they grapple with suddenly dealing with the possibility of HVAC systems catching fire, although testing shows the risk under most circumstances is low.

“It’s certainly a unique challenge. We’re trying to balance environmental considerations with fire safety in this particular instance,” Robin Zevotek, an engineer at the National Fire Protection Association, said.

The NFPA offers a training course to help the fire service handle the “unique challenges presented by these new refrigerants,” which, under certain circumstances, could catch on fire more easily than the non-flammable refrigerants the EPA is phasing out.

Beginning Jan. 1, manufacturers can no longer build heating, ventilation and air conditioning units that use a non-flammable refrigerant known as R-410A, a hydrofluorocarbon that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming if it leaks from equipment into the atmosphere.

Instead, manufacturers must build all new systems that can accommodate a hydrofluoroolefins refrigerant that is slightly flammable but considered less of a danger to the climate than hydrofluorocarbons, which the Biden administration has sought to largely ban by 2036.

Consumers purchasing equipment will face price hikes that HVAC companies say will come with the new EPA requirements.

Some companies anticipate price increases of up to 30% on HVAC systems due to the cost of new equipment, additional training and longer installation and servicing times. The cost of the refrigerant is also likely to be higher, companies warned.

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‘Unconscionable’: EPA to Only Partially Ban Pesticide Known to Harm Developing Babies

The long and winding regulatory road for a pesticide known to be harmful to developing babies took another turn on Monday as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it was planning to only partially ban the insecticide chlorpyrifos in farming.

Under pressure from powerful agricultural industry interests and ordered by a federal court to consider the factors raised by the farming groups in a legal petition, the EPA said it would continue to allow chlorpyrifos to be used by farmers growing 11 crops, including apples, asparagus, citrus, peaches, strawberries, wheat, soybeans and others, despite evidence that the pesticide is associated with “neurodevelopmental effects” that can impair the normal development of children.

Other uses in farming would be banned, the agency said.

In the most recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Pesticide Residue Monitoring Report, chlorpyrifos was the 11th most frequently found pesticide in human food samples out of 209 different pesticides detected by FDA testing.

“EPA continues to prioritize the health of children,” Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said in a statement.

“This proposed rule is a critical step forward as we work to reduce chlorpyrifos in or on food and to better protect people, including infants and children, from exposure to chemicals that are harmful to human health.”

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