What’s New:
Back in August, the EPA pulled funding for Solar for All, which we spoke about in a previous video.
The grants would have helped more than 900,000 households save hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year by installing rooftop solar on low-income homes and investing in community projects.
Last week, several groups, including Solar United Neighbors and cities all across the country, filed lawsuits against the EPA for canceling the project and attempting to claw back the funds.
Why it Matters:
It’s easy to get caught up in the numbers with stories like this. We hear “900,000 households” and think “wow, that’s a lot of people,” without ever realizing what that actually means for the towns and families impacted by this.
I wanted to take today’s episode to zoom in on the human impact of cancelling Solar for All.
Earlier this week, on October 11th, The New York Times published a piece featuring the story of Jennifer McCoy, a single mother of three from Georgia. I’ve linked the article below in today’s email.
Ms. McCoy works two jobs, as a delivery driver for Walmart and a manager at a tire store. She uses food stamps for groceries, and often struggles to pay her bills. Electricity has become one of her biggest monthly costs, because Georgia residents have seen electricity prices rise by 33% in the last two years.
In August, Ms. McCoy’s electricity bill was $548.
It’s situations like this that Solar for All was designed for. It was federal money earmarked to help our most vulnerable citizens save money on electricity. Imagine what a single mother of three could have done with an extra $500/month freed up.
Of the $156 million that was awarded to the state of Georgia in Solar for All funding, the Georgia Bright Communities Coalition planned to use $12 million to give solar energy systems to more than 900 low-income households like Ms. McCoy’s, so they could put the money they were forced to spend on out-of-control electricity bills to better use.
Georgia Bright held a randomized drawing to find homeowners interested in putting solar on their roofs and received more than 500 entries within 24 hours of opening it up on their site. The McCoy family applied.
Three days later, when the EPA pulled funding, Georgia Bright was forced to pause the program, leaving hundreds of households like the McCoy’s feeling like the rug had been pulled out from under them.
Later that day, in a social media video, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the program a “boondoggle” from the Biden Administration, which would waste “billions of green slush fund dollars.”
Among the organizations now suing the EPA for cancelling Solar for All is Harris County, Texas, which had planned to use the money to cut power bills and keep vulnerable neighborhoods safe during outages and extreme weather events.
The county would have deployed rooftop solar and battery systems for tens of thousands of low-income households and invested in “community energy hubs” at rec centers, colleges, and administrative buildings.
Those hubs were designed to double as safe havens during Gulf Coast heat waves and storms, providing backup power for cooling, medical devices, and communications when outages hit.
Harris County, Texas, sued the EPA to restore roughly $400 million in grants that the county and partner cities had lined up to cut power costs for low-income residents and to use solar energy to make community facilities less susceptible to outages.
Solar for All wasn’t some frivolous climate initiative. It was built to lower bills for people who routinely choose between groceries, gas, and their electricity payment.
The program had also enjoyed bipartisan interest and support. States that went red in the 2024 election, like Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, applied for or received awards. Several conservatives publicly acknowledged the appeal of giving working families access to rooftop solar and batteries they could never otherwise afford.
Solar for All was designed so that our most vulnerable citizens could keep more of their desperately needed money. It was intended to stop single moms from having to choose between food and electricity.
As this story unfolds over the next few months, and cities all over the country fight for the grants they were promised, please don’t forget the human cost in all the numbers.
Sources:
Solar for All Program Cuts Hit G.O.P and Democrat Voters Alike - The New York Times
Harris County sues Trump EPA to restore $400M in Texas solar energy funding
POLITICO Pro | Article | Fallout from EPA’s Solar for All termination
Groups sue EPA over canceled $7 billion solar program intended to help poorer Americans
