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The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is weighing a plan to slash a multibillion-dollar Biden-era green energy program focused on installing solar panels on residential properties, Fox News Digital has learned.
The EPA is considering sending letters to dozens of nonprofits and state groups that received federal grants under the Biden administration’s “Solar for All” program to inform them the grants have been canceled, the New York Times reported earlier Tuesday. The Solar for All program is a $7 billion initiative launched in 2024 to deliver residential solar to “900,000 low-income and disadvantaged households” across the country.
Fox News Digital learned that the EPA has not made a final decision on the grants as of Tuesday afternoon.
“With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is working to ensure congressional intent is fully implemented in accordance with the law,” an EPA spokesperson told Fox Digital Tuesday when asked about the report to cancel the grants.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes provisions related to solar, including phasing out solar tax credits.
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EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has been leading federal grant cuts at EPA left over from the Biden administration. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The Biden administration announced in April 2024 that 60 nonprofits and state groups nationwide would receive $7 billion in grant awards to install residential solar, which administration leaders predicted would lead to more than $350 million in annual savings on electric bills for middle- and low-income households. It is unclear how much of the $7 billion in funds already has been spent.
The program was funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, and was touted by President Joe Biden’s EPA Administrator Michael Regan and John Podesta, Biden’s adviser for international climate policy, as a win for low-income homes in need of cheaper electric bills.
“Solar is the cheapest form of electricity – and one of the best ways to lower energy costs for American families,” Podesta said in a press release at the time. “Today’s announcement of EPA’s Solar for All awards will mean that low-income communities, and not just well-off communities, will feel the cost-saving benefits of solar thanks to this investment.”
Former President Joe Biden repeatedly touted his green energy legacy, which included billions in climate funding under the Inflation Reduction Act. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)
Biden placed green energy initiatives as a top priority throughout his presidency. In the waning days of his administration, for example, he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Amazon rainforest to tout his green legacy before departing office, and also declared during a climate summit in September 2024 that he and then-Vice President Kamala Harris pursued “an ambitious climate policy focused on growth” despite being “told it couldn’t get done.”
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President Donald Trump has slammed the Biden administration’s green energy legacy, including calling wind and solar energy a “blight” on the U.S. (Win McNamee/Pool via Reuters; Getty Images)
The Inflation Reduction Act included a handful of green energy projects, such as $350 million in grants aimed at reducing “embodied greenhouse gas emissions of construction materials and products,” and Democrats pledged it would reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40% by 2030.
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The EPA previously has taken a hatchet to Biden-era federal grants related to the environment, including canceling $20 billion in grants under the Inflation Reduction Act – which has led to an ongoing court battle. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in March that the $20 billion in U.S. tax dollars were “parked at an outside financial institution in a deliberate effort to limit government oversight, doling out your money through just eight pass-through, politically connected, unqualified, and in some cases brand-new NGOs.”
President Donald Trump has signed a handful of executive orders and presidential actions overturning Biden-era energy projects. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
The EPA’s consideration to terminate the solar grants comes after the Trump administration announced the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management was canceling new offshore wind development on 3.5 million acres nationwide at the end of July, and called wind and solar energy “a blight on our country,” while adding “smart countries don’t use it.”
