But the scheme Zeldin described is not novel or a secret. The $20 billion he is trying to recover is money that Congress passed in 2022 for a program known as the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund,” also known as the “green bank” initiative. This kind of program once
enjoyed bipartisan support in states like Nevada, which opened a clean energy fund under a Republican governor in 2017, and Connecticut, where green bank legislation passed in 2011 with unanimous support from both parties. At least two centrist Republicans, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Don Young of Alaska,
endorsed a national green bank bill in 2021.
These banks appealed to a number of Republican priorities since it offered local governments and groups flexibility and catalyzed private investment, but congressional Republicans turned against the idea after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 climate law that reduces carbon emissions through financial incentives. Now, the Trump administration is trying to cancel it altogether.
“The bank must immediately return all the gold bars that the Biden administration tossed off the Titanic,” he said in the video, adding that he would refer the matter to EPA’s internal watchdog and the Justice Department. The EPA now seems to be trying to seize the funds from Citibank, which received the funds months ago, though it has met with some resistance: a top Justice Department prosecutor reportedly resigned on Tuesday rather than sign an order demanding that a bank
freeze federal clean energy funds. Even funded organizations themselves were unsure as of press time whether their funds were frozen.
The green bank program was designed to distribute billions of dollars to nonprofit lenders, who would then become banks for clean energy projects. These lenders would provide low-interest loans to tribes, companies, and local governments to build solar farms, improve energy efficiency, and reduce carbon emissions. The money would flow to places that were too disadvantaged or risky to attract private capital on their own — rural areas of Appalachia, for instance, or tribal reservations where income levels are low.
The program was modeled off successful funds in states like Rhode Island and Michigan, which respectively financed infrastructure repairs and homeowner energy upgrades. Although Republicans have described it as a left-wing “
slush fund,” it incorporated the flexibility and private industry focus that have appealed to conservatives in several states, said Laura Gillam, a former senior policy adviser at the Senate’s Energy and Public Works committee who helped lead the drafting of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“The intention was very clear — to allow maximum flexibility for communities and to let the money leverage private investment,” she said. Because borrowers would pay back their loans over time, the initial $20 billion could be deployed over and over again, reducing the need for future climate spending.
An earlier version of the green bank proposal appeared in a bipartisan
climate bill that was introduced in 2007 by former Republican senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. It also appeared in Ed Markey’s cap-and-trade bill, which passed the House of Representatives in 2009 with support from a handful of Republicans but died in the Senate. The Inflation Reduction Act version is “technology-neutral,” meaning that money can go to support forms of clean energy like nuclear and hydrogen, which are more palatable to Republicans.
Times have changed. Zeldin is now alleging that the transfer of money to Citi, and the fact that so much money went to just a few institutions, is evidence of “waste and abuse” by the Biden administration. The federal government has been parking money at private banks since the 1980s through “financial agent agreements,” and the Biden administration distributed the money to Citi before Trump won the presidential election.
The “gold bars” metaphor Zeldin referenced in the video posted to social media was not his own invention — it came from a former EPA staffer named Brent Efron, who helped implement the Inflation Reduction Act during the Biden administration. In December, the right-wing media organization Project Veritas, which is known for its sting operations on liberal politicians and media figures,
posted a hidden-camera video of Efron talking about his work to dole out funding.
