CBS News, the makers of such hits as “DOGE will make you catch Ebola” and “DOGE will get you eaten by bears” have just submitted a new entry into the DOGE-fear mongering genre: DOGE will cause air pollution in underserved communities. Cute, for sure, but there is a Stacey Abrams-sized hole in their reporting on DOGE-cut EPA grants.
Watch as CBS finds a DOGE-cut program at the Environmental Protection Agency that they can report on (click “expand” to view transcript):
DAVID SCHECTER: Last year the EPA awarded Alicia Kendricks' non-profit a half million dollars to continue monitoring the air in this Dallas neighborhood, where soot from diesel trains and the fumes from a shingle factory pushed pollution levels 2-3 times higher than the rest of the city.
ALICIA SCHECTER: This is about proof.
KENDRICKS: This is about proof.
SCHECTER: The Trump administration has frozen the funds, calling grants like this "radical and wasteful government DEI programs." Without the money, the monitoring network is off-line, in need of maintenance.
KENDRICKS: If we’ve done our part and you're not going to follow up your end of it and you are the federal government, who can trust the federal government? Who can trust what you say?
SCHECTER: Proving their air is polluted has unlocked solutions such as the donation of this clinic-in-a-box.
KENDRICKS: It’s fully equipped.
SCHECTER: So it's like a little doctor's office.
KENDRICKS: Yes.
SCHECTER: When it opens, residents, many without access to health care, can be treated for illnesses like asthma, which is double the state average here.
Would this clinic be here if not for the air monitors?
KENDRICKS: So, actually, I'm going to say no.
SCHECTER: The EPA has canceled more than 400 previously awarded grants including Kendricks'.
The report demonstrates that CBS is not serious about reporting on program cuts at the EPA. Setting aside the merits of the program, it is but a drop in the bucket compared to the massive waste found by DIrector Lee Zeldin and the DOGE team.
It is interesting that CBS would choose to report on this program, while remaining silent on a large-scale grift that can only be compared to Latin American vote-buying schemes.
Per Fox News:
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 News Digital on Sunday.
The Stacey Abrams grant was a big chunk of what Zeldin described as the Biden administration “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” in its waning days. The grant was apparently set up so that Abrams could replace individuals’ appliances with newer, more efficient appliances. Ahead of the election. Essentially a South American socialist vote-buying scheme, funded by the American taxpayer.
We heard nothing from CBS or the rest of the Legacy Media as the details of this humongous grift went public as its underlying program got cut. But now they want to spread victim porn over a far smaller grant. This is why trust in media continues to crater.
Speaking of trust: here are anchors Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson defending the departing producer Bill Owens.
CBS Evening News goes to the mat for departing producer Bill Owens pic.twitter.com/wxmlb1lrnx
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 23, 2025
Click “expand” to view full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBS Evening News on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025:
JOHN DICKERSON: There are reports that the Environmental Protection Agency plans to fire about 280 staffers who work on reducing pollution in minority and low-income communities. And will reassign another 175.
MAURICE DuBOIS: The staffers in the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil RRights would be among the latest to be hit by the Trump cost-cutting ax.
DICKERSON: National Environmental Correspondent David Schechter reports from Dallas on the impact of another round of funding cuts at the EPA.
DAVID SCHECTER: What is this thing?
ALICIA KENDRICKS: So this is an air monitor.
SCHECTER: Last year the EPA awarded Alicia Kendricks' non-profit a half million dollars to continue monitoring the air in this Dallas neighborhood, where soot from diesel trains and the fumes from a shingle factory pushed pollution levels 2-3 times higher than the rest of the city.
SCHECTER: This is about proof.
KENDRICKS: This is about proof.
SCHECTER: The Trump administration has frozen the funds, calling grants like this "radical and wasteful government DEI programs." Without the money, the monitoring network is off-line, in need of maintenance.
KENDRICKS: If we’ve done our part and you're not going to follow up your end of it and you are the federal government, who can trust the federal government? Who can trust what you say?
SCHECTER: Proving their air is polluted has unlocked solutions such as the donation of this clinic-in-a-box.
KENDRICKS: It’s fully equipped.
SCHECTER: So it's like a little doctor's office.
KENDRICKS: Yes.
SCHECTER: When it opens, residents, many without access to health care, can be treated for illnesses like asthma, which is double the state average here.
Would this clinic be here if not for the air monitors?
KENDRICKS: So, actually, I'm going to say no.
SCHECTER: The EPA has canceled more than 400 previously awarded grants including Kendricks'.
KENDRICKS: Can we still empower these residents to have this data?
SCHECTER: Can you?
KENDRICKS: I don't know. I don’t know yet. The EPA left a lot of question marks in everybody's minds.
SCHECTER: And Kendrick can no longer find the staffers who supported the group’s work. We wanted to speak to them, too, but employees are not free to talk to the media.
JUSTIN CHEN: I think they've been placed in a very difficult position.
SCHECTER: Justin Chen is the EPA union representative in Texas.
Do you think the EPA is still interested in protecting the environment?
CHEN: I think the people in the agency are still interested in protecting the environment. I can't really say for those outside of it, you know, who control the purse strings and give the kind of orders.
SCHECTER: The Trump administration says cutting programs such as Kendricks' eliminates special treatment for any one group. But what she sees as a country turning its back on the health and safety of communities that bear the heaviest burdens of pollution.
KENDRICKS: If you're not here to protect the environment that we live in, what are you here for? What is your agency for?
DuBOIS: So, David, some people might watch this and say, “this is the outskirts of town.” What do you say to people who think that?
SCHECTER: I actually live 10 miles from Alicia's neighborhood, and you understand that this is a pocket of pollution, and there are pockets all over the place. And pollution, I don't have it in my neighborhood, it is borne unevenly by different communities. That was the whole idea behind the concept of environmental justice and an Office of Environmental Justice. That some communities have a heavier burden than others, and they should get extra relief from that. The Trump administration says all communities, all people should be treated the same.
DICKERSON: How is Alicia Kendricks' grant or her situation? What is the update on that at the moment?
SCHECTER: I just got off the phone with her a moment ago. It has been frozen and then unfrozen by a court and then refrozen again, so they are still sitting there in limbo. What she’s saying is lost, beyond the money, is the sense of trust. When the administration says “trust us, we’ll help you, then the next administration says “no, we're not going to help you,” it just further erodes how they feel in that community about the government.
DICKERSON: All right. David Schecter. With that reporting. Thank you so much, David.
SCHECTER: Thank you.
