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FINGERS IN THEIR EARS

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EPA Head Slams Media, Democrats for Insisting There Is ‘No Evidence’ of Waste, Abuse

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin slammed Democrats and the legacy media Tuesday for insisting that he has “no evidence” that the EPA under President Joe Biden wasted or abused tax dollars.

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Zeldin had produced no evidence of waste, fraud, or abuse from the previous administration, citing reporting from The New York Times. Exasperated, the EPA administrator repeatedly read examples of what he characterized as conflicts of interest, such as former EPA officials working at nonprofits that received grants from the EPA.

“No matter how much further down that list we get, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and congressional Democrats will dig in even deeper saying, ‘There’s no evidence of anything.’” Zeldin said. “The more time that y’all give me to go further down the list, the more dug-in Democrats will say—with their with their hands in their ears—saying, ‘There’s no evidence of any misconduct. There’s no evidence of any way that there’s anything wrong with any of this.’”

“But we have a zero tolerance policy for any waste and abuse and we’re not gonna apologize,” he added.

The hearing examined the EPA’s request for the 2026 fiscal year. President Donald Trump’s administration has asked for less funding at the EPA, paring back what Trump and Zeldin consider the agency’s former excesses.

What the Democrats Said

Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., the committee’s ranking member, mentioned a lack of evidence in his opening statement.

“I am also concerned by EPA’s efforts to terminate previously awarded grants without producing any evidence of fraud, waste or abuse for each of these awards,” he said.

Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-Calif., quoted a New York Times article noting that the Justice Department has not found evidence of crimes from the Biden EPA. She also quoted an EPA lawyer’s court testimony about the Biden grants: “I’m certainly not suggesting that any of this was illegal or improper.”

Zeldin attempted to mention conflicts of interest and other concerns about the Biden EPA, but Barragán cut him off, demanding he provide evidence of a crime.

Zeldin’s Response

Republicans on the committee gave Zeldin more time to adequately respond.

“We’ve expressed concern with regards to self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients and reduced oversight,” Zeldin said. He mentioned that many nonprofits that received EPA funding hired former Biden and Obama officials and Democratic donors.

“We have individuals who were serving in leadership capacities helping to create these programs giving it to their former employers,” he added.

Zeldin repeatedly mentioned a video unearthed by Project Veritas in December 2024 in which a Biden administration political appointee at EPA named Brent Efron said that bureaucrats were rushing to get billions of dollars out the door like “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”

Zeldin repeatedly brought up the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion fund administered through Citibank as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. (Efron was not referring to this grant program when discussing the “gold bars,” his lawyer said.)

The EPA under Biden managed the fund and rushed $20 billion to eight nonprofit groups after Trump won the 2024 election.

As the Free Press reported, the reduction fund allocated $5 billion to the Coalition for Green Capital, even though its total expenditures in 2023 only rose to $2.42 million. Jahi Wise, who joined Biden’s Climate Policy office in 2021 and oversaw the reduction fund, previously served as a policy director at the coalition. The coalition’s CEO, Richard Kauffman, has donated more than $600,000 to Democrats since 2020. Kauffman previously served as senior adviser to in the Department of Energy under Obama and served as then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “energy czar.” Cecilia Martinez, a member of the coalition’s board, previously served as the senior director of environmental justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality under Biden.

Martinez makes an appearance in my book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” in the section about climate activist groups’ impact on the Biden administration.

The fund also allocated $2 billion to Power Forward Communities, an entity comprised of five nonprofits including Rewiring America. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams joined Rewiring America as special counsel in March 2023.

During the hearing, Zeldin quoted from an EPA reviewer who raised questions about the grant for Power Forward Communities.

“The Biden EPA panel was questioning the salaries it planned to pay executives,” he noted.

Zeldin quoted a reviewer who wrote that he wanted an explanation of why the company needs “to pay the CEO $800,000, growing to $948,000 in year 7, and chief operations officer $455,000 per year.”

“Biden EPA criticized Power Forward Communities for its lack planning for ‘pro-active oversight,’” he added.

Zeldin mockingly said, “I would encourage anyone at home who doesn’t want to hear it to put their fingers in their ears.”

The Endangerment Finding

Zeldin also defended his decision to revisit the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which claimed that greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to public welfare.

He faulted the original finding for using “multiple mental leaps” to suggest that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to climate change (without specifying how much they do so), and that climate change endangers public health. The administrator noted that the EPA’s 2009 finding did not just review carbon dioxide, but lumped it in with other gases, some of which are not emitted by motor vehicles.

Democrat Praises Zeldin

Not all of the hearing proved confrontational, however.

Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., praised the administrator for visiting San Diego and attempting to address the crisis of Mexico sending tons of sewage down the Tijuana River.

Tyler O’Neil

Tyler O’Neil is senior editor at The Daily Signal and the author of two books: “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” and “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.”

Reproduced with permission.  Original here:  Zeldin Slams Democrats, Media, for Denying Biden EPA Waste