‘Serious Conflicts of Interest’: Biden EPA Official Oversaw $5B Grant to His Former Employer
- February 20, 2025
Thomas Catenacci, Free Beacon
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.
The EPA’s $5 billion grant to the Coalition for Green Capital and Wise’s involvement is also notable because former Biden administration official David Hayes serves on the group’s board of directors. Hayes rejoined the group’s board in October 2022 after having served as a special assistant to the president in the White House Climate Policy Office since January 2021, meaning he and Wise were close colleagues at the White House for roughly 21 months.
“For years, Protect the Public’s Trust and others have been warning of the GGRF’s potential for abuse, to say nothing of the greater IRA,” said Michael Chamberlain, the director of watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust. “Between David Hayes, who sandwiched stints at CGC with one at the White House in which he helped create IRA climate programs, presumably including GGRF, and Jahi Wise, CGC couldn’t have been better positioned for the GGRF windfall.”