Awardees under a nationwide solar power program are still reeling from EPA’s decision last week to terminate $7 billion in climate law grants that had survived earlier rounds of cancellations.
Several grantees told POLITICO’s E&E News that they were still weighing whether to accept EPA’s terms or to dig in and fight the cancellations in court.
EPA terminated all 60 grants to states and nonprofits on Aug. 7, citing a provision in President Donald Trump’s megalaw that the agency claimed made it “no longer legally permissible” to administer the $7 billion program, which was created under the Inflation Reduction Act to expand solar energy in low-income communities across the U.S.
The tax and spending law that Trump signed on July 4 rescinded authorization for Solar for All and two other programs that were part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the single-largest initiative in the IRA. It also clawed back “unobligated” funding for those programs. But legislation to cancel previous authorizations doesn’t typically work retroactively.
