House hearing probes Biden climate spending as Zeldin threatens clawback

A Republican-led House committee on Wednesday held a hearing that scrutinized the Biden administration’s spending on energy and environmental projects, amid concerns about possible conflicts of interest and the fast pace of funds appropriated in the former president’s final months in office.

“Our concern is when you have such a large volume of money getting out the door with such tight statutory deadlines, what processes and internal controls were in place for that money going out?” Nicole Murley, Acting Inspector General for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said in the Feb. 26 House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing. “That’s always what we would call a ‘situation of risk.’”

Democrats blasted the hearing as “out of touch,” saying the real problems at hand are conflicts of interest within the Trump administration and moves to freeze federal funding and fire large numbers of government employees, including the Inspectors General of both the EPA and the US Department of Energy (DOE).

“With all the fires and chaos that Trump and Musk are intentionally starting in these agencies, it’s ridiculous that this is what Republicans are choosing to conduct oversight on today,” said US Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey. “This hearing is not about oversight or accountability. Instead, it’s another effort by Republicans to justify stealing investments from American communities in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations.”

The EPA and DOE each received billions of dollars through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which was signed in 2021, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed in 2022. Funding made available through the laws has been appropriated for a wide range of projects, including clean energy grants, drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects, environmental cleanup programs, clean school buses, and programs to reduce air pollution.

The DOE calls the IRA “the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history.”

But Lee Zeldin, Trump’s newly appointed EPA chief, is trying to claw back $20 billion in IRA funding. In a Feb. 12 video posted to the social media platform X, Zeldin criticized the Biden EPA for depositing the money in Citibank accounts in the names of eight institutions charged with distributing it.

Zeldin called the move a first-of-its-kind “scheme” that was “purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.”

“We will review every penny that has gone out the door,” said Zeldin in the video. “The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.”

Between Nov. 2024 and the first three weeks of Jan. 2025, the DOE’s Loans Programs Office completed $46 billion of new loans, Jonathan Black, Chief Advisor for Strategic Planning and Program Oversight at the DOE Office of Inspector General, said at the hearing. Black called the pace “incredibly fast” and said it “underscores our concerns about whether it is possible to conduct robust due diligence to protect the tax dollars under such time pressures.”

“The LPO appears to have functionally abandoned any responsibility for neutralizing or mitigating conflicts of interest,” added Black, referring to the findings of a December 2024 Office of Inspector General report.

In a Feb. 24 memo, the Offices of Inspectors General at both the DOE and EPA warned that adding and expanding the agencies’ programs and “exponential” increases to their funding increase risks of waste, fraud and abuse.

US Rep. Randy Weber, a Republican from Texas, suggested at the hearing that “wasteful” DOE spending could instead be used to support “innovative American nuclear projects…that actually give taxpayers a return on their investment.”

Democrats argue that investments in clean energy and climate projects can reduce Americans’ energy bills, support disadvantaged communities and mitigate the climate crisis. The IRA was expected to cut US greenhouse gas emissions by about 40% by 2030, according to the EPA.

They also contend that the claw back efforts require approval from Congress. Four Democratic senators are calling for the office of the inspector general to investigate the claw back efforts.

As many as 2,000 “probationary” DOE employees have been fired under the new Trump administration, while a Feb. 26 cabinet meeting revealed that 65% of EPA’s staff may be eliminated.

“A 65% cut would gut the agency and bring EPA to the lowest level of staffing since EPA was created in 1970, when the skies were dark with smog, toxic rivers caught fire, and pollution was a leading cause of premature death,” Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, said in a statement.

A memo publicly released Feb. 25 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) states that the DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations needs more staff to meet its organizational needs.

“I do think that the agencies will have a challenge to restructure how they do their work,” Frank Rusco, director of the Natural Resources and Environment team for the GAO, said at the hearing when asked if workforce reductions threaten the DOE’s and EPA’s ability to manage programs and ensure accountability.

Workforce cuts under Trump are already having consequences, with the EPA eliminating staffing in six states for a process that considers how projects will impact the environment before they are approved, US Rep. Lizzie Fletcher said in the hearing.

Meanwhile, the funding freeze is putting a strain on the trust between the federal government and its business partners and enveloping Americans in “confusion and chaos,” said US Rep. Lori Trahan said in the hearing. “One day my district has the funds to address stormwater overflows, the next day those funds are suspended,” she said.

“It’s not just Democratic districts that are hurt by unilateral funding freezes,” added Trahan. “People in districts that my Republican colleagues represent are also being harmed. Unfortunately, we just aren’t hearing Republicans reflect the concern and outrage voiced by their constituents.”

(Featured image: House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing, Feb. 26.)