Suffolk Downs developer eyes run for Boston mayor | Another day, another half-baked growth initiative at the Globe | Markey’s dream of a national climate bank runs into Trump buzzsaw |
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Goodbye legacy? As he ramps up for a reelection campaign, one of Markey’s top Green New Deal legislative victories crumbles as Trump lowers boom
Sen. Ed Markey spent years campaigning for a national climate bank to pay for green energy projects.
In 2022, Markey’s lobbying paid off when Congress gave a green light to his beloved climate bank as part of the Biden administration’s $1 trillion-plus Inflation Reduction Act.
“After more than a decade of hard work, our vision to create a national climate bank is a reality,” Markey crowed.
But the 78-year-old senator’s $27 billion climate bank - known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund - is suddenly on life support as the Trump administration attempts to claw back much of the massive sum.
Trump’s environmental chief, Lee Zeldin, has frozen billions in federal dollars the new climate bank had deposited in Citibank accounts for use by a bevy of green energy nonprofits, the money having been rushed out the door by the Biden administration after the November election.
In taking the sweeping action, Zeldin, a former New York congressman who was a strong supporter of the oil and gas industries, has characterized the program as a massive giveaway to politically-wired, progressive nonprofits, according to The Free Press, the center-right news startup launched by former New York Times op-ed editor Bari Weiss, which broke the story.
“The board and staff of the eight nonprofits include Democratic donors, people with connections to the Obama and Biden administrations, and prominent Democrats like Stacey Abrams,” The Free Press notes.
Calling Markey’s climate bank a “slush fund,” as The Free Press does in its headline, seems a bit of a stretch.
And in a statement with a pair of fellow Democratic lawmakers, Markey blasted what it called a “sham investigation” while slamming the Trump administration’s “malicious and unfounded attacks” on the federal Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund/climate bank.
But The Free Press piece does raise some tough questions. Armed with billions from Markey’s climate bank, eight different environmental nonprofits were given the job of doling out loans for various green energy projects.
Yet in the legislation that created the climate bank, there is no oversight for this lending, the story contends.
Meanwhile, credit unions and small banks have argued they are far better equipped to make these loans than environmental groups, with both the lending expertise and local knowledge to make sure the money is well spent, The American Prospect has reported.
For Markey, the Trump’s administration’s demolition of his multibillion-dollar climate bank represents a significant blow as he gears up for a 2026 reelection campaign.
In 2020, Markey managed to beat back a challenge by then U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, in part by winning the support of environmental activists and groups with his backing of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.
Now Markey’s climate bank looks like it is about to fold just months after opening its doors.
That can’t be good for the senator or his political prospects.
Misfires piling up at Globe: Canning of weekday TV show the latest growth initiative to go nowhere in Henry era
Billionaire John Henry saved the Globe from the shredder when he bought the then-ailing paper for $70 million in 2013.
But the track record of his wife, Linda Henry, as CEO of the Globe has been far more mixed.
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