EPA’s Office of the Inspector General on Wednesday announced it will audit a $7 billion climate program aimed at financing solar projects in low-income communities across the country.
The audit of Solar for All comes as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has launched political and legal attacks against the overall initiative that funds the solar program, the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. EPA leaders referred the full fund to the agency’s inspector general for scrutiny a few weeks ago, citing “urgent and deeply concerning matters of financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and oversight failures.”
Despite assertions by Zeldin that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is being mismanaged by the nonprofits overseeing its programs, a federal judge has stopped the Trump administration from reclaiming $20 billion in GGRF funding from Citibank, where it was placed by EPA last year under former President Joe Biden. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan blocked EPA on Tuesday from taking back the money, saying agency officials had failed to show evidence of wrongdoing by the nonprofits.
The audit of Solar for All — whose $7 billion in funding is separate from the money being held in Citibank — came a week after Zeldin announced that he would terminate most of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was approved by Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act.
