EPA considers ending $7 billion Solar for All program funding

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering terminating its $7 billion Solar for All program that was designed to bring renewable and affordable energy to low-income communities, two sources confirmed to CBS News.

The Solar for All program provides funding to 60 grant recipients that planned to create or expand existing low-income solar programs, with the goal of enabling 900,000 households across the country in disadvantaged communities to utilize solar energy to reduce their home energy bills. 

CBS News has learned that the Office of Management and Budget reached out to the EPA about terminating the program. The EPA has not come to a final decision on the future of the program.

“With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is working to ensure Congressional intent is fully implemented in accordance with the law,” an EPA spokesperson told CBS News via email when asked if the agency intends to terminate Solar for All.

As of Tuesday night, none of the 60 grant recipients have been formally notified and said they still have access to grant funds. One source told CBS News that several senators, both Republicans and Democrats, have reached out to the EPA and asked it to reconsider, as many of these recipients are state energy and environmental offices in both red and blue states. 

The New York Times was the first to report the news.

Groundswell, a nonprofit Solar for All grant recipient that works in eight Southern states, has more than $156 million in grant funding on the line. To date, the group has broken ground on 24 megawatts of solar projects worth over $20 million.

“This program covers every single state and U.S. territories, more than 60% of the awards went to state energy offices,” Groundswell CEO Michelle Moore told CBS News. Moore was quick to point out that awards were granted to stakeholders in both red and blue states, adding: “There’s a lot at stake here.”

As electricity bills rise, which experts believe may only increase as more energy-hungry data centers come online, Moore saw Solar for All as a tool to lower energy costs in the South. 

“Solar for All is an investment in energy infrastructure that’s going to serve that residential customer that’s going to keep energy rates in America more affordable and more fair,” she said.

Solar for All awarded grants in August 2024 to 49 state-level agencies, six tribes and five multi-state award recipients, according to the EPA. They include state agencies like the Alaska Energy Authority, which was granted a $62 million award to offer access to renewable energy in both urban and rural areas. Harris County, Texas, which encompasses Houston, was awarded $249 million to provide distributed solar and battery storage to disadvantaged communities in the state, and plan on using the money to support workforce training for low-income residents as well as minority and women-owned businesses.

“Solar for All was a focused program where grants were used to help low- and middle-income households reduce their household electricity costs by up to 20% through solar and storage,” said Zealan Hoover, who was a senior adviser to former EPA administrator Michael Regan in the Biden administration. Hoover spent three years at the EPA helping to implement more than $100 billion in programs authorized under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

“If the EPA is successful in terminating these grants, I anticipate most of the grantees will sue for unlawful termination,” Hoover told CBS News. “If the EPA is ultimately successful, then most recipients will have lost years of work across the country to help low-income households, and all the work will be for naught.” 

Cody Two Bears, CEO of Indigenized Energy, helps tribes and members of the Menominee Nation pursue what it calls “energy sovereignty.” Indigenized Energy belongs to a coalition of tribes that were awarded more than $135 million to build solar projects in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 

Indigenized Energy completed one of the first Solar for All projects in the country earlier this year, despite setbacks when funding had been frozen by the federal government earlier this year. 

He said cutting the Solar for All program is a reminder of the distrust between Native American tribes and the federal government.

“Tribes have always endured broken promises for many generations at the federal level, and this is just another broken promise that tribal nations have to face from our federal government,” Cody Two Bears told CBS News.

Indigenous families face, on average, a 28% higher energy burden according to the Department of Energy.

“It’s devastating news to Indian country and to Native tribes,” he said. “I think the hardest part of this is, we were a year into this process of this five-year grant, and it brought a lot of hope to our tribes. It brought a lot of opportunity and jobs that will be lost if they were to remove this program.”