Biden admin hands out $600 million to activist groups, universities for 'environmental justice'

The Biden administration is giving $600 million in taxpayer funds to grant-making organizations to distribute for “environmental justice” projects across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday ( EPA).

The funds will go to 11 different organizations, including universities and left-leaning groups that focus on advancing social justice causes in addition to their environmental advocacy. seconds in the EPA announcement. Each of the recipients, in turn, will use the money to provide grants to local organizations to carry out thousands of “environmental justice” projects, such as environmental job training programs and “healthy homes” initiatives.

“All people have the right to drink clean water, breathe clean air and live in a healthy and safe community,” Vice President Kamala Harris said of the funding. “For too long, however, low-income communities, immigrant communities, Native communities, and communities of color have endured disproportionate levels of air, water, and soil pollution. That's why the President Joe Biden and I have put equity at the center of the largest climate investment in our nation's history. Today's announcement puts that commitment into action by ensuring that critical resources to fund environmental justice projects across the country reach the organizations that know their communities best.”

Funding comes from EPA's Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grant Program, which was established by Inflation reduction law (IRA), President Joe Biden's signature climate bill, according to the EPA. The $600 million announced Wednesday is part of a larger $3 billion spending spree in support of “environmental justice” made possible by the IRA provisions.

Most of the grantees will do their work at the regional level, but several of the grantees are expected to operate on a national scale, according to the EPA. Some of the grantees are universities, such as Fordham University and Texas Southern University, while others, such as the Climate Justice Alliance and the Minneapolis Foundation, are left-wing groups that advocate for or facilitate activism for a range of progressive causes in addition to climate advocacy. .

In addition to supporting environmental activism, the Minneapolis Foundationwhich is about to receive $50 million from the EPA, provides “racial and economic justice grants” to groups that advance “structural and systems change through policy advocacy, organizing, and movement building,” for example.

The Climate Justice Alliance, one of the EPA's national recipients to receive $50 million, has repeatedly supported the Palestinian cause amid the war between Israel and Hamas. describing the status of the Palestinians as a “climate justice issue” and protesting on behalf of Palestine at COP28, the recently concluded United Nations climate summit. the group describe as a leader in the movement against “extractive systems of production, consumption, and political oppression, and toward resilient, regenerative, and equitable economies,” advocating for an economic and energy transition that “places race, gender, and class at the center of the solution equation”.

The group has also spread misinformation about the death of a queer and gender non-binary activist near Atlanta, Georgia. Manuel Terán, better known by the nickname “The Tortuguita,” opened fire on a law enforcement officer who was responding to disturbances near the site of the “Cop City” training center in January; the officer returned fire, killing Tortuguita in the process, seconds to a broad racketeering indictment filed in September in Fulton County, Georgia. As recently as March, the misleading Climate Justice Alliance affirmed that “Tortuguita” was the victim of a “political assassination” carried out by the police.

Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, a regionally focused grantee that will receive $50 million from the EPA, operates as an incubator for left-of-center activist organizations, seconds on your website. Beyond environmental activism, the group has also facilitated aspiring activist organizations replace “imprisonment and police systems” i stimulus “Voter engagement by supporting frontline voting rights organizations that mobilize communities of color, first-time voters, new Americans, youth, rural communities, returning citizens, and other historically disadvantaged communities,” e.g. .

“It doesn't matter if they're called donors or climate bodies, the mission is the same: to use taxpayer dollars to build political support networks,” Daniel Turner, executive director and founder of Power the Future, said of the funding announcement . “And while Biden sends $600 million to his green friends, energy workers are stuck in Washington while families pay more for everything.”

The White House, the EPA, the Climate Justice Alliance and the Minneapolis Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Daily Caller News Foundation sought comment from social and environmental entrepreneurs, but the organization's offices are closed for the holiday.

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