The Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doled out billions of taxpayer dollars in August to a left-wing nonprofit consortium linked to Democratic voter mobilization efforts, including a Stacey Abrams’ get-out-the-vote initiative based in Georgia.
The EPA announced that Power Forward Communities (PFC) received $2 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) on Aug. 16. The PFC is partnering with an array of Democratic Party-affiliated groups in addition to the two-time Georgia governor candidate Abrams’ Fair Count, including the nation’s largest teachers union—a major contributor to Democratic candidates—and a prominent climate activist group, according to a review of the PFC’s website.
The EPA’s decision to award the nonprofit consortium with a massive grant award comes as Republican lawmakers scrutinize the IRA for sending taxpayer dollars to recipients with ties to left-wing activists and the Democratic Party.
“At the same time that the EPA is disrupting our everyday lives, it has shown its true priorities by dishing out hard-working American taxpayer dollars to a vast network of former Obama-era officials who are now leading the far-left’s crusade against American energy independence,” Republican Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia and Republican Rep. Brett Guthrie of Kentucky wrote in an October op-ed for the Washington Reporter.
The PFC is working with two Abrams-backed nonprofit ventures, Fair Count and the Southern Economic Advancement Project (SEAP), according to a review by the DCNF. Abrams founded both of these nonprofits in 2019 following her first election loss to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in November 2018.
Fair Count, a Georgia-focused voter mobilization outfit that works to increase the participation of the state’s Black voters, recently criticized voter ID requirements and accused Republican governors of “voter purges” to exclude eligible voters from casting ballots.
Abrams’ SEAP is a research and advocacy-focused nonprofit whose mission claims to be “building a more equitable future” in the South. The SEAP is a fiscal project of the Tides Center, a subsidiary of the left-wing dark money behemoth known as the Tides Network that has bankrolled activist groups engaged in pro-Hamas protests across the United States.
Third Act, a left-wing activist group focused on galvanizing Americans age 60 and older into climate activism, is also a PFC partner. The group regularly participates in climate protests and staged a “die-in” in front of Citibank headquarters in New York City in July during which 46 of its members were arrested. Third Act has also organized get-out-the-vote efforts and operates GrayPAC, a political action committee that funds Democratic candidates and left-wing causes.
Third Act’s founder, Bill McKibben, has endorsed Harris and headlined a fundraiser for her presidential campaign in a July 25 event that raised more than $100,000.
The PFC is also partnering with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a teachers union with nearly 2 million members led by Democratic Party bigwig, Randi Weingarten. The AFT’s executive council unanimously endorsed Harris on July 22, the day after Biden dropped out of the 2024 Presidential race, and is currently engaged in get-out-the-vote efforts in support of Democratic candidates. Weingarten spoke at the Democratic National Committee’s Convention in Chicago in August.
Fair Count, the SEAP, Third Act and the AFT did not respond to DCNF’s inquiry about their relationship to the PFC.
Abrams also serves as a senior advisor to Rewiring America, one of the five nonprofit entities that make up the PFC consortium. Rewiring America is a left-wing electrification outfit that advocates for the adoption of electric vehicles and household appliances to curb fossil fuel use. The nonprofit previously listed Abrams as its senior counsel.
Rewiring America did not respond to the DCNF’s request for clarification on Abrams new role.
Abrams, while speaking in her previous capacity as senior counsel for Rewiring America, used nonpartisan language to imply that a key part of the nonprofit’s mission is to mobilize voters to cast ballots for Democratic candidates in November.
“The work of winning an election is not simply who is running. It’s not just what’s on the ballot; it’s who’s in the booth. And to get people into the booth, you have groups like Rewiring America, a nonpartisan organization that exists to tell people what’s possible,” Abrams said during an interview alongside Rewiring America’s CEO, Ari Matusiak, at the Bloomberg Green Ideas festival in Seattle in July. “That’s the work of everyone who cares about the future of this country. And so I’m not concerned, I’m committed. And our job is to convince every person who shares that value system and wants to see that future to show up and do the same work and get more people to vote.”
During the interview, Abrams also endorsed President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s then-2024 Presidential candidate, and described the reelection of former President Donald Trump as an “existential crisis.”
Following Biden’s decision to end his campaign for a second term, Abrams quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Rewiring America’s senior policy counsel Dr. Leah Stokes has also endorsed and fundraised for the Harris campaign.
The EPA, the PFC, and Rewiring America did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
The DCNF previously reported that another GGRF recipient, Coalition for Green Capital, held an Aug. 23 webinar during which the nonprofit’s CEO, Reed Hundt, called for the elimination of the United States’ fossil fuel industry and urged the Biden administration to work with the Chinese Communist Party to “change the way that everything is organized in society.”
Featured Image Credit: Flickr/Ted Eytan
