Another chapter is the Push / Pull in the Trump/Musk efforts to undo ALL Things from Biden….
A federal judge late Tuesday blocked the EPA from canceling Biden administration climate grants issued from a $20 billion program, finding that the Trump administration did not provide evidence of waste and fraud.
The case concerns the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, established by the 2022 Democratic climate reconciliation law. After the Biden administration selected the grant recipients, it placed the funds in Citibank accounts, from which recipients would draw down over several years as projects are completed.
The total pledged for green projects through the fund was $27 billion, with $7 billion going to a community solar program, and the remaining $20 billion — the funds at issue in this case — providing capital for green projects.
The agency froze the green project funding in February. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin then canceled the grants on March 11, alleging “program integrity, objections to the award process, programmatic fraud, waste and abuse and misalignment with the agency’s priorities.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., issued a temporary restraining order requiring that Citibank maintain the grant funds in the plaintiffs’ accounts.
Chutkan said that while the government expressed concerns over the absence of adequate oversight and programmatic fraud, waste and abuse, it did not offer evidence for these claims.
“When the court asked EPA to proffer evidence justifying its decision given the terms of the agreement, its only response was to refer to the termination letter, which gave no legal justification for the termination,” Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said in an accompanying memorandum….
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