Updated on May 14 at 11:39 a.m.
In Washington, D.C., House Republicans plan to gather Tuesday to vote on whether to shred the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark law that has issued hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy incentives since 2022, as part of President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal.
Meanwhile, in Vermont on Tuesday morning, a state program funded by that very law announced more than $22 million of the state’s total grant of $62.5 million would go to help install solar power on low-income housing in the state.
“Currently towns with the highest energy burden in Vermont have the least amount of installed solar,” Kerrick Johnson, commissioner for the Department of Public Service, which controls the state’s grant, said in a statement. “That’s why the primary objective of this program is to deliver benefits to disadvantaged Vermonters, regardless of their dwelling status.”
The funding is part of the Solar for All program, a $7 billion national initiative to lower the cost of electricity by installing solar on buildings and developing solar arrays in communities. Across the country, the program could pass on solar benefits to more than 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal office that administered the grant to 49 states and six tribes, among others.
Vermont’s congressional delegation championed the initiative, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who introduced Solar for All into the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
But funding for the solar program has been under threat before by the Trump administration, and it could be under threat again as the Republican-dominated Congress moves to axe programs from the IRA to achieve the multi-trillion-dollar budget President Trump is calling “The One, Big, Beautiful Bill.”
On Sunday, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee proposed to meet the budget goals by repealing grants from a $27 billion IRA program called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which aims to lower carbon emissions. One of the three programs in that fund is the Solar for All program.
“Donald Trump campaigned on lowering electric bills for working Americans. As president, he’s doing exactly the opposite,” Sanders said in an email Tuesday. “The disastrous reconciliation bill being pushed by Trump and Congressional Republicans would not only make electric bills more expensive for Vermonters, it would make the climate crisis worse.”
Sanders said the good news was that the budget bill couldn’t legally rescind Vermont’s $62.5 million grant that was allocated to the Vermont Department of Public Service.
“The bad news is that Trump does not respect the Constitution or rule of law,” Sanders said. “I will continue to do everything I can to make sure Solar for All funding is deployed to lower electric bills, slash carbon emissions, and create thousands of good jobs.”
The road to how the federal government got to this massive repeal process began in January, when Trump took office and issued a flurry of executive orders. Those included Unleashing American Energy, which called for a 90-day freeze on IRA funds. A letter sent a week later by the EPA notified Solar for All recipients that the hundred of millions of dollars they’d received so far was paused until further notice. Programs across the country, including New Mexico, Tennessee and Wisconsin, were suddenly unable to access their grant funding and proceed with solar projects that require significant upfront investment.
“While the federal funding landscape is dynamic, we have a binding agreement with EPA and the funding is obligated,” said Randy Brittingham, grant program manager at the state energy office for the Vermont Department of Public Service, in an email. After a pause in communication and access to funds this winter, Brittingham said the state is back in regular contact with the EPA. “We’ve successfully drawn funding for this program since that February pause,” he said.
But Lee Zeldin, the new EPA administrator, has gone further since February, claiming in March that President Joe Biden’s administration had doled out billions of dollars that were vulnerable to “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Zeldin tried to claw back $20 billion from the two other programs in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and while caught up in court battles, those funds largely remain frozen. Meanwhile, the EPA Office of Inspector General launched an audit into the program. The audit is ongoing, according to Kim Wheeler, director of strategic communications for that office.
“Solar for All was selected because it is a $7 billion program with a financing structure that is new and different for the EPA,” Wheeler said in an email on Tuesday. She later said that while about $62.5 million has been obligated for Vermont’s Solar for All program, the state has only spent approximately $78,000, and by April 11 all 60 recipients had spent about $31 million.
While Wheeler said her office doesn’t have the authority to make or revoke funding decisions, if her office found an issue with an award during an investigation, it could make recommendations to the EPA.
“If we identified an issue during an audit (such as the project you are asking about), we could recommend that the Agency evaluate whether to suspend payment or terminate the award,” Wheeler said of the Solar for All program.
Until the audit is concluded, Solar for All funding will continue to trickle down to Vermonters. More than a third of the $62.5 million grant was awarded this week to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, a quasi-public entity that acts like a bank for affordable housing, to make solar more accessible for low-income households.
These funds – called Multi Family Affordable Housing – will be awarded to new developers for affordable housing projects like multi-family apartment buildings, largely benefitting renters. Separate programs that fall under the state’s Solar for All program push benefits toward single-family homeowners and community solar projects.
“We know that renters have been very underserved by solar resources in the past, so it’s exciting for us as a housing funder to help developers successfully electrify their buildings and rely less on fossil fuels,” said Mia Watson, special programs manager for the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, who is supporting the Solar for All award.
Tenants who have an electric bill could see at least 20% in bill savings and tenants without an electric bill would receive an equivalent benefit, Brittingham said. He added that all residents would benefit from the climate impacts of growing Vermont’s solar generation.
Residents and developers can attend public outreach sessions hosted by the finance agency in the coming months. The finance agency in partnership with the state will submit a work plan for EPA approval by December. They expect to award funds to developers early next year.
“We’re still cautious about what may happen at the federal level, but so far the indications we have are good that this program is going to happen,” Watson said. “We’ve had strong support from the state and our congressional delegation, especially Sen. Sanders, but I think everyone involved is a little concerned that things could change unexpectedly.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized the relationship between EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General.
Clarification: An earlier version of this story misnamed the EPA Office of Inspector General query into Solar for All. It is an “audit.”
