EPA executive Lee Zeldin faced with a New York Times reporter at a press conference Monday, claiming he provided “no evidence” to support his previous Biden administration’s demand for waste, fraud and abuse. [emphasis, links added]
“It's my responsibility to make sure we don't ignite billions of dollars in taxes,” Selding said. “And I'm not standing in front of any member of the media, but bullying the billions of dollars in burning.”
Zeldin held a press conference at EPA headquarters on Monday morning to announce his upcoming Earth Day trip to investigate the crisis in Mexico, pouring 5 million gallons of wastewater into the Tijuana River every day.
At the end of the meeting, Selding mentioned the media's bias against his claims of wasting, fraud and abuse in the Biden EPA.
Waste and self-trade
He mentioned a videotape excavated by Veritas Project in December 2024, in which political appointees of the Biden administration at the EPA said bureaucrats were eager to take billions of dollars of goods, such as “throwing gold bars from the Titanic.” Zeldin promised to address Congress and he would investigate the matter.
“When we overturned different rocks, we found more evidence of waste and abuse, and some media members dig further into no evidence,” he said.
“Whenever new evidence comes, there are people in the media saying that even if there is no evidence, there is more belief.”
Zeldin mentioned “self-trading and conflict of interest, unqualified recipients and reduction supervision” in the Greenhouse Reduction Fund, a $27 billion fund managed by Citibank, which is part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
After Trump won the 2024 election, Biden-led EPA managed the fund and invested $20 billion in eight nonprofits.
Zeldin repeatedly tags examples of alleged corruption involving the fund.
As reported by the free media, The Reduction Fund allocated $6.9 billion to the Climate Joint Fund, a coalition of three nonprofits that joined together in June 2023.
Climate United CEO Beth Bafford has served as a special assistant to the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration.
In the last two years of the Biden administration, Phil Aroneau, chief strategy officer of the Climate United, served as “strategic advisor” to the Department of Energy.
The reduction fund allocated $5 billion to the Green Capital Alliance, although its total spending in 2023 increased to just $2.42 million.
Jahi Wise joined Biden’s Office of Climate Policy in 2021 and oversaw the Reduction Fund, previously served as policy director for the alliance.
Richard Kauffman, the league's CEO, has donated more than $600,000 to Democrats since 2020. Kaufman was previously a senior advisor to the Department of Energy under Obama and served as the “Energy Tsar” of then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Alliance Commission member Cecilia Martinez has served as senior director of environmental justice on the White House Council of White House under Biden.
The fund also allocated $2 billion to the Power Forward community, the entity consisting of five nonprofits, including re-wiring the U.S. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams joined the United States as special counsel in March 2023.
After listing many of these names, Zeldin mentioned that EPA officials modified the fund's account control protocol on January 13, a week before Trump took office.
“They are modifying it to reduce EPA supervision,” He said.
“Is there no evidence?”
Administrators noted that many news reports claimed he did not provide “no evidence” to support his claim.
Although Zeldin allocated time for the meeting, he asked a question for the reporters present: He dared that they said there was “no evidence”.
“If anyone can defend, please, like that zero evidence?” he asked. He noted that the Washington Post and the New York Times wrote that there was no evidence.
[…snip…]
🚨Crack@palezeldin A New York Times reporter was called and her article was read in the middle of a press conference.
He summoned her to claim he accuses the Biden administrator of being wasted, fraud and abused for “no evidence.”
illusory pic.twitter.com/ql8fjroy0i
—Tyler O'Neil (@tyler2oneil) April 21, 2025
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