Donald Trump signed his latest executive order on Tuesday, this time aimed at revitalizing the nation’s coal industry that has shrunk dramatically in recent years.
Boosting U.S. energy production through deregulation is a key initiative of Trump’s second term, as is reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. And both of those missions are the focus of Lee Zeldin as the 17th administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As it relates to the latter, Zeldin has made streamlining the EPA a top priority of his first few months in office. And on Wednesday’s show, he joined Megyn to discuss the more than $20 billion that has already been saved – including a $2 billion federal grant involving a nongovernmental organization (NGO) linked to Stacey Abrams.
DOGE’ing the EPA
The EPA has been a prime target for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after hidden camera footage released by Project Veritas in the waning says of the Biden administration showed a staffer admitting the agency was trying to spend as much money as possible before Trump took office.
The employee, who is no longer working at the EPA, likened it to “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” to “get the money out as fast as possible before they come in and stop it all.” Zeldin said that video was just the tip of the iceberg.
Since being confirmed, Zeldin said he has canceled some $22 billion worth of grants. “To give you an idea of how that compares to the agency’s budget, our operating budget is about $10 billion a year,” he noted. “Yet somehow, through congressional Democrats… over $60 billion was obligated and spent through EPA in 2024.” That number will be reduced by 65 percent – or $22 billion – in 2025.
In Zeldin’s view, the EPA has long been given so much money to spend by defining terms like ‘environmental justice’ or ‘climate change’ in ways that brings Republicans and independents to the table. “If you say ‘environmental justice’ – a great argument to be made in support of it is that there are communities that have been left behind, and they need funding, support, attention in order to deal with it,” he said. “A lot of us can agree with a definition like that.”
But it’s not that simple. “Here’s the problem: In the name of ‘environmental justice,’ they will get $1 appropriated and instead of spending that dollar to actually remediate that environmental concern, they will send the money to some left-wing activist group to tell us that we need to spend $1 remediating an environmental issue,” Zeldin explained. “We have been canceling all of these grants.”
Stacey Abrams Controversy
In one instance, Zeldin said they found $50 million going to a group that claims “climate justice runs through free Palestine.” And then there was the tens of billions handed out through the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund” created in the Inflation Reduction Act. “Democrats parked $20 billion at an outside bank to give to eight pass-through NGOs,” he noted. “Many of them were brand new.”
One of the payments that has now garnered national attention involved a $2 billion grant to Power Forward Communities, a NGO linked to Abrams. The failed Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate has since tried to defend the grant, saying the money went to an array of organizations with the goal of replacing energy inefficient appliances around the country after the success of a pilot program she was involved with in the Peach State.
Zeldin maintained that it made no sense for the group to receive such a large investment. “The NGO that is connected to Stacey Abrams… only reported $100 [in revenue] in 2023, but… her organization received $500 million of the $2 billion. What qualifies this NGO to receive $2 billion it didn’t exist before this inflation Reduction Act,” he asked. “When the grant agreement was drafted by EPA, they put a provision on page seven that says they had 90 days to complete training called ‘How to Develop a Budget’ – this isn’t some standard requirement that went into every contract all of the time… How do you give them $2 billion on top of it?”
Playing Politics
He said it is one of many examples of “self-dealing conflicts of interest to unqualified recipients” his team has uncovered, and Megyn wondered if the grant programs had become “Democratic slush funds” to reward donors or were the result of the so-called “green agenda.”
Zeldin believes it was a bit of both. “And that is why I am so upset and concerned and frustrated and motivated to do something about the abuse of these terms ‘climate change’ and ‘environmental justice,'” he explained. “There are people who are talking about climate change in a way that is trying to justify what is tens of billions of dollars or into the trillions of dollars.”
He said his goal as EPA administrator is to return to “common sense” because the desire for “clean air, land, and water” shouldn’t be political. “Stop trying to turn it into a wedge issue,” Zeldin concluded, “where you have to choose to either go with whatever Bernie Sanders is proposing or you’re an outcast who wants to change the air back to the way it was a half a century ago.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Zeldin by tuning in to episode 1,045 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.