The recently confirmed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin visited Michigan on Thursday and spoke with The Midwesterner exclusively about revelations over the past week of alleged widespread corruption at the EPA during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

The Zeldin-led EPA, working in concert with the newly rebranded Department of Government Efficiency headed up by Elon Musk, has alerted the public to potential massive fraud and waste at the agency. Among its discoveries are $20 billion hidden in outside financial institutions in the waning days of the Biden administration in an attempt to skirt oversight as to how the money was distributed.

Those distributions included a $2 billion grant to a nonprofit group Power Forward Communities, which is affiliated with Democrat activist Stacey Abrams and several leftist groups sponsored by the Tides Foundation. The EPA approved the grant despite the fact PFC had only reported $100 in revenue in 2023.

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Perhaps more alarming is the EPA employee charged with disbursing funds from the agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Jahi Wise. Wise was previously employed by the Coalition for Green Capital, and, in his new capacity at the EPA, approved a $5 billion transfer to his former employer.

In his conversation with The Midwesterner, Zeldin said that the “EPA is looking under every rock” to ferret out the mishandling of taxpayer dollars.

“It’s important that we have n0 tolerance for even a penny of waste, whether you’re talking to $50,000, $50 million, or $5 billion,” Zeldin said. “Tax dollars need to be protected and there needs to be accountability and oversight,” he said.

“One of the things that I’ve been very concerned about with regards to this $20 billion parked in a bank outside government is that the money was fronted. It wasn’t a situation where the grantees were coming back to the government and asking for the next tranche.”

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He said the instances involving Abrams and Wise are only two of the eight entities receiving portions of the $20 billion GGRF funds, and promised a full investigation of how the money was disbursed and whether it can be clawed back.

“We have no tolerance for self dealing and and these conflicts of interest,” said. “We’re working with the Justice Department, working with the Treasury Department and others, and we want to make sure that we can be fully accountable to Congress and the American public with their tax dollars.”

Zeldin noted that the grant agreements also raised suspicion.

“On page one of the grant agreement, it says that the grantee has to spend over $2 billion in 21 days to three weeks to spend over $2 billion,” he said. “That’s not the worst part,” he continued. “On page six, it said that the grantee has 90 days to complete their training called ‘How to Develop a Budget.’ If they need training on how to develop a budget, maybe they should take that training and have a budget for their spending over $2 billion.”

Zeldin also noted he cancelled a $50 million grant to the Climate Justice Alliance.

“They say climate justice comes through a free Palestine,” he noted. “There’s example after example that I’m not going to tolerate.”

When asked whether there the EPA would push for criminal prosecutions, he said the “Justice Department is in the lead on that level of analyzing facts and meeting elements and making decisions on charging somebody. If they decide that any crimes were committed I as the administrator of the EPA want an immediate full accounting over the funds. I want to make sure that no more money is wasted going forward and there’s still more work to do.”

He continued: “I still have a lot of questions about a lot of money that’s been going out the door, and I want those answers as quickly as possible. I want to be able to confidently sit before Congress the next time I’m testifying…. I’ve only been in this position for three weeks. Our team has already uncovered so much and we’re uncovering so much every day. We’re going to continue to keep that pace, we owe it to the American public.”

When asked by The Midwesterner whether there were similar grants that have been rescinded but not yet divulged to the public, Zeldin responded: “I cancelled nine grants working with the Department of Government Efficiency, saving another $60 million in grants that were going towards DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and environmental justice. There was over $1 million of media subscriptions that had been going out the door that I cancelled. We’re about to cancel additional grants that we’ve done all of our due diligence on and we feel like we can save tens of millions of dollars more for the cancellation of those grants the American public but when we take these actions we don’t keep this to ourselves. We announce it to the American public we want the public to know everything that we’re working on. We want the public to know what we find when we find it.”