The Green Grift: How Power Forward Communities’ $2 Billion Boondoggle Misses the Mark
The left’s environmental policies aim to turn America’s wildlands into a solar-paneled wasteland that enriches their cronies and does nothing for real conservation.
My latest featured at American Spectator:
Under EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the freeze on unspent climate grants has put a spotlight on the Biden administration’s reckless green spending. Among the most questionable allocations is a $2 billion payout to Power Forward Communities, a coalition now facing scrutiny over its oversight, distribution, and political favoritism. Stacey Abrams is directly tied to the grant through Rewiring America, one of the organizations at its center.
Trump even called this out during his recent speech to a joint session of Congress: “Why is Stacey Abrams’s group getting billions of taxpayer dollars while hardworking Americans can barely afford their energy bills?”
The Coalition Cashing In
Power Forward Communities consists of five organizations, none of which have any serious connection to conservation. Enterprise Community Partners is a housing nonprofit with deep ties to federal housing programs. Habitat for Humanity International, best known for building homes, is now branching into the climate grift. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a community development group specializing in leveraging government funds. Rewiring America, an aggressive electrification lobbying group, is tied to Stacey Abrams. United Way Worldwide, a large umbrella nonprofit, is now entangled in climate spending.
Collectively, these groups claim to be “transforming affordable housing” by electrifying homes and pushing energy-efficient upgrades. But electrification is not conservation, and throwing billions at retrofits does nothing to address real environmental issues. Democrats’ version of environmentalism is climate-obsessed rhetoric interlaced with social justice — conspicuously leaving out nature and conservation.
Electrification: A Costly Shell Game
The coalition’s plan focuses on replacing gas appliances with electric ones, installing solar panels, and rolling out heat pumps. The problem? Electrification mandates increase energy costs without guaranteeing lower emissions.
Forcing homeowners to ditch gas stoves and furnaces might sound good in a progressive boardroom, but in reality, many regions still rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity. A home that switches from gas to electric still pulls energy from the grid — and in coal-heavy states, that could actually increase emissions rather than lower them. (RELATED: Drill, Baby, Drill — But What About the Electrical Grid?)
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 16 percent of the U.S. electricity grid is still powered by coal.
This means that for many homeowners, these costly retrofits are meaningless in terms of actual emissions reductions.
And these “green” upgrades don’t come cheap. The average homeowner could face tens of thousands of dollars in retrofit costs, even with subsidies. Small landlords and lower-income homeowners simply cannot afford this, leading to rent hikes, forced relocations, and an even tighter housing market. Meanwhile, the coalition cashes in, passing the financial burden onto struggling Americans.
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