The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced that it will eliminate a $7-billion grant program designed to help low-income households install solar panels on their homes.
The “Solar for All” program was awarded to 60 recipients including states, tribal groups, regions and nonprofits under the Biden administration’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27-billion program geared toward addressing climate change.
The Solar for All funds would have delivered residential solar projects to more than 900,000 households nationwide.
In a post on X, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin described the program as a boondoggle in which not enough was actually going for solar projects.
“One of the more shocking features of Solar For All was with regards to the massive dilution of the money, as many grants go through pass-through after pass-through after pass-through after pass-through with all of the middlemen taking their own cut — at least 15% by conservative estimates,” Zeldin said. “What a grift.
“With clear language and intent from Congress in the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is taking action to end this program for good,” Zeldin added, referring to President Trump’s tax and spending bill he recently signed into law.
Solar energy is widely considered one of the best ways to address climate change, by eliminating emissions that come from burning coal or natural gas to make electricity. This week, Los Angeles celebrated the opening of one of the nation’s largest solar and battery power plants, the Eland facility in Kern County, which is now supplying 7% of the city’s power.
California is home to multiple projects that received funding from the Solar for All program, according to the federal project database.
They include a $250-million award for California’s Solar for All Program, intended to fund solar initiatives statewide. The California Public Utilities Commission, the California Energy Commission and the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency were going to oversee and distribute the grant funds, which were particularly focused on low-income and disadvantaged communities and California tribes.
Two nonprofits — the Community Power Coalition and GRID Alternatives — each had $250-million awards for separate efforts to develop community solar and multifamily solar projects across several states, including in California.
Environmental groups were outraged by the announcement. Estimates were that the program would have saved low-income households $400 a year on electricity bills, created more than 200,000 jobs and eliminated more than 30 million metric tons of air pollution, according to the nonprofit Climate Power.
“This is a deliberate choice to make life harder for working Americans,” Alex Glass, Climate Power’s communications director, said in a statement. “The Trump Administration isn’t just walking away from climate solutions — they’re ripping affordable energy away from the families who need it most.”
Trump — who received record donations from fossil fuel companies during his 2024 presidential campaign — is making a number of efforts to slow the transition to clean energy while encouraging the use of fossil fuels, including canceling credits for solar and wind projects by the end of 2027. The president has said these efforts will help save taxpayers money and strengthen American energy independence.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, denounced the EPA’s decision to cancel the program as illegal. The funding for the program had already been fully obligated and contracts for all recipients were signed, he said.
“This latest heist from the Trump administration will cause energy costs to rise, keep Americans beholden to monopolistic electric utilities, and make our grid overburdened and less reliable,” Markey said in a statement. “Trump and Zeldin’s attacks on the Solar for All program and their attempts to cancel legally-binding contracts will mean energy bills are going to continue to spike nationwide.”
The program would have created more than $8 billion in overall savings across all 50 states, Markey said.
The Environmental Protection Network, composed of more than 600 former EPA employees, described the decision as an “abrupt and arbitrary” betrayal of public health, environmental justice and economic opportunity.
“Communities promised relief from punishing energy costs are now left in the dark,” former EPA senior advisor Zealan Hoover said in a statement. “Nearly a million families will pay hundreds of dollars more each year for their electricity bill because the Trump administration killed a program that would have more than paid for itself.”
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