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WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin said Thursday that he has axed a $2 billion grant to a group linked to Stacey Abrams, the two-time Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia.
“I have terminated the $2 BILLION Biden EPA grant to this Stacey Abrams-linked NGO,” the former Long Island congressman tweeted.
“The DOJ/FBI are investigating and the money has been frozen. It is insane that the Biden Admin would give $2B to an organization that previously only received $100!”
Zeldin was responding to a Thursday morning Truth Social post by President Trump, who has made Abrams the face of efforts to claw back Biden-era environmental and social-justice funds as part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting initiative.
Trump wrote: “[I]s Stacey Abrams going to give back the Two Billion Dollars they funneled into her ‘environmental fund’ just prior to my assuming office. She went from $100 in donations to $2,000,000,000 in just one day? Not bad!!! Get back the money.”
The massive grant was awarded to Power Forward Communities in April 2024 from environmental spending in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The law, which no Republicans voted for, contained $369 billion for green energy projects, including a $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) intended to improve energy efficiency in low-income communities.
Last April, the Biden administration awarded $20 billion in GGRF grants to eight organizations, including the grant to Power Forward Communities, itself a coalition of five organizations including Habitat for Humanity and United Way.
Abrams worked for Rewiring America, one of the five groups in Power Forward Communities, and advised on efforts to secure the grant.
The Democrat’s compensation from Rewiring America, which focuses on home energy upgrades, is unclear and Abrams says she left the group late last year, before any EPA funds were distributed.
An IRS filing from November 2024 says that Rewiring America reported $621,000 in revenue and $268,000 in expenses in 2023.
The $2 billion award has not been distributed.
USASpending.gov lists the funds as dispensed in August, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week that the money has been held up by Citibank pursuant to instructions from the EPA and the Treasury Department.
The matter is expected to be settled in court.
