Audrey Streb: ‘What a grift!’ - How Biden quietly cut Wall Street in on his biggest green giveaway
[Note: Great investigative piece here by real working journalist Audrey Streb at Heartlander News. In the story, Audrey Documents how the apparatchiks at the Biden Autopen pretend presidency deployed Machiavellian tactics to cut several huge private equity firms in on “green” subsidy programs in direct violation of their original intent. The kind of really great, real journalism work the corrupt legacy media refuses to do.]
Three days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Biden administration approved changes that let a green energy nonprofit route $2.65 billion in taxpayer money to four funds managed by Wall Street firms in a move that limited government oversight, according to sources and records reviewed by Heartlander News.
Sources said the firms’ involvement does not appear to match what the grantee originally told the Biden administration it would do with the taxpayer money. The Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told Heartlander News that the Biden EPA approved a “substantive” last-minute workplan and budget changes for the grantee, which flipped the program’s deployment model “on its head” and allowed the nonprofit to circumvent statutory limitations.
The Biden EPA’s landmark $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), created in 2022 to finance green energy projects in low-income communities, is now under investigation by the agency’s inspector general, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI after it reportedly awarded billions to politically-connected nonprofits.
The Trump EPA froze a vast majority of the program’s funding and cancelled the grants once Administrator Lee Zeldin took charge of the agency, though the funds had already been transferred to the four subgrantees managed by the firms before the freeze, the agency said.
Documents reviewed by Heartlander News reveal that one grantee under the program, the Coalition for Green Capital (CGC), asked the Biden administration for expedited approval to revise its workplan and budget days before Trump’s inauguration. CGC then routed over half of its $5 billion award out of the third-party financial agents approved by the Biden EPA and into the four subgrantees managed by the Wall Street firms, parking the funds outside the agency’s direct oversight, the Trump EPA confirmed.
The four major firms – StepStone, Brookfield, Apollo and Energy Capital Partners – each manage one of the four subgrantees, according to CGC’s filings with the EPA.
Brookfield and Apollo have over $1 trillion of assets under management, dwarfing the $2.65 billion routed to the entities they manage.
Subawards appear on USASpending.gov for Brookfield’s CGC Renewable Credit Mobilization Fund, Apollo’s CGC Clean Energy Mobilization Fund, Energy Capital Partners’ CGC Clean Energy Mobilization Fund and StepStone’s CGC Clean Energy Investment Mobilization LLC, all dated Jan. 31, 2025.
According to USASpending.gov and documents, the Brookfield and Apollo entities each received $450 million, while $300 million and $1.45 billion went to the Energy Capital Partners and StepStone vehicles, respectively.
A former senior EPA official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Heartlander News that given the agency’s two-year timeline to implement the program, the official believed EPA had assumed that grantees like CGC wouldn’t misrepresent their ability to manage the money or “just transfer billions to private equity firms.”
“It’s just incredible that someone would do that with government funds,” the official said.
Brookfield, Apollo and Energy Capital Partners did not respond to Heartlander News’ multiple requests for comment, and CGC did not respond to a request for an on-the-record comment.
A spokesperson for StepStone said it does not comment on specific client investments, mandates or ongoing proceedings, and that it carries out its work consistent with its fiduciary responsibilities and the law.
‘Not in line with the original spirit of the award’
When it notified the agency of the transfers, CGC told the Biden EPA it would retain veto and consent rights over the funds’ investment decisions, according to emails included in court documents.
CGC’s annual report to EPA, published June 29, discloses that its “strategic financial partners” – the four firms – manage the funds, though CGC helps to both “source and shape investments” and confirm that the investments are aligned with the GGRF program’s requirements.
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READ THE FULL STORY AT THIS LINK
That is all.
Sadly unsurprising. The greens have been grifting American taxpayer dollars for fifty years. Why should this have been any different?
Look at ANY green energy stock. Or any company that bought into the nonsence.
Any of them.
Not year over year changes, but the last ten years +.
Notice the huge jump during those Biden years compared to before and after?
Yep, that there is the trickle down effect of grift on steroids.
And Wall Street was in the middle of it.