Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency have reportedly been instructed to freeze all of the agency’s contracts and grant programs until officials in the new administration can conduct a top-to-bottom review.

“Right now we are in a holding pattern. The new EPA administration has asked that all contract and grant awards be temporarily suspended, effective immediately. Until we receive further clarification, this includes task orders and work assignments,” an internal email originally obtained by Pro Publica said.

In 2013, the EPA gave $84,000 to a researcher at the University of Michigan to study the effectiveness of using churches to promote environmental causes.

More from LifeZette TV

MORE NEWS: ‘The View’ Derails After Kim Klacik Calls Out Joy Behar For ‘Parading In Blackface’

“The EPA awards more than $4 billion in funding for government grants and contracts each year,” Fox News reported on Tuesday.

A brief look at how some of that money was being spent under the Obama administration paints a clear picture as to why the new administration may be looking at an overhaul:

Do you agree that protesting is acceptable, but rioting is not? Yes No Email Address (required) By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement Results Vote

In some cases, the Obama EPA has offered textbook case studies in how to waste taxpayer money on ideologically motivated projects.

[lz_ndn video= 31891691]

In 2014 the University of California, Riverside received $15,000 to create technology to reduce carbon emissions from those infamous scourges of the environment: barbecues. That same year, researchers at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University were given $15,000 of taxpayers’ money to build a pond on a roof, complete with a floating island.

MORE NEWS: Ep 46 | Stark Contrast in Biden and Trump Town Halls, Easy Questions for Former VP, Not Challenged

Also in 2014, the EPA awarded $15,000 to the University of Tulsa to create a system that monitored how much water hotel guests used while showering. The proposal made the rather Orwellian promise that the “technology will … assist hotel guests in modifying their behavior.”

As creepy and ideologically motivated as that grant may have been, at the very least it attempted to address domestic water waste. The agency gave $1.5 million to the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research to study pollution caused by residential cooking — in Africa.

In 2013, the EPA gave $84,000 to a researcher at the University of Michigan to study the effectiveness of using churches to promote environmental causes.

“Climate change — which affects traditional faith-based efforts to improve human health, mitigate poverty and redress social inequity — is inspiring religious organizations to advocate for clean air and water, restore ecosystems, and conserve resources,” the grant stated. “This project seeks to understand the empirical experiences of faith-based environmental efforts within communities.”

The EPA seems to really like the idea of using churches as political propaganda centers. In 2015, the Washington Free Beacon reported that the EPA gave a $30,000 “environmental justice grant” to a Unitarian church that has preached against “white privilege” and called America “structurally racist.”

[lz_related_box id=”79466″]

While not spending money in foreign countries and encouraging pastors to promote radical environmentalism, the EPA also seems to have spent considerable funds trying to answer questions to which the collective wisdom of the human experience already knows the answer.

In 2014, the EPA gave a post-grad student at the University of Oregon $84,000 to study the link between plants and people, and whether or not living in densely populated urban areas with little to no vegetation is unhealthy (it is).

While it is not yet known if current contracts will also be affected by the grant freeze, militant environmentalists across the country are undoubtedly pulling out their hair in fury at the news that no longer will the EPA spend money on liberal pet projects. Responsible Americans who wish their tax money be spent prudently, however, are likely to support the freeze.