Environmental Protection Agency is considering abolishing its $ 7 billion solar for all programs, designed to bring renewable and inexpensive energy to low -income communities, two sources confirmed CBS News.
Solar for all programs 60 grants provide funding to recipients who plan to create or expand existing low -income solar programs, with the target of enabling 900,000 homes across the country in the deprived communities to use solar energy to reduce their domestic energy bills.
CBS News has learned that the management and budget office reached the EPA to end the program. The final decision has not come on the future of the EPA program.
The EPA spokesperson told CBS News via email, “With the passage of a large beautiful bill, the EPA is working to ensure that the intention of the Congress is fully implemented according to the law.”
By Tuesday night, none of the 60 grant recipients have been formally informed and said that they still have access to the grant amount. A source told CBS News that several senators, both Republicans and Democrats, have reached EPA and have asked to reconsider it, as many of these recipients have state energy and environmental offices in both red and blue states.
the new York Times Was the first person to report the news.
bumpA non -profit solar, for all grant recipients working in eight southern states, is more than $ 156 million in financing grant on the line. To date, the group has broken land on 24 MW solar projects worth more than $ 20 million.
Groundswell CEO Michelle Moore told CBS News, “The event includes every state and American regions, more than 60% of prizes went to the state power offices.” Moore was in a hurry to tell that stakeholders were awarded prizes in both red and blue states, saying: “There is a lot here.”
As Electricity bill hikeExperts believe that only more energy-shifting can grow Data center Come online, Moore saw solar as a tool to reduce energy costs in the south.
“There is an investment in Solar for All Energy Infrastructure that is going to serve a residential customer who is going to keep the energy rates in the US more cheap and more fair,” he said.
According to the EPA, solar for all grants to 49 state-level agencies, six tribes and five multi-state award recipients in August 2024. They include state agencies like Alaska Energy Authority, which was awarded a $ 62 million prize to provide access to renewable energy in both urban and rural areas. Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, was awarded a $ 249 million for providing distributed solar and battery storage to the disadvantaged communities in the state, and plans to use money to support working training for low-income residents as well as minority and women owned businesses.,
“Solar for All was a concentrated program, where the grant was used to help in low and moderate-or-ore homes and reduced its domestic power costs by 20% through solar and storage,” Jola Hoover said, who was a senior advisor to former EPA administrator Michael Regan in Biden administration. Hoover spent three years in EPA, which helps to implement more than $ 100 billion in authorized programs under the bipartisan infrastructure law and inflation reduction act.
“If EPA succeeds in ending these grants, I think most of the grants will sue for illegal termination,” Hoover told CBS News. “If the EPA eventually succeeds, most recipients would have lost years of work across the country to help in low -income homes, and all work will be for zero.”
Kodi to Beers, K CEO Indigenous energyTribes and Menomini help members of the nation, called “energy sovereignty”. The indigenous energy belongs to a alliance of tribes that were Honored over $ 135 million To manufacture solar projects in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Visconsin and Vyoming.
Swadeshi energy completed one of the first solar for all projects in the country earlier this year, when the federal government was frozen to funding earlier this year.
He said that solar cutting for all programs is reminiscent of mistrust between the original American tribes and the federal government.
Kodi to Beers told CBS News, “The tribes have always tolerated the broken promises for several generations at the federal level, and this is just another broken promise that tribal countries have to face our federal government.”
Indigenous families have to face, on average, 28% more energy burden Department of Energy,
“This is a devastating news for Indian country and indigenous tribes,” he said. “I think it is the most difficult part of it, we were one year in this process of this five -year grant, and it hoped very much for our tribes. It brought a lot of opportunities and jobs that would be lost to remove the program.”
