EPA Discovers Greendoggle Gold Bars Thrown Off Titanic

Administrator Zeldin’s announcement validates PPT’s long-standing concerns.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has announced that his team has found $20 billion in taxpayer money “parked” in a third-party bank for distribution to environmental activist groups and that he is determined to “claw” that money back from the bank. Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) has been ringing alarm bells about this program for years.

PPT warned of the potential for abuse from Biden EPA’s environmental justice and climate programs as early as 2022. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) it created (aka The Greendoggle) gave the EPA unheard of sums of taxpayer money it couldn’t spend itself, without matching oversight capabilities. Just as we feared, the result appears to be a green activism slush fund. The EPA would disperse the money to a handful of “green banks” and other organizations to further award it to special interest and activist groups. The lack of transparency coupled with the revolving door between the agency and special interests created myriad ethical dilemmas and possible conflicts of interest. At least a portion of the $20 billion Administrator Zeldin’s team discovered was Greendoggle cash.

According to the administrator’s statement, the Biden EPA transferred the money to an outside financial institution as part of a scheme to unload billions between the election in November and Inauguration Day on January 20. He quoted a viral video of a Biden appointee to the EPA calling the process “Throwing gold bars off the Titanic,” as proof the agency deliberately wasted the money.

Administrator Zeldin said discovery raised many questions about the scheme, including: “are there any former Biden EPA staffers who are now working at these entities?” The answer to that is yes. In June 2024, PPT filed an ethics complaint calling for an investigation into David Hayes, the former White House Special Assistant to President Biden for Climate Policy. The EPA moved $5 billion from the GGRF to an organization of that Hayes serves on the board. Hayes served on the board of the Coalition for Green Capital (CGC), a “nonprofit consortium of ‘green banks,’” until he left to join the Biden-Harris administration in January 2021.

While in the White House, Hayes worked with both the National Climate Advisor and the National Climate Task Force on green energy projects. He also helped implement the climate change provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, likely including the GGRF. Hayes left the Biden administration in 2022 to return to CGC, in time for it to receive its $5 billion.

“Mr. Zeldin and his team seem to have found the gold bars thrown off the Biden EPA Titanic,” said PPT Director Michael Chamberlain. “The apparent abuse by their predecessors at EPA that they uncovered was not only predictable, it was predicted by PPT more than two years ago. Given the vast sums thrown around in the Greendoggle, that $20 billion may just be the tip of the iceberg.”

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