A $7 billion program designed to reduce electricity bills while increasing the use of rooftop solar is facing potential cuts from the Trump administration.
The Solar for All program survived previous waves of cancellations of other renewable energy initiatives this year, but grant recipients have said they expect to receive notice as soon as this week that the funding will end.
The New York Times was the first to report on this likely action, while an administration official has said that no decisions have been made.
Solar for All is notable for the way it supercharged the idea of helping people gain access to rooftop solar with funding that was hundreds of times greater than the scattered state and nonprofit programs that preceded it. Legal and policy experts who work in renewable energy and some of the elected officials who helped to approve the funding in 2022 argue that its cancellation would be a tragedy.
And an attempt to end the program would be legally dubious, said Jillian Blanchard, vice president for climate change and environmental justice at the nonprofit Lawyers for Good Government.
“If this administration chooses to completely ignore the will of the people, Congress, and critically rising energy bills, then we will see them in court,” she said in an email.
“It’s a terrible idea, and one I hope this administration does not go through with even in the face of increasing rumors to the contrary,” she said.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the program, had this statement in response to questions about Solar for All: “With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is working to ensure Congressional intent is fully implemented in accordance with the law.”
Sachu Constantine, executive director of the advocacy group Vote Solar, was attending a conference Tuesday in Colorado about expanding access to solar power when word began to spread that the EPA was preparing to send out termination letters to the organizations that had received funding from Solar for All. The media reports about the likely cancellation soon followed.
“The EPA’s clawback of contractually obligated funding, in defiance of court orders, is both punitive and shortsighted,” he said in an email. “Many of these projects are shovel-ready. Michigan already has three residential and five community-scale projects underway. Abandoning these projects now puts millions of dollars and thousands of jobs at risk in communities already struggling with underinvestment and poor infrastructure.”
But it’s not surprising that the Trump administration would look askance at Solar for All. The program is part of the broader Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and the administration has already sought to cancel funding for the “green bank” programs that make up the bulk of the fund.
The cancellation of the program would come at a time when expanded access to solar is especially needed, said Alexandra Klass, co-director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program at the University of Michigan. She worked in the Department of Energy during the Biden administration, serving as deputy general counsel for energy efficiency and clean energy demonstrations.
“There’s so much going on that’s bad in many, many ways,” she said. “We have electricity prices going up, we have electricity demand going up and we have the federal government preventing developers and individuals from accessing the lowest-cost energy available [from renewable sources] and wanting to sort of turn back the clock to where we were all dependent on coal and oil and gas. That just makes no sense unless your ultimate goal is to support the oil and gas industry and to reduce competition with those industries.”
Solar for All has 60 grantees—49 awards at the state level, six to tribes and five to multi-state coalitions. The Biden administration said last year that the program would provide solar energy to 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities, a mix of rooftop solar and subscription-based community solar.
Now the grant recipients are left to scramble.
“These proposed grant cancellations would directly impact many residents who were slated to benefit from up to 20 percent energy savings on utility bills, better resilience against extreme weather, and healthier communities,” said a statement from GRID Alternatives, an Oakland, California-based nonprofit, which received two grants worth a total of $310 million and was a partner in a third grant of $62 million. “In addition, canceling these grants would stop vital projects that are already in motion, many of which already have public-private partnerships, workforce development, and infrastructure planning.”
Another grant recipient, Bonneville Environmental Foundation of Portland, Oregon, was awarded $57 million to oversee the Solar for All program in Idaho and $30 million for the program in Wyoming.
“At this time, BEF has not received any official communication from the EPA regarding the status of our Solar for All grant,” said Hilary Shohoney, the foundation’s chief of staff, in an email. “We are aware of credible concerns among grantees that draft termination letters are being prepared, but we have no direct confirmation from the agency.”
She shares others’ view that Congress did not intend to rescind Solar for All’s funding.
“This program remains fully aligned with congressional intent and delivers critical benefits to the rural and frontline communities we serve,” she said.
Elected officials who had supported Solar for All expressed their disagreement with any attempt to defund it, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who was one of the program’s leading proponents.
“I introduced the Solar for All program to slash electric bills for working families by up to 80 percent—putting money back in the pockets of ordinary Americans, not fossil fuel billionaires,” he said in a statement. “Now, Donald Trump wants to illegally kill this program to protect the obscene profits of his friends in the oil and gas industry. That is outrageous.”
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Dan Gearino covers the business and policy of renewable energy and utilities, often with an emphasis on the midwestern United States. He is the main author of ICN’s Inside Clean Energy newsletter. He came to ICN in 2018 after a nine-year tenure at The Columbus Dispatch, where he covered the business of energy. Before that, he covered politics and business in Iowa and in New Hampshire. He grew up in Warren County, Iowa, just south of Des Moines, and lives in Columbus, Ohio.
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