Amid growing unrest over rising crime rates in many American cities, reports have emerged that staffers within the lame-duck Biden administration are pushing outgoing President Joe Biden to allocate millions in taxpayer dollars to support initiatives that effectively defund the police. Despite the alarming increase in violent crime and public calls for law and order, these insiders are reportedly advocating for policies that would siphon vital resources away from law enforcement agencies, leaving communities vulnerable and signaling a dangerous disregard for the rule of law— all in the name of appeasing the far-left fringe of the Democratic Party.
A group of lobbyists that include a multitude of Biden staffers are urging the White House, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Department of Energy (DOE) to pour millions of American tax dollars into a nonprofit that supports defunding the police, prison abolition, and the “liberation” of Palestinian territories.
In a letter, the group, dubbed the “Federal Environment and Energy Workers for Justice in Palestine,” demanded that the Biden Administration dump funds into the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA). They also urged him to end its support of Israel.
CJA has a long history of supporting the defund the police movement.
While our work typically does not engage on foreign policy issues, the ongoing genocide in Gaza has compelled us to speak truthfully on the hypocrisy of protecting human health and the environment within U.S. borders while our government continues to fund and facilitate the destruction of entire communities and ecosystems overseas. We call upon EPA and DOE to end their collaboration with Israel until there is a permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine. We also urge EPA Administrator Michael Regan and the White House to release all designated federal funds to Climate Justice Alliance. Palestine is an environmental and climate justice issue. There can be no climate and environmental justice within the United States while we perpetuate climate and environmental disasters abroad.
The group said they were “horrified” by the billions of “taxpayers’ dollars being diverted overseas to fund Israel’s military campaign,” adding that the EPA’s “funding to build community resilience to climate change has also been directly impacted by the ongoing genocide.”
The EPA has not yet given the grant to the left-wing organization.
Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) echoed similar thoughts, saying that the “Climate Justice Alliance’s members include the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network, and Solidarity. Punishing their advocacy for human rights wrongly denies our communities critical funds for environmental justice.”
Last year, the EPA announced that it would give a $50 million grant to the Climate Justice Alliance, a Berkeley, California-based nonprofit, despite it promoting the “defund the police” movement. It was approved under the IRA’s $3 billion Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants provision.
CJA is the only nonprofit among the 11 recipients of the EPA’s “environmental justice thriving communities grantmaking program” that has not received funding. The organization’s executive director, KD Chavez, accused the EPA of “viewpoint discrimination.”
“This is a larger attack on civil society and due process in our democratic grantmaking and environmental work,” he said.