Lawmakers challenge EPA's attempt to seize $20 billion in funding: 'A smokescreen to ignore congressional spending authority'

A group of Democratic senators wants the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency to stop his efforts to seize $20 billion allocated for clean energy projects.

Lee Zeldin, the newly appointed EPA administrator under President Donald Trump, has said the agency discovered $20 billion that was earmarked for supporting pollution reduction but under the assertion that it was fraudulently disbursed. 

As Reuters reports, Senate Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee wrote a letter to Zeldin, accusing him of trying to illegally "seize money that was appropriated by Congress."

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"Your announcement is the latest example of the Trump Administration and its government efficiency 'experts' using unfounded claims of waste, fraud, and abuse as a smokescreen to ignore congressional spending authority and ignore court orders in order to freeze or terminate programs designed to reduce carbon pollution," the letter said.

The funds had been allocated through the Inflation Reduction Act, for which Trump has tried to freeze all funding. Although its name doesn't make this clear, the 2022 bill actually contained the biggest Congressional clean energy and anti-pollution package ever, with nearly $370 billion worth of eco-friendly projects.

Included in the IRA are tax breaks on electric vehicles, heat pumps, and solar energy systems. There have also been rebates available for energy-efficient appliances and funding for massive clean energy projects, such as those that aim to lower pollution in low-income communities.

This isn't the first move by the new administration seeking to undo pollution regulations and electrification incentives that seek to curtail the country's reliance on dirty energy. In his initial batch of executive orders, signed just after taking office again in January, Trump made clear his plans to scale back investments in clean energy, subsidies for EVs, and regulations on vehicle pollution. Trump and Republicans typically cite a preference to let the free market decide rather than let government incentivize the public away from certain areas of the industry, whether or not there are benefits to human health.

Another executive order withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement — something Trump did during his first term as well. The agreement, signed by 196 countries, legally binds countries to limit the Earth's warming to 2.7 degrees above preindustrial levels.

Trump and Zeldin are also expected to fight the Biden administration's "methane fee," which forces oil and gas companies to pay retroactive fees for excessive methane pollution.

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