DOGE Finds $2 Billion in Taxpayer Funds Earmarked

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DOGE discovered $2 billion in taxpayer funds set aside for a fledgling nonprofit linked to perennial Georgia Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.

The Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration awarded Power Forward Communities the grant in April 2024 as part of the agency's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program. Power Forward Communities received the green energy grant despite the fact that it was founded months earlier in late 2023 and never managed anywhere near the grant's dollar figure—it reported just $100 in total revenue during its first three months in operation, according to its latest tax filings.

Power Forward Communities' grant was one of just eight Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants that the EPA doled out in April 2024 and that, altogether, totaled $20 billion. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced on Feb. 13 that his staff and Department of Government Efficiency officials discovered that the Biden administration parked that same $20 billion at an outside financial institution before leaving office, limiting the federal government's oversight of the program.

The revelation that Power Forward Communities is among the beneficiaries of the funds Zeldin's team located raises ethics questions about how the Biden administration selected recipients of such massive grants and whether it played favorites when doling those grants out. Abrams was a vocal proponent of the Biden administration's green energy agenda and campaigned for former vice president Kamala Harris.

It also appears to validate concerns expressed for years by Republicans that Biden administration allies would prop up organizations that were specifically designed to receive federal funding under programs like the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created to operate as a "green bank" by Democrats' behemoth Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

"I made a commitment to members of Congress and to the American people to be a good steward of tax dollars and I’ve wasted no time in keeping my word," Zeldin told the Washington Free Beacon. "When we learned about the Biden Administration’s scheme to quickly park $20 billion outside the agency, we suspected that some organizations were created out of thin air just to take advantage of this."

"As we continue to learn more about where some of this money went, it is even more apparent how far-reaching and widely accepted this waste and abuse has been," the EPA administrator continued. "It’s extremely concerning that an organization that reported just $100 in revenue in 2023 was chosen to receive $2 billion. That’s 20 million times the organization’s reported revenue."

Power Forward Communities and Abrams did not respond to requests for comment.

Power Forward Communities was established in October 2023 as a coalition of groups led by Rewiring America, a left-wing group that advocates for electrification policies and a transition away from fossil fuel dependence. Abrams, who serves as Rewiring America's senior counsel, said at the time that she was "thrilled" to be part of the Power Forward Communities coalition. "This is how we expand access to clean energy—by prioritizing housing, equity and resilience," she wrote in an X post.

According to its website, Power Forward Communities is the first nationwide program to finance home energy efficiency upgrades at scale. The group states that its mission is to assist homeowners, developers, and renters with home upgrades replacing gas-powered appliances like a traditional stovetop with electric appliances like an induction stovetop.

In its only press release to date, Power Forward Communities said that, in addition to induction stoves, it would use the $2 billion received from the EPA to help install heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, solar panels, home battery systems, EV chargers, and weatherization upgrades.

"For an organization that has no experience in this, that was literally just established, and had $100 in the bank to receive a $2 billion grant—it doesn't just fly in the face of common sense, it's out and out fraud," Daniel Turner, the executive director of energy advocacy group Power the Future, alleged in an interview with the Free Beacon.

Power Forward Communities lists a large number of partners on its website that it works with to implement its mission. Among its partners are the Southern Economic Advancement Project and Fair Count, two left-wing nonprofits founded by Abrams in the wake of her 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election defeat.

The Southern Economic Advancement Project, which seeks to boost racial equity and "economic power" in the South, is a fiscally sponsored project of the Tides Center, a group known for giving millions of dollars to left-wing environmental and social activist organizations, according to Influence Watch.

Power Forward Communities' list of partners also includes the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, two powerful Democratic-aligned labor unions.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and Abrams both serve on the national advisory board for Climate Power, which helped launch a $55 million advertising campaign in September in support of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign.

"President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people to stop the fraud and abuse by leaders who irresponsibly shoveled boat loads of cash to far-left, activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity, instead of serving the American people," Zeldin said. "Those days are over."

Shortly before leaving office, Biden's EPA parked the $20 billion located by Zeldin's team and DOGE officials in an account at Citibank. While the eight recipients of the funding—which, in addition to Power Forward Communities, includes groups like Climate United Fund, the Coalition for Green Capital, Inclusiv, and Justice Climate Fund—have only tapped into a small slice of the funding so far, the arrangement restricts the Trump administration's ability to claw the funds back, though Zeldin has made retrieving the funds a priority.

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