Trump administrator says it has “terminated” $20B Green Banking in the latest upgrade

The Trump administration announced that the country’s Congress allocated $20 billion to solar, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and other investments to save money and reduce carbon taxes for U.S. companies and low-income communities across the country. It’s the latest escalation in a weeks-long legal battle involving the signature of the Biden-era climate plan.

On Tuesday, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin announced a $20 billion grant under the Greenhouse Vas Acal Fund, which was created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, often referred to as the federal “Green Bank” program. Zeldin claims there is no evidence that the program is plagued by “misconduct, conflict of interest and potential fraud.”

Zeldin has been making such allegations since the first attack on the Green Banking program in a video released last month. In particular, Zeldin repeated the notion that allocated funds equal to “throwing the bars out of the Titanic,” a sentence published by Biden EPA employees, a phrase captured in a December video shot by Veritas Project Veritas. The right-wing group is notorious for smearing campaigns based on allegations that it is impossible to back up evidence.

The announcement to terminate the plan on Tuesday comes ahead of a court hearing in which federal judges will review lawsuits from one of eight nonprofit alliances that have blocked funds granted last year. The lawsuit by the Climate Joint Fund alleges that Trump administration officials used the threat of criminal investigations to force Citibank to freeze accounts that banks manage nonprofits. Citibank holds all funds in a financial institution agreement that detains federal funds in custody of private banks.

The program awarded nonprofits have committed to projects such as installing solar energy for the University of Arkansas, funding electric trucks and electric school buses built in the United States, funding building capacity efficiency and clean energy upgrades, and issuing loans to U.S.-listed clean energy projects.

The Trump administration faces multiple court challenges over its extensive federal funding freeze over the past two months. But the Climate United Nations allegation is that the Justice Department is using its powers in the criminal court system to deny access to its funds, which separates the case from many other legal challenges raised so far. The Climate Wing’s claim is supported by multiple news reports, which highlights the role of the FBI and interim attorney Ed Martin in the incident, as well as the overturning of professional federal prosecutors and federal judges.

The Climate Wing lawsuit claims that Citibank’s freeze funds are illegal and that the EPA takes illegal action by failing to follow the protocols laid out for the plan to investigate and fight fraud.

“The EPA’s de facto suspension or termination of the grant to the Climate Union is arbitrary, capricious, and incompatibilities,” wrote Adam Unikowsky, a partner at Jenner & Block, in a lawsuit filed Saturday in a federal court in Washington, D.C. “It is illegal that the EPA has not provided a reason for its actions.

EPA and Citibank rejected multiple requests for comment from news organizations, including Canary Media. The Climate Wing complaint states that the bank and the institution declined to explain to the nonprofit why its funds were frozen.

Climate United CEO Beth Bafford said in a statement Wednesday that the nonprofit intends to “focus on investing in projects that save Americans’ money, create jobs and strengthen local communities. Our legally binding contracts with the EPA cannot be legally terminated based on unsupported claims and misleading, and we will continue to take legal action to protect our communities.”

Other recipients of the $20 billion frozen fund have also filed lawsuits to regain the opportunity to make the money. The Green Capital Alliance filed a lawsuit against Citibank on Monday, and the Power Forward Community sued Citibank on Tuesday.

Over the past few months, the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze funds have been denied. “The 11-hour move to terminate the $20 billion clean energy funding is a tough court battle ahead of an uphill battle they know, an inability, desperate political stunt,” Lena Moffitt, executive director of Advocacy Group Evergreen Action, said in response to the announcement of Selding’s sack on Tuesday.

Moffitt added that the funds in the Green Bank plan would “increase energy costs for low-income households, create jobs at stalls and kill investments in household energy upgrades, community solar and small business clean energy projects across the country.”

This also hinders the receiver’s own ability to operate. More than two weeks after the funding was not available, the Climate Federation used up cash to pay for operating expenses, such as wages and rent, its lawsuit states. It also fails to meet its financial commitments, which will “erode the trust of Climate United as an institution, damage its reputation and cause serious harm to local organizations that rely on the Climate United Fund to develop key energy projects that reduce energy costs and create jobs”.

“Our borrowers can’t make money, which means projects are stagnant,” said a representative for a nonprofit, who was frankly published an online attack anonymously in an organization that attacked the Green Banking Program online.

The person added that unlike grants paid directly to recipients, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund serves as a lending and financing agency. This means that $20 billion of federal funds will flow to companies and groups, expecting them to repay them to lenders, and then pay additional interest payments, which can then use the capital from that source to make more investments.

The model was adopted from green banks operating in at least 17 states that have been in more than a decade of loans and other pollution reduction programs that provide low-cost loans and other financial support, focusing on low-income and disadvantaged communities.

Long-running green banks have successfully expanded their loan scope by “reducing” business opportunities, such as solar and energy-efficient housing projects. This allows them to increase their capital pools to formulate future loans and introduce private sector lenders to expand their markets that they help reduce risks.

In that sense, the program is “one of the most sophisticated investments the federal government can make,” Adam Kent, director of green finance at the National Defense Commission of Natural Resources, said in a statement Wednesday. He said that under the plan’s guidelines for incorporating private funds into its financing, “Each federal dollar can provide an additional seven dollars of private investment,” he said.

“If the Trump administration is really concerned with lowering energy bills, creating jobs, addressing budget deficits and growing the U.S. economy, it will lean towards this plan,” Kent said. “No legal contract cancellation.”