- Two federal judges ruled in September that the EPA illegally terminated the $7 billion Solar for All program — on Sept. 18 in Rhode Island and Sept. 22 in Washington, D.C.
- The program, created under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, awarded $7 billion to 60 recipients to bring solar to more than 900,000 low-income households.
- The EPA is reviewing both rulings and weighing an appeal, so the money is not flowing yet — but recipients now have a court order to cite.
The $7 billion Solar for All program is back — legally, at least. In the span of five days in September, two federal judges ruled that the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency had unlawfully terminated the program and vacated the termination, reopening the path for the largest federal effort ever aimed at putting solar panels within reach of low-income American households.
Two rulings, five days apart
The first ruling came on September 18, when U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy of the District of Rhode Island granted summary judgment to the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and other challengers, declaring the EPA’s termination of Solar for All unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act and vacating it.
Four days later, on September 22, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the District of Columbia reached the same conclusion in a separate lawsuit brought by Harris County, Texas — the nation’s third-largest county, whose own Solar for All grant was worth $250 million. Chutkan held that the EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act by rescinding all $7 billion in appropriated funds, when the spending law at issue only authorized the agency to claw back money that had not yet been obligated.
“By rescinding only unobligated balances available to carry out, Congress impliedly declined to rescind obligated ones, meaning the provision left funds already obligated to grant recipients undisturbed.”
— U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, in her September 22 opinion (Harris County, Texas, v. EPA)
That distinction — between obligated and unobligated funds — is the crux of the case. The EPA had awarded the entire $7 billion to its 60 recipients before a September 2024 deadline, so the money was already committed. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin terminated the program in August 2025 after President Trump’s tax and spending law repealed the provision establishing the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, calling the Biden-era grant program a “boondoggle.” Both judges found Congress had rescinded only what remained unobligated — not the Solar for All grants.
What the program was designed to do
Solar for All was created under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act as part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, often called the “green bank.” In April 2024, the EPA selected 60 recipients: 49 state-level programs receiving about $5.5 billion, six Tribal recipients receiving more than $500 million, and five multistate coalitions receiving about $1 billion.
The EPA’s projections were ambitious: more than 900,000 households gaining access to residential or community solar, over 4 GW of new distributed solar deployed within five years, roughly $350 million in annual electricity-bill savings — more than $8 billion over the 25-year life of the funded assets — and about 200,000 jobs nationwide. Carbon cuts were estimated at 30 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent over five years.
For the plaintiffs, the stakes were workforce and household bills as much as climate. Patrick Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, called the first ruling “a big victory” for states across the country, predicting that when the program runs, “there will be thousands and thousands of union jobs created across the United States.”
“Communities have waited long enough. Nearly every family is looking for ways to cut their energy bill. These dollars should go where Congress intended: toward lower energy bills, less climate pollution, good jobs and cleaner air.”
— Alex St. Pierre, vice president for environmental justice at the Conservation Law Foundation
Why it matters beyond solar
The rulings land at a moment when solar has quietly crossed a historic threshold in the United States. The Associated Press reported that for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal in May 2026 — a milestone that makes the fight over Solar for All less about an emerging technology and more about who gets to participate in an established one. Low-income households spend a far larger share of their income on electricity than wealthy ones, and they are the least able to front the cost of rooftop panels or subscribe to community solar without program support.
The decisions also fit a broader pattern of courts pushing back against the administration’s dismantling of Biden-era climate spending. A divided federal appeals court ruled in August that the administration improperly terminated the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund’s other $20 billion — the part slated for eight community development banks and nonprofits — handing a win to the coalition of nonprofits picked to run it. The EPA has similarly lost rulings over its failure to review grant terms individually before canceling climate programs.
What happens next
Caution is warranted: a court victory is not a cash transfer. The EPA says it is reviewing both decisions and considering its options, including appeals. Bloomberg Law reported that the agency intends to keep the Solar for All funds in a Treasury account until 2031 while it decides its course — meaning grantees should not expect checks tomorrow.
But the rulings change the leverage. As Nick Torrey, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, put it: “We have seen this administration try to resist and appeal and fight. They have to get this money out.” States and tribes that had paused hiring, paused contractor pipelines, and shelved community-solar projects when the funding vanished now have court orders they can point to — and, if the EPA defies a judgment, a stronger contempt record to build on.
Watch three things: whether the EPA appeals before the deadline and to which circuit; whether any recipients move to restart programs on the strength of the rulings alone; and the fate of the companion litigation over the remaining Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund money, which will decide whether this becomes an isolated win or part of a wholesale judicial restoration of the climate-spending programs Congress already funded.
