Trump administration EPA to claw back $7 billion Solar For All funds

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to claw back all $7 billion of grants made available through the Biden-era Solar For All program, according to reporting by the New York Times.

Solar for All is a funding program launched by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in June 2023. The goal of the program is to enable millions of low-income households access to affordable, resilient, and clean solar energy. It disburses grants to states, territories, tribal governments, municipalities and nonprofits.

According to the New York Times, the EPA is drafting termination letters to the agencies and groups that received the grants with the goal of sending the letters this week.

Analysis by research firm Atlas Public Policy said only $53 million of the $7 billion in funds awarded has been spent so far.

EPA said the solar projects enabled by the fund would reach 900,000 households and lead to average household savings of about $400 annually, or $33 per month, on electricity bills. Total household savings were projected at over $350 million annually, and the program would lead to than $8 billion in cumulative savings over a standard 25-year solar project life, said the EPA.

“Solar energy is cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than dirty fossil fuels. By rescinding these grants, Donald Trump is denying our most vulnerable communities a resource that would have helped alleviate their financial burdens and improved their quality of life,” said Patrick Drupp, policy director, Sierra Club.

Regionally and nationwide, the cut of funds is expected to lead to job losses and higher electricity prices. In the South, for instance, nearly five million households face a high or severe energy burden, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. Rooftop and community solar programs funded by the program are helping to alleviate these burdens with a guaranteed 20% savings on electricity bills for participating households.

The EPA estimated the residential and residential-serving community solar projects would cumulatively reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions by over 30 million metric tons CO2 equivalent. This is equivalent to the emissions of over 7 million typical passenger vehicles, said the EPA.

Programs funded by Solar for All are expected to deploy and unlock over 4 GW of distributed solar energy entirely for low-income and disadvantaged communities, according to the EPA. It said programs created by the funds would “create hundreds of thousands of jobs all across the country over the next five years.”

Solar for All grant recipients committed to apply Davis-Bacon Act labor standards and the Build America, Buy America Act to their programs.

“If leaders in the Trump administration move forward with this unlawful attempt to strip critical funding from communities across the United States, we will see them in court,” said Kym Meyer, Southern Environmental Law Center litigation director. “We have already seen the immense good this program has done on the ground and we won’t let it be snatched away to score political points.”

An EPA spokesperson told the New York Times “no final decision” has been made on the grants and that the agency is “working to ensure Congressional intent is fully implemented in accordance with the law.”

Popular content

How long do residential solar panels last?

04 August 2025 Several factors affect the productive lifespan of a residential solar panel. In the first part of a series, we look at the solar panels themselves.