EPA kills Biden-era grant program to spice up photo voltaic vitality for lower-income households

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday terminated a $7 billion grant program that was meant to assist pay for residential photo voltaic initiatives for greater than 900,000 lower-income U.S. households.

It’s the most recent Trump administration transfer hindering the nation’s shift to cleaner vitality.

The funding, a part of Democratic President Joe Biden’s Solar for All program, was awarded to 60 recipients together with states, tribes and areas for investments corresponding to rooftop photo voltaic and neighborhood photo voltaic gardens.

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Solar, a renewable vitality, is broadly thought to be a option to introduce cleaner energy onto {the electrical} grid and decrease vitality payments for American customers.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stated in a press release on social media that authority for this system was eradicated below the tax-and-spending invoice signed final month by Republican President Donald Trump. The regulation eradicated the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that was authorized below the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The fund put aside $20 billion in “green bank” cash for neighborhood growth initiatives to spice up renewable vitality, and a further $7 billion for the photo voltaic program.

“The bottom line is this: EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive,″ Zeldin said. “Today, the Trump EPA is announcing that we are ending Solar for All for good, saving US taxpayers ANOTHER $7 BILLION!”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, who launched the Solar for All program to slash electrical payments for working households, known as Zeldin’s motion unlawful.

“Solar for All means lower utility bills, many thousands of good-paying jobs and real action to address the existential threat of climate change,″ Sanders said in a statement. ”At a time when working households are getting crushed by skyrocketing vitality prices and the planet is actually burning, sabotaging this program isn’t simply unsuitable — it’s completely insane. We will battle again to protect this enormously vital program.”

The Trump administration has already focused the “green bank” funds, first freezing the grants, then terminating the agreements altogether. Zeldin known as them “a clear cut case of waste and abuse” and a “gold bar” scheme earlier this yr.

The EPA has argued that the tax and coverage invoice regulation repealed the inexperienced financial institution and permits the company to rescind the cash it has already obligated. The recipients of that cash disagree. They say the majority of the cash had already been disbursed and isn’t affected by the regulation.

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Grant recipients have filed lawsuits difficult the administration’s actions, and a choose dominated in April the EPA can’t freeze the contracts.

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the highest Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee, known as Zeldin’s elimination of the photo voltaic program a betrayal “that will further hike electricity costs and make our power grid less reliable.”

“Trump is — yet again — putting his fossil fuel megadonors first,” he added.

St. John reported from Detroit.