Washington D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials Subcommittee Chair Buddy Carter (R-GA) sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan raising concern regarding the potential misuse of $600 million from the Department’s Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program. 

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“Republican Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and Buddy Carter of Georgia, two leading members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote to Regan to request that his agency brief the committee about its $600 million Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program. The lawmakers raised specific concerns about some of the organizations the agency selected as awardees for the program, to whom the agency is giving tens of millions of dollars to distribute to other organizations pursuing ‘environmental justice.’” 

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“The EPA announced the 11 awardees for the program in December 2023, giving ten organizations $50 million and $100 million to another to use to support other groups in the region advancing 'environmental justice,' a concept that has played a large role in the Biden EPA’s regulatory, grantmaking and enforcement agendas. 'Environmental justice' is effectively the by-product of climate policy and social justice ideology. 

“The lawmakers expressed concerns that some of the recipients and partner organizations, including the Climate Justice Alliance and the Institute for Sustainable Communities, have previously spent money to advance a partisan energy agenda or worked with groups who have sued the government to block fossil fuel development.” 

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“The lawmakers concluded their letter to Regan by requesting that he and his agency brief the committee to explain how recipients were chosen, detail the agency’s oversight plans, explain whether the EPA intends to report the use of the funds to Congress and whether the agency will report the recipients of sub-grants.” 

BACKGROUND: 

• Many of the EPA’s funding decisions suggest this program may be funneling potentially billions of taxpayer dollars to radical, far-left organizations whose mission is to protest, disrupt, and undercut U.S. energy production and leadership, while also freeing up funds to support their extreme activist agendas. 
• The EPA is awarding $50 million to the Institute for Sustainable Communities and the Climate Justice Alliance, both of which have a legacy of extreme anti-energy activism. 
• In the past, the Institute for Sustainable Communities and the Climate Justice Alliance have donated to groups carrying out illegal, violent protests to halt American energy projects. 
• Multiple Grantmakers tasked with disbursing program funds are not located in the EPA region they have been chosen to serve. 

CLICK HERE to read the full letter.