(The Center Square) – Three North Carolina partners to the state Department of Environmental Quality lost $156 million in design and implementation funding with Thursday’s revelation of the slashing of the Biden administration’s Solar for All program.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote on social media, “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. Today, the Trump EPA is announcing that we are ending Solar for All for good, saving U.S. taxpayers another $7 billion.”
North Carolina’s 2.2% share of that was going to help the Department of Environmental Quality and partners create North Carolina’s Solar for All program. The NC Clean Energy Fund, the NC Clean Energy Technology Center and Advanced Energy were in the pact.
“These grants were designed to deliver renewable energy solutions to low-income and historically underserved communities,” said Michelle Carter, clean energy campaigns director for the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters. “The cancellation is not only a betrayal of trust in our democratic system but is a blatant disregard for the environmental, economic, and public health needs of millions of Americans who stood to benefit. We call on Congress to reaffirm their power of the purse and override this harmful decision for the direct benefit of their constituents.”
Democratic U.S. Reps. Deborah Ross, Don Davis, Valerie Foushee and Alma Adams sent a letter to Zeldin asking for a reversal in course of action.
When second-term Republican President Donald Trump in July 4 signed the House Resolution 1, known also as One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund within the $891 billion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was eliminated. It had $20 billion, including the $7 billion for the solar program, going to community development projects.
Litigation, as has become the norm for seven months of the second term of Trump, is expected. U.S. Sen. Bernine Sanders, I-Vt., in fact called it “illegally” killed.
“We will fight back,” he said of the program he authored.
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