The Biden administration quietly funneled $50 million in taxpayer funds earmarked for clean energy to two groups that oppose immigration enforcement.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tapped the New York Immigration Coalition and New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice as partners to distribute $50 million of $3 billion set aside in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for environmental and climate block grants, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Both groups’ missions have nothing to do with protecting the environment.
Instead, they adamantly support abolishing the US Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency, believe guarding borders is “racist and classist,” and want to block state and local government employees from cooperating with federal immigration officials, said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.), whose office is probing IRA spending.
Capito said her findings prove President Biden’s recent tough talk about cracking down on border security is just talk.
“It’s hypocrisy and the highest,” said Capito, while speaking at a Senate Republican Leadership press conference. “It’s very slack oversight, at the least.
“And it’s very dishonest when you talk to the American public about the goals of a green climate fund are being determined by immigration justice and immigration coalition groups.”
Capito last month announced she found the EPA awarded $50 million from the same grant program to Climate Justice Alliance, a group that backs anti-Israel protests .
The EPA did not return messages.
However, the agency previously said the immigration groups and Fordham University – which was tapped as a grant maker — will take “an intersectional approach to place frontline communities in positions of power” to advance climate justice “in disadvantaged and hard-to-reach communities and communities disproportionately impacted by climate change, pollution, and other environmental stressors.”
