Shortly after he was confirmed, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced plans to take back roughly $20 billion the Biden administration had previously dispersed to left-wing climate groups.

While a federal judge initially stymied that plan, an appeals court has since handed the Trump administration a win. 

Zeldin slams payouts

As Breitbart reported, Zeldin laid out the details of the situation in a video clip that he posted to social media this past February.

🚨The Biden EPA tossed $20 billion of “gold bars off the Titanic”.

BIG UPDATE! We found the gold bars and they are now being recovered for you, the hardworking American taxpayer.

Here are more of the details: pic.twitter.com/DM4C0TQcpj

— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) February 13, 2025

"The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over," the EPA administrator declared.

"The American public deserves a more transparent and accountable government than what transpired these past four years," Zeldin continued.

Clean energy groups see windfall

He then pointed to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program that was unveiled under President Joe Biden in 2022.

As the Washington Post reported, the fund was created "to leverage public and private dollars to invest in clean-energy technologies such as solar panels, heat pumps and more."

The newspaper went on to explain that Citibank "had an agreement with the Biden administration to oversee the release of $20 billion under the program to nonprofit groups and states."

As he drew to a close, Zeldin asserted that "[t]he financial agent agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated, and the bank must immediately return all of the gold bars that the Biden administration tossed off the Titanic."

Court denies injunction

CNN noted that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision on Tuesday that Zeldin can go ahead with his grant rescission plan.

The court's majority opinion was authored by Judge Neomi Rao, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in March of 2019.

It declared that the climate change groups are free to seek monetary damages but are not entitled to an order blocking the grants from being terminated.

"In sum, district courts have no jurisdiction to hear claims that the federal government terminated a grant agreement arbitrarily or with impunity. Claims of arbitrary grant termination are essentially contractual," Rao wrote.