Lousiana Sen. Kennedy condemns Biden Admin for Giving $2B to Abrams-Backed Climate Change Organization
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), in a speech on the Senate floor, questioned how a six-month-old nonprofit with $100 in the bank and ties to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams was able to secure a $2 billion climate change grant from President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Key excerpts of the speech are below:
“I try to see the world from other people’s bell towers as much as I can, but I cannot come up, not for the life of me, with a single rational justification as to why the EPA under the Biden administration thought it was appropriate to give Power Forward and Rewiring America—two brand new nonprofits with no business experience, no accomplishments according to the IRS forms, and only 100 bucks in the bank—to give them $2 billion of taxpayer money, especially to the exclusion of every other qualified applicant for that money, if there were any other qualified applicants.”
. . .
“The average Louisianian, because of President Biden’s inflation, had to spend an extra $890 a month—extra—for food and clothing and car notes, and they didn’t get an $890-a-month raise.
“President Biden and my Democratic colleagues told us that the Inflation Reduction Act—I remember when it was passed. They said: ‘If you spend $1.2 trillion on the Inflation Reduction Act, it will be a lifeline to every family in America.’ That is not what it looks like to me. It is starting to look like to me that it was really a slush fund—a slush fund for Washington insiders.”
. . .
“Now, this is just the beginning of the type of spending porn that President Trump and Mr. [Elon] Musk are uncovering that people are screaming about. I am going to repeat what I started with: There is nothing wrong with wanting to know what they do and did with our money, and that is all President Trump and Mr. Musk are doing.”
Background
- In April 2024, President Biden’s EPA announced the award of a $2 billion federal grant to Power Forward Communities through the Inflation Reduction Act’s Green House Gas Reduction Fund. The grant was to help homes transition from gas appliances to electric.
- Power Forward Communities formed in Oct. 2023 as a coalition of nonprofits, including Habitat for Humanity International, United Way Worldwide, and Rewiring America. According to its tax filings, Power Forward Communities had just $100 in revenues in 2023.
- Rewiring America similarly formed in 2023. Abrams joined the nonprofit in March 2023 as senior counsel. The organization stated in its tax filings that 2023 was a “startup year for the organization.” Rewiring America’s only listed accomplishment was that it had “joined a coalition of other national organizations to apply for a grant from the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.”
- EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has pledged to claw back more than $20 billion in improper Inflation Reduction Act grants, including the $2 billion to Power Forward Communities.
