Despite what you hear about United States withdrawal from the Paris accords and increased grant enforcement from Inspector Generals at the EPA, Department of Energy, and NASA, government and corporate action and funding continues to coalesce around this issue cluster and that is not likely to change quickly if at all, even as the U.S. government reduces its “green” footprint.
However quickly you dismiss the political fight’s effect on the ultimate outcome of the war that is currently raging between global warming advocates and global warming deniers, you should not dismiss the effects this battle has on the risk profile of current government contractors and government grantees. In short, pushback by the current administration policy against “green” initiatives increase the perceived value of these grant fraud cases to enforcers.
Why? Cases against grantees that received money under the last Administration’s priorities helps undermine the moral case for global warming. In fact, undermining the case for global warming through the development of “green” grant fraud cases is a smaller mountain to climb than having to disprove the so-called scientific consensus which, from their vantage point, was created through government grant funding. While it is hard to “prove the negative” (that man-made CO2 has no effect on temperature) it is easier to show that “green” research and development was subject to fraud, waste and abuse. Once the case is made that “green” grants involved fraud, waste and abuse, it is but a small step to establish in public opinion that the “green” technologies themselves are fraudulent.
The Trump Administration can pursue a blue print in the current struggle that was drafted by the Iraq anti-war movement that many believe adversely impacted what was then called the “War on Terror” resulting in what may be viewed as hasty withdrawal from Iraq. In 2005-2006, media accounts began circulating about fraud, waste and abuse in the “war zone.” In October 2006, the National Procurement Fraud Task Force was formed to marshal the efforts by agents and prosecutors. A similar effort involving Grant Fraud has already started today. In January 2007, there were perhaps a half-dozen “war-zone” cases filed. Within three years, there were over 100 warzone cases filed. The vast increase spilled over into fraud generally and in 2010 there had been perhaps 700 cases filed across the Department of Justice involving procurement fraud and grant fraud. There were probably ten to twenty times that number of inquiries, investigations, and qui tam suits filed.
Although it is impossible to factor the effect the public perceptions of fraud and corruption had on public opinion regarding the War in Iraq, no one can argue that its effect was negligible. Here the current Administration wants to undermine resolve in continuing to fight the “War Against a Heating Planet” so prosecutors looking to advance their careers under the new Administration already have begun beating the investigative bushes to see what complainants, informers, complaints and investigations are coming into the “green” fraud enforcement pipeline.
