Stacey Abrams slammed after defending $2 billion in Biden-era EPA funds to buy green energy appliances

Failed Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is facing condemnation from conservatives after she appeared on MSNBC to defend a $2 billion initiative under the Biden administration’s EPA to purchase green energy appliances for Americans. 

“Stacey Abrams linked Power Forward Communities received $2 billion in tax dollars in 2024 after reporting just $100 in revenue the year before. They were so unqualified that the grant agreement required the NGO to complete ‘How to Develop a Budget’ training within 90 days,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in comment provided to Fox Digital on Sunday. 

“$2 billion in hard earned tax dollars should not have been doled out to this organization for many reasons, especially if they don’t even know how to put together a budget. The Biden EPA ‘gold bars’ scheme is riddled with self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unnecessary middlemen, unqualified recipients, and massively reduced government oversight. The funds are currently frozen, and the DOJ and FBI are investigating.”

Zeldin’s response followed Abrams joining MSNBC on Friday to defend the Biden administration granting $2 billion last year to a group called Power Forward Communities. 

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The group is a consortium of housing nonprofits, such as Habitat for Humanity International, United Way Worldwide and Rewiring America. Abrams reportedly “played a pivotal role” in establishing the group, according to a LinkedIn post by Ian Magruder, who works at one of the coalition’s partners, Rewiring America, Fox Digital previously reported.

Abrams worked with Rewiring America to bring energy efficient appliances to a Georgia community in 2023 and 2024, she said on MSNBC while defending the billions in funds provided to Power Forward Communities. 

“What is this organization? What is your relation to to it? And what does it do,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked Abrams during the program. 

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“In 2023 and 2024, I led a program called Vitalizing De Soto. We worked in a tiny town in south Georgia to demonstrate that by replacing energy-inefficient appliances with efficient appliances, you can lower your cost. And in fact, we accomplished that for 75% of the community. They got appliances that are lowering their bills,” Abrams said, explaining one woman in the Georgia town saw her energy costs slashed by half due to the project. 

Abrams continued that the project was so beneficial to Americans, that a coalition of organizations joined forces to call on the EPA under the Biden administration to copy the program and deliver the same results nationwide. 

“Based on that program, a coalition of organizations – famous organizations – came together and said to the EPA, ‘If we can do this here, we can do this for millions more Americans. Let us invest the money of America in lowering the cost for Americans.’ And the EPA said, ‘OK, great, go for it.’ And they then granted those dollars to this coalition of organizations who came together, bringing 250 years and $100 billion worth of experience to doing this project,” she said. 

The $2 billion was used for the “decarbonization of homes” in low-income communities and paid for new household appliances, such as water heaters, induction stoves, solar panels, EV chargers, and weatherization, according to an April 2024 press release from Power Forward Communities.

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Power Forward Communities CEO Tim Mayopoulos told Politico last month that Abrams did not receive funds from the EPA grant. 

“Stacey Abrams has not received a penny of this EPA grant,” he said last month. “It was never the plan for her to receive any money from this grant. Power Forward Communities has no relationship with Ms. Abrams, other than the fact that she’s one of the people who have advised one of our coalition members in the past.” 

Conservatives on social media slammed Abrams over the media interview, as critics asked why the EPA didn’t provide rebates to Americans who purchased energy-efficient appliances, while others remarked the initiative was intended to “buy votes” in Georgia, which was a battleground state during the 2024 election cycle. 

Fox Digital reached out to the PR firm representing Abrams for comment on the matter on Sunday afternoon, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Abrams argued in the MSNBC interview that conservatives, such as Zeldin and President Donald Trump, are “angry” over the funds provided to the group because Democrats “know how to serve the American people and lower their prices.”

“What they are angry about is that it’s going to work, because we know it can work. And in fact, the hypocrisy is that just today, the EPA quietly released funds for one portion of this program, $7 billion, where $100 million of that will go to West Virginia for solar projects. Another $60 million will go to Alaska for solar projects. They know this works. They know it will reduce cost. They are angry about the fact that it is Democrats who know how to serve the American people and lower their prices,” she said. 

The interview followed Trump calling Abrams out during his speech to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday. 

“$1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee, headed up – and we know she’s involved – just at the last moment, the money was passed over — by a woman named Stacey Abrams. Have you ever heard of her?” Trump said during his speech, with some booing Abrams’ name as Trump spoke. 

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The Washington Post ran a fact-check on the remark, giving Trump four “pinocchios” for the comment, arguing Abrams “does not head the consortium; she did not even head one member of the consortium. She was only an adviser. Moreover, the money was delivered nine months before President Joe Biden left office, not at the last moment.”

Abrams notably did not distance herself from the project during her interview on MSNBC, instead celebrating her work on Vitalizing De Soto, which she explained led to the creation of Power Forward Communities. 

The EPA hit back in its own fact check following the WaPo story that it “is no surprise that the Washington Post continues to toe the line for the radical left and are quick to defend apparent cronyism instead of actually doing the work to investigate on behalf of the American public.”

Fox News Digital’s Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.