Washington Free Beacon by Thomas Catenacci 7/24/2024
Biden council members given hundreds of millions of dollars to disburse
Environmental groups represented on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris's own environmental justice council are among the largest beneficiaries of the president's environmental programs, collectively receiving hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a database of federal grants reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
In total, four leading environmental justice organizations—WE ACT for Environmental Justice, the Bullard Center for Environmental & Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, and Kean University's Center for the Urban Environment—have been awarded a staggering $229 million in Environmental Protection Agency grants and have been named as partners to grantees awarded another $200 million.
Leaders of those groups serve on the White House's so-called Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which is formally housed at EPA, the same agency doling out the grants. The council provides the administration with "independent advice and recommendations on how to address current and historic environmental injustice," the White House description notes.
WE ACT for Environmental Justice executive director Peggy Shepard chairs the council, while Bullard Center director Robert Bullard, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice executive director Beverly Wright, and Center for the Urban Environment director Nicky Sheats, are listed as members on the council.
All of the groups besides the Center for the Urban Environment are affiliated with Mike Bloomberg’s Beyond Petrochemicals initiative, an $85 million campaign the Democratic former presidential candidate and billionaire philanthropist established in 2022. They have also received millions of dollars in funding from billionaire Jeff Bezos's Earth Fund and other left-wing pass-through entities.
The revelations call into question the oversight of the Biden-Harris administration's distribution of behemoth environmental grants. They also reveal the apparently incestuous nature of the EPA's efforts to push environmental justice initiatives, which are designed to reduce the supposed outsized impact of global warming and pollution on minorities.
Biden and Harris have sought to expand environmental justice programs since taking office—their 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act give the EPA authority over billions of dollars in grants for a variety of new climate, environmental, pollution, and environmental justice programs. And in a speech on Monday, Harris touted her work on "environmental justice" dating back to her days as a prosecutor.
"There’s never been any factual basis for the notion of environmental justice. Minorities are not more at risk from anything in the environment than anyone else," Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told the Free Beacon. "The EPA grants data show what environmental justice is all about—massive financial self-dealing and political corruption."
More:
https://freebeacon.com/energy/biden-harris-admin-dishes-out-400m-in-epa-grants-to-its-own-environmental-justice-advisers/
