Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator, announced on X today that the Solar For All grant program is shutting down. This announcement follows the Trump Administration’s sunsetting of many Inflation Reduction Act incentives bolstering domestic solar through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (HR1).
Solar For All was passed into law as part of the IRA to expand access to affordable solar energy to low-income regions across the country. Sixty projects have been awarded a total of $7 billion in federal grants. If these projects are completed, nearly one million homes in the United States will benefit from solar power. The EPA is reportedly sending termination letters to those grant recipients, per the New York Times.
“Solar energy is cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than dirty fossil fuels,” said Patrick Drupp, policy director of the Sierra Club. “By rescinding these grants, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are denying our most vulnerable communities a resource that would have helped alleviate their financial burdens and improved their quality of life.”
This is just the latest in a series of actions the Trump Administration has taken in recent weeks, including tightening restrictions for federal leases for renewable energy projects, rescinding all designated wind areas on the outer continental shelf and eliminating the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.
In 2024, the United States’ domestic solar energy production hit a record-breaking 50 GW of capacity, and as of 2023, the solar energy sector employed more than 263,000 Americans.
“Nothing could be more hypocritical than touting a made-up ‘energy emergency’ to prop up fossil fuels while at the same time taking a sledgehammer to renewable energy projects,” Drupp said. “We will not stand by as Trump continues this dangerous, cruel agenda.”
News item from the Sierra Club
