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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIn a move solar proponents are calling “a devastating blow,” the Environmental Protection Agency abruptly announced this month it is cutting off nearly $130 million in federal funding for solar projects in Indiana.
The money is Indiana’s share of the $7 billion Solar for All initiative, passed by the Biden administration, that was designated for low-income communities to install solar panels.
Nonprofit organizations in Indiana have spent the last two years preparing and were about to start putting up panels when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin posted a video to the agency’s social media accounts Aug. 8 announcing the program is being shut down.
Nonprofit leaders estimate the funding could have helped between 6,000 and 10,000 Hoosier families at a time when studies show Indiana’s utility rates are rising at one of the fastest rates in the U.S.
“It’s really frustrating and disheartening for groups who have been working on this literally for years, even before this grant,” said Alison Becker, program director within the Indiana Community Action Association, which oversees most of Indiana’s federal funding. “And I think what is most disappointing is we’ve seen a ton of news stories recently…about the high cost of electric bills, how homeowners are struggling to afford that.”
Solar for All no more
In the EPA’s video, Zeldin said the agency’s decision to end the Biden-era program is the result of the Trump administration’s budget reconciliation bill which eliminates the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). Solar for All is the solar component of the larger GGRF pool.
Zeldin characterized Solar for All as “a grift” and said shutting it down is a step toward fiscal responsibility.
“EPA no longer has the authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive. With clear language and intent from congress in the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is taking action to end this program for good,” Zeldin said.
The funding for Indiana went into two buckets. One was a regional initiative, but the bulk of the funding—$117 million—went to the Indiana Community Action Association, or INCAA, which then distributed the money to various nonprofits and local governments.
The main goals of the federal funding were to install solar panels for low-income homeowners and renters, which Becker said could reduce electric bills by at least 20%. That potential reduction would have been helpful as recent data from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission shows the average Hoosier electric bill went up 17.5% in the past year.
“To take 20% off of your energy burden can make a huge difference for income-qualified individuals,” Becker said. “It can mean somebody can buy their medicine for the month when they couldn’t before. It could mean they could send their kid to a summer camp that they were unable to afford. It could mean school clothes. It could mean so many different things.”
The program also sought to establish “resiliency hubs” at churches or community centers that could act as charging sites for local residents during outages to power everything from phones to medical devices.
In addition, $6 million of the total was earmarked for job training and certifications programs related to solar projects. Zach Schalk, the program director for Indiana United Solar Neighbors, sees that as a missed opportunity for economic development in the state.
“Solar for All was a win-win-win for everybody, and so to turn their back on this program that was going to help so many families and workers and community members around the state, it just doesn’t make sense,” Schalk said.
United Solar Neighbors focuses on technical support for solar projects including training and design work.
INCAA reports show the largest grant recipients in the state were the cities of Gary ($32.5 million) and Fort Wayne ($12.6 million) and the nonprofit Black Sunlight Sustainability ($31 million).
Funding fight
In the announcement video, Zeldin claimed most of the money allotted to the Solar for All program has not been spent, but Becker and Schalk both said they have already bought materials and begun negotiating with contractors for projects.
Becker added the grants are reimbursement-based, meaning if a project isn’t built or not built to specifications, the contractor isn’t given taxpayer money.
As with other instances where the Trump administration has chosen to cut off committed funding, it seems likely there will be legal challenges to the EPA’s decision.
Becker said INCAA and other groups around the country are considering their legal options, but those decisions will have to be made in the next two weeks per the terms of the termination agreement.
With or without the federal funding, Schalk said his organization will continue to advocate for solar projects in Indiana as a way to make energy more affordable and clean for residents.
“We’re committed to doing everything we can to try to make sure that some of these truly visionary projects, even without the federal funding, that we can keep them moving forward,” said Schalk.
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Solar needs to economically stand on its own.
Tell that to the guy that is wondering how is going to pay his next electric bill.
BTW, wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuel generated electric, so it does stand on its own, but now the only people that will benefit will be rich people. At the same time Indiana businesses are hurt. The Republicans just created a lose-lose situation for Hoosiers.
If this is what winning looks like, I’d sure hate to see what losing might be.
I would agree with that principal if not for several critical factors:
1) Fossil fuel subsidies are HUGE. If we’re going to take away clean energy funding and investments, then we should do the same to the fossil fuel industry. Right now, that is not the plan (quite the opposite, fossil fuel subsidies have increased), which leads me to believe that this is a bad-faith argument.
2) There is a public ROI to investing in solar through a multitude of avenues (taxes collected from new jobs, corporate expansion, lowered health costs from poor air quality, reduced strain on the power grid, increased electrical generating capacity, independent home systems, etc.). Cutting funding for solar *does* have a cost. Contrary to popular belief, there *is* a cost to doing nothing. We’re going to have to figure out how to make up for these lost long-term revenues.
3) Coal is extremely expensive and natural gas, while far cleaner, is finite. I’m on board with nuclear, but even building out modular reactors will take 10-20 years. We need additional capacity *now,* not in some vague future. Investments in commercial solar by the Obama Administration resulted in a drop in price per KwH from roughly $10 in 2008 to just $3.25 in 2024 with a 40% increase in efficiency. That’s pretty impressive! There’s a genuine national security interest to getting residential homes, apartments, and commercial buildings outfitted with solar panels and energy storage. Largely due to massive increases in computing power, our demand for electricity is growing at a rate MUCH faster than our capacity to expand our electrical generation and distribution network. If more homes and commercial buildings are outfitted with solar and energy storage, strain on the power grid declines significantly. When you consider that the Solar for All program was just 0.103% of total Federal spending, this seems like a pretty good deal.
If I were looking at this as a businessman, pulling these investments would be a terrible move.
To the “solar should stand on its own crowd,” consider the following:
If it’s true that the shift towards solar is inevitable because it is cheaper, cleaner, more reliable, and infinite, and it is the undeniable truth, then the U.S. should throw the full weight of its resources behind it just like we did with the space race, nuclear bomb race, and countless other innovations throughout our history. To give up the race to China because some politicians are bought and paid for by Big Oil is fundamentally against American values. You are not patriotic, you are not “tough on China.” You are brainwashed and giving China a greater gift than they ever could have fathomed.
We’ll be the country of data centers, traffic jams, interminable school pickup lines, and smog. China will be the country with clean air, convenient and reliable transit, and cutting edge technology. They’re already so far ahead of us.
+1
China is kicking our butt. They’re zipping around on trains faster than god but we’re still stuck in traffic and willingly ceding our technological prominence to them.
When energy consumers do anything to reduce their usage rate the utilities respond by increasing rates to restore revenue lost to energy conservation efforts by consumers .