National Clean Investment Fund

Prior to the President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the Biden administration allegedly distributed all $14 billion through program fiduciary Citibank. ³  By March 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the second Trump administration had ordered all agreements and payments with NCIF participants rescinded while opening investigations into potential ethical or legal violations in the program’s management. ³

Background

In 2022, the Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a spending bill which contained an estimated $500 billion in new spending and tax breaks, $14 billion of which was earmarked for the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF). ⁴ The purpose was reportedly to set aside federal funding towards environmentalist-aligned energy projects that were intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Such initiatives include small-scale zero-emission energy generation, “net-zero” building construction or renovations, and zero-emissions transportation projects such as electric-vehicle charging infrastructure and electric school bus fleets. ²

Under the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative, almost 70 percent of NCIF funding, or more than $9 billion, was reserved for projects in low-income and ethnic minority communities. ⁵

Upon creation, the NCIF operated alongside financial institution Citibank, which would hold the federal government’s appropriated money that would be then distributed to program participants. ^{6 6}

Alleged Recipient Organizations

The $14 billion in NCIF funding was split between three nonprofit organizations: Climate United Fund, which received $6.97 billion; Coalition for Green Capital, which received $5 billion; and Power Forward Communities, which received $2 billion.  ³

Climate United Fund had been founded in 2024 by three left-of-center nonprofit finance institutions: Calvert Impact Capital, the Community Preservation Corporation, and the Self-Help Credit Union. ⁷ Its CEO Beth Bafford was a former special assistant in the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget, and worked on the Obama presidential campaign as a regional field director for Obama for America. ⁸ Its board members included former Democratic Party of California chairman and California State Treasurer Phil Angelides (D),  ⁹ Obama administration Secretary of the Department of Transportation Anthony Foxx, United Farm Workers of America co-founder Dolores Huerta, Patrice Willoughby of the Congressional Black Caucus, ¹⁰ and others with ties to the First People’s Fund, CPC, Opportunity Finance Network, and NAACP.  ^{11  12}

Coalition for Green Capital  was founded by Reed Hundt, a childhood friend of Al Gore and law school classmate of Bill Clinton who became an attorney with “a hugely influential network in mainstream Democratic circles” and was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the Clinton administration. ^{13  14}

Power Forward Communities was founded in 2023 by Enterprise Community Partners, Rewiring America, Habitat for Humanity International, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and United Way Worldwide (United Way). It was also supported by major labor unions including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, and International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART). Its CEO Timothy Mayopoulos had previously held several positions with Fannie Mae before serving as president and CEO from 2012 to 2018 during the Obama administration. ¹⁵

“Gold Bars” Controversy

In December 2024, an undercover video published by right-of-center Project Veritas showed former Biden administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appointee Brent Efron claiming that the EPA’s post-election efforts to distribute National Clean Investment Fund money before the Trump administration took office in January 2025 were “like we’re on the Titanic and we’re throwing gold bars off the edge.” ^{16  16} It included allegations by Efron that the NCIF’s design was “an insurance policy against Trump winning” and “Republicans taking the money away,” and that “Over the last year, we’ve given out $50 billion dollars for climate things…so to go work for one of these places would be really cool.” ⁶

Second Trump Administration

Recission of Funding

In February 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the second Trump administration, ordered Citibank to freeze all $14 billion in NCIF funds and to withhold from distributing them to the three selected organizations.  ¹⁷

In April 2025, EPA Acting Inspector General Nicole Murley informed Congress that the agency had begun an audit of the $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund while also investigating the $14 billion in NCIF funding. ¹⁸

In March 2025 EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency had terminated the grant agreements, would seek return of the money from Citibank, and had requested both the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to open investigations into potential ethical or legal violations from the program’s management. ³

In July 2025, President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which created a legal framework for the recission of “unobligated balances” such as the NCIF’s $14 billion held by Citibank. ¹⁹

Litigation Against Termination

Following the EPA’s order to rescind all agreements and payments with NCIF participants, the three grantmaking organizations previously selected for distribution (Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities) filed lawsuits against Citibank and the federal government to regain access to the frozen funds while requiring the EPA to operate the National Clean Investment Fund as designed by the Biden administration. ²⁰

While the plaintiffs were originally successful in receiving a temporary trial court injunction against the EPA shortly after the lawsuit was filed, in September 2025 the District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed that injunction and ruled that the plaintiffs had brought their case in the wrong court by filing litigation in federal district court rather than the Court of Federal Claims.  ²¹ The court’s ruling allowed the EPA to move ahead with the grant termination process as of October 2025. ²¹

Support

The National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) received support from left-of-center organizations, labor unions, and other supporters of the program. Implementation was reportedly overseen by John Podesta, the former White House Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton and the chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. ¹⁶

The philanthropic initiative Invest in Our Future (IOF) was created in 2023 by major left-of-center foundations to support the NCIF as well as other Biden administration programs such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. ²² IOF was fiscally sponsored by Rockefeller Foundation subsidiary RF Catalytic Capital and has received support from the Rockefeller Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Bill Gates‘s Breakthrough Energy, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, the Zegar Family Foundation, and the Ballmer Group. ^{23  24}