By The FirstA new report from Fox News is shedding more light on Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency, claiming the department used COVID-19 relief funds to push “environmental justice” programs and other far-left priorities.
One group received a grant to push “storytelling” and “tree walks” to increase the public’s awareness of “inequitable tree canopy cover.”
From Fox News:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting new applications for grants funded by President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed in 2021, but last year’s awards funded some projects that had virtually little to do with addressing the impact of the pandemic.
The EPA’s Environmental Justice Small Grants Program recently announced it is using $1.6 million of American Rescue Plan funds to award grants to “federally recognized tribal governments to establish or modify public participation programs where fair treatment and meaningful participation priorities have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Last year under the same program, 99 organizations nationwide were selected to receive awards totaling approximately $7.4 million in grant funding, which included $5.25 million allocated from the American Rescue Plan and $2.15 million from what the EPA describes as its “baseline [Environmental Justice] appropriation.” Those grants were for up to $75,000 for each project that addressed “health outcome disparities from pollution and the COVID–19 pandemic,” the EPA said at the time.
A review of the 2021 awards, however, shows that the program funded grants for some projects that had virtually little to do with addressing COVID-19 or the effects of the pandemic.
