EPA Internal Oversight Office: "No Issues" W. Biden-Era Community Change Grants For Food/Energy Resilience

March 9, 2026 – In a report released last week, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) internal watchdog office said it found no issues with the way the agency implemented a grant program under President Joe Biden that funded solar-powered greenhouses, composting, regenerative farms, and community gardens in under-resourced communities.

President Donald Trump’s EPA canceled $1.5 billion in Community Change Grant Program contracts in May 2025 and shuttered the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, which had administered the program.

It was one of several programs terminated last spring by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who called environmental justice programs under Biden “scams.” “Under the ‘environmental justice’ banner, the previous administration’s EPA showered billions on ideological allies, instead of directing those resources into solving environmental problems and making meaningful change,” Zeldin wrote in a New York Post op-ed at the time.

After receiving a hotline complaint in February 2025, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) started an investigation into the Biden EPA’s administration of the Community Change grants. But instead of finding fraud, the office found no issues in the way the grants were handled.

EDIT

https://civileats.com/2026/03/10/epa-oversight-office-finds-no-issues-with-biden-era-environmental-justice-program/