Trump’s EPA accused of illegally axing $7 billion solar energy program

(CN) — A batch of conservation groups and solar companies sued the Trump administration on Monday over its decision to terminate Solar for All, a $7 billion federal program aimed at expanding solar power to low-income communities to create jobs, combat climate change and lower energy costs.

In a 47-page complaint, filed in federal court in Rhode Island, the groups accuse the Environmental Protection Agency and its head Lee Zeldin of “hastily and unlawfully” eliminating the Solar for All program this summer — a move they say only Congress, not the executive, has the right to make.

“Defendants’ actions violated federal law, including the Administrative Procedure Act and the United States Constitution,” they wrote in the lawsuit.

The EPA announced it was cutting the program in August, with Zeldin attributing its termination to Republicans’ flagship taxation and spending law, the One Big Beautiful Bill.

“The One Big Beautiful Bill eliminated the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which included a $7 billion pot called ‘Solar for All’ … The bottom line is this: EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive,” Zeldin wrote in a social media post on Aug. 7. “Today, the Trump EPA is announcing that we are ending Solar for All for good, saving US taxpayers ANOTHER $7 BILLION!”

But the groups claim that, while Congress repealed large parts of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, it did not repeal the Solar for All program retroactively.

The One Big Beautiful Bill only rescinded “unobligated balances,” which the groups argue preserved Solar for All’s $7 billion of obligated funding EPA had already awarded through the grants.

Without the program, the groups claim that nearly 1 million low-income households will lose access to affordable solar energy across the country. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost, too, they say.

The plaintiffs in the case are not direct recipients of the allocated grant funding, rather groups who say they’d generally benefit from the program. They include nonprofit conservation organizations, a labor group and an individual homeowner who was set to pay lower energy bills with a switch to solar energy.

Rhode Island AFL-CIO, Rhode Island Center for Justice, Solar United Neighbors and Black Sun Light Sustainability are among the listed groups suing the government.

“Families all over the country were counting on energy bill relief that disappeared overnight when the administration unlawfully terminated Solar for All,” Nick Torrey, a Southern Environmental Law Center attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “This popular program was poised to bring more solar to our communities, provide jobs for the small businesses installing those projects, and help families get cheap, clean power. We’re asking the court to fix the Trump administration’s huge mistake.”

Lawyers for Good Government attorney Jillian Blanchard, who is also representing the plaintiffs, called the termination of Solar for All “a betrayal against a million American families and communities who need access to clean, affordable energy.”

“By terminating the Solar for All program while simultaneously ending clean air protections, this administration is sending a clear message: They will make Americans pay with their savings and their health in order to benefit the fossil fuel industry,” she said in a statement.

An EPA spokesperson told Courthouse News that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Monday’s lawsuit is the latest entry in a laundry list of cases challenging the Trump administration’s unprecedented use of the executive branch to slash federal spending — a practice that has been scrutinized by courts around the country.

In June, a federal judge in Massachusetts slammed the White House over its bid to cut public health grants for the National Institutes of Health, finding the efforts illegal and discriminatory. Last week, a Rhode Island federal judge blocked the administration from tampering with the state-to-state allocation of Congressionally approved anti-terrorism funding.

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