U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that his department canceled over “400 DEI and environmental justice grants,” saving nearly $2 billion.
In a press release on Monday, the EPA said the grants were canceled with “the assistance of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).” The grants were reportedly identified “across nine unnecessary programs” with a savings totaling $1.7 billion.
“This marks the fourth round of EPA-DOGE partnered cancellations as the Administrator oversees a line-by-line review of spending, bringing the total taxpayer dollars saved to more than $2 billion since being sworn in,” the release said.
“Working hand-in-hand with DOGE to rein in wasteful federal spending, EPA has saved more than $2 billion in taxpayer money,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin. “It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars.”
The announcement comes weeks after Zeldin pledged to recover the $20 billion in taxpayer funds lost by the Biden administration to climate projects. Zeldin made the announcement in Februrary when he charged the Biden administration of “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” in relation to the money lost on climate projects that he said was a “rush job with reduced oversight.”
“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” Zeldin said. “The American public deserves a more transparent and accountable government than what transpired these past four years.”
Zeldin said the EPA would also terminate its contract with the bank overseeing the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program that emerged from Biden’s 2022 climate policy.
