Trump EPA pulls plug on $156M Michigan rooftop solar program

LANSING, MI — The Trump administration is canceling a $156 million grant that was awarded last year to fund rooftop solar energy panels at low-to-middle income homes, businesses and government buildings in Michigan.

On Aug. 7, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told the state of Michigan it will claw back its Solar for All funding as part of its termination of $7 billion in similar grants from the Inflation Reduction Act awarded under the Biden administration.

The termination letter cited the new tax-and-spending law passed by Congress in July, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as repealing the underlying authority for the program and its appropriation.

“Congress has made its intent clear — via a repeal of the statutory authorization and all appropriated funding for the program and the administrative burdens of implementing and overseeing the program — that the SFA program is no longer to operate,” the EPA Office of Mission Support letter states.

Michigan moved forward with its Solar for All program this spring after the money was released from a sweeping freeze on federal grants in February. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) announced the first round of projects on July 14 and the second on Aug. 6.

Announced projects total about $13.5 million.

Michigan did not receive the formal termination notice until Tuesday, Aug. 12 while other states and tribes received it last week. The EPA sent it to EGLE staff who’ve left the agency and mistyped the email address of current staff in its finance unit.

The letter was only found after the state technology and budget department gave EGLE access to a former program director’s email account, agency spokespeople said.

Phil Roos, director of EGLE, said the agency had heard rumors about the grant being in jeopardy for several months, but felt it needed to “stay the course.”

“In a time when we’re under a declared national ‘energy emergency,’ a program like this is a critical piece to keep more power available, lower people’s costs — and get it to the people who depend upon it the most,” Roos said.

“You’re both getting direct utility cost savings into the hands of low-income households, but you’re also helping to bolster a whole ecosystem of people that do this kind of work,” Roos said. “There’s a lot of multiplier benefits.”

Awarded projects would submit receipts to EGLE for reimbursement. EPA letter acknowledged that state programs may have already begun spending money and stated that “allowable costs” incurred to date could be reimbursed.

States must “promptly refund any unobligated funds.”

Disputes must be filed within 30 days.

Joy Wang, Solar for All program manager at EGLE, said last week that the state was in the process of finalizing grant contracts with pilot projects, but no agreements had been signed.

Announced projects include plans to:

• Retrofit and weatherize homes in Detroit and Highland Park with rooftop solar, battery storage and heat pumps.
• Install solar panels on low-income senior housing in Oakland County.
• Install solar panels at dozens of households in the Upper Peninsula.
• Install solar panels at municipal facilities in Benton Harbor.
• Install solar panels at the Hillsdale Municipal Airport.
• Install solar canopies over the parking lot at Stoney Lakeside Park in Lowell.
• Install solar panels and storage at homes in Ann Arbor’s Bryant neighborhood.
• Install solar panels and storage at the Cadillac wastewater plant.
• Build a community solar garden at an Escanaba brownfield site.

Some projects at municipal public work facilities, such as in Cadillac and Benton Harbor, were intended to help offset utility bills for low-income customers.

Michigan was one of 60 states and tribes nationwide to receive the grants last year. The program was intended to help lower energy costs for nearly a million lower-income households and put more carbon-free renewable energy into the power grid.

Termination of the program is expected to generate lawsuits. Program advocates say the tax-and-spending law does not affect the Solar for All funding and have vowed to challenge the termination in court.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, who introduced the Solar for All program, said EPA’s action was illegal.

“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 families are getting crushed by skyrocketing energy costs and the planet is literally burning, sabotaging this program isn’t just wrong — it’s absolutely insane. We will fight back to preserve this enormously important program.”