Exclusive: “Green Fail” report details wasteful spending

The Biden-Harris administration’s environmental policies are “killing species, hurting the economy, and proving counterproductive to the green energy revolution and carbon emissions reductions that the environmental Left claim they want,” a new report from Power the Future says.

The “Green Fail” report was first obtained by the Washington Reporter, and Power the Future warns about the “fistful of [your] dollars” that is wasted on “bad” and “ugly” programs.

One of the core issues the “Green Fail” report cites is the amount of spending from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that has gone to liberal activist groups — an issue lawmakers such as Rep. Brett Guthrie (R., Ky.) have discussed before.

“Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) is doing the Lord’s and taxpayers’ work by exposing how millions of dollars in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants provided by the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are flowing to organizations that are overtly anti-American and anti-Semitic,” the report says.

Guthrie added to the Reporter that “this report helps to confirm what we already know to be true: the so-called Inflation Reduction Act’s Green Bank slush funds were nothing more than a scheme to push through the radical Green New Deal agenda of the Biden-Harris administration with wasteful spending and woke DEI policies.” 

Guthrie, who is a leading candidate to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee next Congress, added that “from day one, we knew that this billion-dollar boondoggle would do nothing about the rising costs of energy, nor help families struggling from rising inflation. Even worse, much of this wasteful spending will only benefit adversarial nations like China and pull America farther away from energy independence. The American people cannot afford more of this woke spending to fulfill far-Left radical wish lists from the Biden-Harris administration.”

Sen. Capito has led on the Senate side to expose how IRA funds have “benefit[ted] radical anti-border, anti-ICE groups.” Examples Power the Future cited of IRA funds going to left-wing groups include “$500,000 for the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, which recognizes the ‘significant need to increase the capacity of communities with environmental justice concerns to empower residents to participate in public discourse on issues affecting them,’” and “$500,000 for the Delaware Valley Citizens Council for Clean Air to advance air monitoring for citizen activism against the Delaware City Refinery, including the use of the ‘Smelly My City crowdsourcing app.’”

Daniel Turner, the founder and executive director of Power the Future, told the Reporter that “the proof is in the pudding, and it’s clear the Biden-Harris administration is long on rhetoric and short on results. As Vice President Harris seeks to convince voters her candidacy represents a new course from the status quo, this report is a damning indictment for the failures she’s overseen. As the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, Harris must explain why green activist groups get millions of dollars of handouts while working families grapple with sky-high prices for everyday goods.”

While the Biden-Harris administration shelled out billions of dollars in handouts to progressives, Power the Future says that the problem runs deeper. “This fifth column of environmental activists, funded by federal taxpayers, will in future years advocate for more BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) policies and block infrastructure development, even transmission and wind projects advocated for by the likes of the Biden-Harris Administration,” it noted. “And that is the best-case scenario, assuming the funds do not end up in the hands of organizations with still more nefarious policy priorities.”

Power the Future’s report criticizes liberal climate priorities like failed high speed rail projects from across America, the massive push for electric vehicles, and anti-nuclear power activism that has taken root in lawmakers from California to Massachusetts. 

The findings of “Green Fail” don’t surprise watchdogs who have focused on wasteful spending by the administration. “With each piece of information that comes about the reality of the Biden-Harris administration’s ‘green’ agenda, the more people see it may be more about putting green in the pockets of their political allies, friends, and former colleagues,” Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Reporter. “Sue-and-settle schemes enact policy changes outside the regulatory process while rewarding NGO allies. Offshore wind developers receive sweetheart deals that limit their liability for environmental cleanup while agencies simultaneously crank up similar requirements on small offshore oil and gas producers. Former administration officials leave for powerful special interests that then receive billions from programs those officials helped to craft. It’s almost enough to make the American public think that rewarding their buddies was the point.”

The “Green Fail” report ends on a note of optimism. “If America is to do better, then we must act before there is a crisis or the accretion of so much red tape and regulatory inflation that we have our own rude wake-up call,” it says. “It is something voters must weigh this November, as well as in future elections. Our preeminent standing in the world depends on the American public and their policymakers getting these policies right.”