Under EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the freeze on unspent climate grants has put a spotlight on the Biden administration’s reckless green spending. Among the most questionable allocation is a $2 billion payout to Power Forward Communities, a coalition now facing scrutiny over its oversight, distribution, and political favoritism. Stacey Abrams is directly tied to the grant through Rewiring America, one of the organizations at its center.
Trump even called this out during his recent speech to a joint session of Congress: “Why is Stacey Abrams’s group getting billions of taxpayer dollars while hardworking Americans can barely afford their energy bills?”
The Coalition Cashing In
Power Forward Communities consists of five organizations, none of which have any serious connection to conservation. Enterprise Community Partners is a housing nonprofit with deep ties to federal housing programs. Habitat for Humanity International, best known for building homes, is now branching into the climate grift. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a community development group specializing in leveraging government funds. Rewiring America, an aggressive electrification lobbying group, is tied to Stacey Abrams. United Way Worldwide, a large umbrella nonprofit, is now entangled in climate spending.
Collectively, these groups claim to be “transforming affordable housing” by electrifying homes and pushing energy-efficient upgrades. But electrification is not conservation, and throwing billions at retrofits does nothing to address real environmental issues. Democrats’ version of environmentalism is climate-obsessed rhetoric interlaced with social justice — conspicuously leaving out nature and conservation.
Electrification: A Costly Shell Game
The coalition’s plan focuses on replacing gas appliances with electric ones, installing solar panels, and rolling out heat pumps. The problem? Electrification mandates increase energy costs without guaranteeing lower emissions.
Forcing homeowners to ditch gas stoves and furnaces might sound good in a progressive boardroom, but in reality, many regions still rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity. A home that switches from gas to electric still pulls energy from the grid — and in coal-heavy states, that could actually increase emissions rather than lower them. (RELATED: Drill, Baby, Drill — But What About the Electrical Grid?)
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 16 percent of the U.S. electricity grid is still powered by coal.
This means that for many homeowners, these costly retrofits are meaningless in terms of actual emissions reductions.
And these “green” upgrades don’t come cheap. The average homeowner could face tens of thousands of dollars in retrofit costs, even with subsidies. Small landlords and lower-income homeowners simply cannot afford this, leading to rent hikes, forced relocations, and an even tighter housing market. Meanwhile, the coalition cashes in, passing the financial burden onto struggling Americans.
The Zeldin EPA Funding Freeze
With mounting scrutiny, Zeldin has responded by placing a hold on unspent climate grants, including portions of the Power Forward Communities funding. Citing a lack of transparency and questionable financial oversight, Zeldin has called for a full review of how these grants were awarded and whether they are truly benefiting the environment.
Republican lawmakers have also raised concerns about potential fraud, given that Power Forward Communities reported only $100 in revenue in 2023 before receiving the multi-billion-dollar grant. The $375 billion EPA slush fund was overseen by John Podesta, who played a key role in the disbursement of climate grants.
But as senior adviser to the president for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, John Podesta has a history of overseeing grift on an epic scale. In September 2022, under his watch, the EPA awarded over $7 billion to the Climate United Fund — just five months after its incorporation. According to public records, the organization was incorporated on Nov. 30, 2023, and received the grant in April 2024. At the time, Climate United Fund did not appear in the IRS’s charities database and had no federal filings, raising serious concerns about its legitimacy, eligibility, and the glaring lack of oversight in such a massive taxpayer-funded disbursement.
Cronyism Disguised as Climate Policy
No Democratic-backed “green” initiative would be complete without a hefty dose of cronyism — and this one is no exception.
Take Stacey Abrams. While she didn’t personally receive any of the $2 billion, she held a senior role at Rewiring America, one of the key organizations in Power Forward Communities. Somehow, the left’s favorite failed gubernatorial candidate keeps finding herself at the center of major taxpayer-funded projects.
Meanwhile, the real winners aren’t homeowners but corporations that manufacture electric appliances, solar panels, and batteries.
They stand to make a fortune — not because of market demand, but because the government is forcing people to buy their products. That’s not environmental policy — it’s corporate welfare disguised as climate action.
A Better Path Forward
If conservatives want to protect the environment, they must focus on real conservation, not political handouts. Instead of throwing billions at urban retrofitting projects, the government should:
- Expand state-led conservation programs that protect wild spaces.
- Offer tax incentives for private landowners who engage in conservation efforts.
- Invest in reforestation and wetland restoration, which provide actual environmental benefits.
But that won’t happen as long as the left treats environmental policy as a slush fund for its political allies. Power Forward Communities isn’t about conservation — it’s about cashing in.
Left unchecked, the left will turn America’s natural capital — long protected by conservatives — into a solar-paneled wasteland that enriches cronies while doing nothing for real conservation.
Protecting America’s wildlands isn’t about social justice and China-manufactured solar panels — it’s about actual stewardship.
Chadwick Hagan is an author, investor and philanthropist dedicated to free markets, fine art and nature conservation. His latest book is The Myth of California: How Big Government Destroyed the Golden State. This article originally ran on The American Spectator
