If you’re losing the game, then just… rewrite the rules.
That’s the playbook that Lee Zeldin’s EPA is using now, and we wanted to share the latest development with you.
ICYMI: EPA administrator Lee Zeldin had announced that the agency would terminate contracts with 8 awardees of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), threatening $20 billion in critical clean energy and local economic development projects.
Three of the 8 awardees sued EPA and Citibank, where the funding was held. The courts ruled against the EPA because it failed to follow due process or provide any legal justification for the termination.
To add to the pressure, SEEC Members including Co-Chairs Reps. Doris Matsui (CA-07), Mike Quigley (IL-05), and Paul Tonko (NY-20) and Vice Chairs Reps. Don Beyer (VA-08), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), Sean Casten (IL-06), Mike Levin (CA-49), and Chellie Pingree (ME-01), along with SEEC Member Rep. Debbie Dingell (MI-12) – an original author of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – organized a total of 82 members of Congress in demanding that the EPA direct Citibank to immediately release the legally obligated money from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
Our system of checks and balances has spoken, and the EPA now has its back against the wall.
So what does it do?
It decided to try to change its terms and conditions for grants in a way that makes it easier to cancel billions of dollars in climate programs approved by the Biden administration.
The new language would allow the EPA to terminate funding unilaterally if the grant “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.” Simply put, these rewritten terms and conditions take off the guardrails for the EPA’s own authority, empowering it to defund any and all climate initiatives.
This fight’s not over, and our SEEC members are going to bat for the future of our planet.
More to come,
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