More than 20 states sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, challenging the agency’s decision to cancel a $7 billion program that aimed to make solar power accessible to low-income households.
The program, called “Solar For All,” was established in 2022 under the Inflation Reduction Act and had appropriated grants to deploy rooftop and community solar projects. It was part of the Biden administration’s push to reduce carbon pollution and was supposed to make solar power more accessible to nearly a million additional U.S. households.
But in August, the EPA announced that the program had been canceled and withdrew about 90% of grant funds from the accounts in which states had received the awards, according to the lawsuit.
The EPA has been aggressive in its attempts to claw back clean energy funding approved under the Biden administration. The new lawsuit will test whether the agency has overextended its reach in this case. The states behind the legal challenge had hoped that the funding would boost solar supply, reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity production and lower the price of energy.
“Congress passed a solar energy program to help make electricity costs more affordable, but the administration is ignoring the law and focused on the conspiracy theory that climate change is a hoax,” Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown said in a news release. EPA’s decision “jeopardizes” about $156 million for Washington state, according to the release.
Earlier this month, a group of nonprofits and solar installers filed a similar lawsuit over the program’s cancellation.
In response to questions about the newest suit, the White House directed NBC News to the EPA, which declined comment on pending litigation, its typical practice.
The states behind the lawsuit all have Democrat attorneys general or governors. Washington, Arizona and Minnesota are leading the challenge. The complaint was filed in the Western District of Washington.
The lawsuit alleges that EPA “unilaterally and illegally terminated” the program, violating the Administrative Procedures Act, which determines how federal agencies can operate. It also says EPA overreached its “constitutional authority” by trying to cancel a program and funding that had been approved by Congress.
The new lawsuit is part of a two-pronged approach states are taking to fight the Trump administration’s cutbacks to clean energy programs passed under President Joe Biden.
On Wednesday, a similar group of plaintiffs, including states and state energy organizations, filed a separate complaint over the cancellation of individual grant agreements in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
That lawsuit says EPA violated the individual grant agreements it made with states and state energy authorities when it clawed its money back.
The lawsuit claims that EPA used an “an erroneous and bad faith interpretation” of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed under the Trump administration, to justify its actions.
The lawsuit acknowledges that the act gave the administration some ability to rescind Inflation Reduction Act funds, but it argues that the administration was only allowed to take funds that hadn’t already been given away to grantees.
A third lawsuit, filed this month in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island by solar companies, homeowners, nonprofits and unions, relies on similar arguments. It claims the EPA’s action would cause nearly a million people to lose access to affordable solar power, and that “hundreds of thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs will be lost.”
