As EPA cut grants for solar, Gov. Healey urged they remain: ‘Affordability isn't controversial'
The Healey administration and the state's U.S. senators urged the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday morning not to cancel a $7 billion grant program intended to place solar with low income households across the nation.
It was for naught. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced on social media Thursday afternoon the administration was ending the program because the passage of the budget reconciliation bill in July eliminated its authority to run the program.
'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,' Zeldin wrote.
Massachusetts was set to receive $156 million under the EPA's Solar for All program, a program that would provide zero-interest loans, solar panels at public housing and fund workforce training, all with focus on historically underserved communities.
Solar for All, which the Biden administration announced last year as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, was scheduled to begin operating in Massachusetts in a few weeks, the Healey administration said.
Ahead of the announced cuts, Healey's office said the funding was set to create 3,000 jobs and provide energy-bill-lowering solar for more than 29,000 households in the state. Further, it said the move would be illegal.
'Solar is the fastest and cheapest way to bring affordable energy into Massachusetts,' Healey said in a statement Thursday morning. 'Affordability isn't controversial – that's why states like Texas and Florida are building so much solar. And that's why my administration has been working hard to deliver more affordable solar to our residents and businesses through new incentives and programs like Solar for All."
The EPA press office said Thursday morning the agency had not yet made a decision about the grant. Rather, it said because of the passage of the budget reconciliation bill, it was evaluating how to fully implement Congress' intent.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat, said states with Republican senators and governors are slated to receive $4.6 billion through the Solar for All program.
'The Solar for All program means lower electric bills for all,' Markey said in a statement. 'Any attempts to terminate these legally binding contracts would be an attack on American households, who are already facing skyrocketing energy costs and begging for relief, not political retribution.'
Healey's office said the program would boost the state's solar capacity by 125 megawatts and touted the effect solar generation already has on the state. On April 20, solar arrays supplied 55% of electricity across the grid in New England, Healey's office said. It said local solar relieves stress on the grid's transmission and distribution infrastructure.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, said in a statement that she fought for the funding, adding that 'canceling it would be reckless and further proof that the Trump administration doesn't care about lowering costs.'
A Massachusetts household that switches to solar saves about $2,400 a year, but low-income residents have typically not seen those savings. Low-income residents use the state's main solar incentive program at a rate of 6%, according to an overview of the Solar for All program published by the state.
Massachusetts' program would place solar arrays at public housing authorities, for instance, as long as the installation delivered at least 20% in savings to tenants. Its funding would also go towards creating community solar projects.
The Solar for All program aimed to facilitate no-interest loans with local banks and credit unions and offer technical assistance to place solar on homes where residents have an income under 80% of the area median income, the overview said.
About 60 states, nonprofits and tribes received funds as part of Solar for All. Altogether, the funding was set to connect solar with 900,000 households across the nation, according to the Biden administration.
One nonprofit based in Hartford, Connecticut, received almost $250 million to work with rural communities across 46 states, including Massachusetts, according to the EPA.
Inclusive Prosperity Capital announced on Earth Day 2024 that the EPA awarded it part of the Solar for All funds. The CEO of Inclusive Prosperity Capital, Kerry O'Neill, said in a statement at the time that the nonprofit would use the funds with a coalition 'to build a movement of community-based solar developers who are committed to providing significant benefits to low-income and disadvantaged communities.'
The nonprofit did not immediately provide comment when asked about its work in Massachusetts.
more news from Western Massachusetts
After another record year at the MassMutual Center, Springfield's convention promoters look forward to more visitors
Holyoke DPW workers: City's contract demands slowing negotiations
The no-go zone: Why are there no bathrooms at I-91 rest areas?
Religion Notes: Aug. 7, 2025
Demolition to begin at vacant Mary Lane Hospital campus in Ware
Read the original article on MassLive.
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Geoff Epstein wants to become Framingham's third mayor. Here are his priorities
FRAMINGHAM — He has three key priorities, a clear campaign finance strategy and a name that ... has brought some attention. Geoff Epstein has big plans for Framingham. Epstein, a former School Committee member, hopes to become the city's third mayor. He's facing off against incumbent Mayor Charlie Sisitsky, who's seeking a second four-year term, in the Nov. 4 city election. After filing with the state's campaign finance office in January, Epstein, who also writes The Framingham Observer blog, went on to acquire enough signatures to appear on the ballot in November. In a sit-down interview with the Daily News, Epstein shared his goals if elected, which include investing more in the schools, installing more environmental projects and repairing infrastructure. Mayoral candidate is focused on three main issues Epstein said his top three issues are education, environment and infrastructure. Epstein, who has served on both the Framingham and Newton school boards, says things have gotten worse in Framingham Public Schools over the past four years. While saying the School Department has the best team the city could have, he says it's time to return money to the school system. 'Our schools were promised': Trump administration review holds up $1M in Framingham education grants According to Epstein, Framingham schools have been defunded by $30 million in taxpayer-funded support. He said that because local funding strayed from the trajectory it was on when he was on School Committee, that money has been defunded. 'If it had stayed on the trajectory it was on, the local support, taxpayer-funded support of the schools, it would be at $95 million,' Epstein said. 'If you compute overall, what's the difference between if it stayed on the direction it was going when I was there (on the School Committee)? Thirty million.' According to the schools' fiscal 2026 budget sheet, local funding went from $89.8 million in fiscal 2022 to $84.8 million in fiscal 2023. This was further reduced to about $80 million in fiscal 2024 before rising to $86.7 million in fiscal 2025. For the current year, the school budget has $90.6 million in local contribution funding. Epstein also said MCAS scores have gone down for every grade. "That's unusual, there's something really dire about that," he said. Epstein wants to expand preschool for students in order to increase English language profiency before they start kindergarten. He also wants to boost compensation for classroom aides, as well as address the city's teacher retention rate. 'Urgency of climate change': Framingham State unveils its latest sustainability initiative "Teacher morale is low, so you've got a situation where students are not performing well and the teachers are leaving, which is very unusual, Epstein said. "The school school system is trending down because of that." For the environment, he wants to expand solar installations on public buildings, something he said the city should have begun awhile ago. "We should have gone gangbusters on that and installed them," Epstein said, adding that installing solar panels at schools and parking lots would generate up to $3 million in utlity savings. "I thought that was a natural thing that should obviously be done and wasn't; if I get elected mayor, we'll try and do 10 solar installations a year, which you can actually do." Lastly, Epstein wants to address what he says is a backlog of roof and road repairs, along with water and sewer infrastructure. He pointed out that a year ago, Department of Public Works Director Robert Lewis called the city's water and sewer infrastructure a "ticking time bomb" during a City Council public hearing. "We're not alone, other communities are trying to deal with this, but we have not invested properly in it," Epstein said. "It's Governance 101, invest in your infrastructure." Epstein talks campaign finance On his website, Epstein said he needs $30,000 in donations to run an effective campaign. He said that the big money in campaigning comes from getting the word out through mailers, yard signs and social media. "Suppose you're targeting 10,000 voters, it costs about $1 for each one," he said. "If you send out a mailer, it's $10,000 for a mailer; if you do two, it's $20,000. You can run a district race for about $3,000 — I've done that and that's what it takes. This is nine districts, so it scales up to about $30,000." As of Aug. 6, Epstein has raised $10,838, with about $5,000 of his own money. By comparison, Sisitsky has raised $42,763 since Jan. 1. 'Isn't just about property': Why Nobscot residents take dim view of new housing proposal "I'm supporting Geoff because he has the technical confidence to analyze the finances of Framingham and to analyze administrative systems the city uses," said Carol Spack, who is running for City Council in District 2. "Geoff will bring, at the top, a philosophy and value system Framingham needs to be a town where government is committed to public service." Epstein also is declining to take donations from real estate developers, claiming they have undue influence on city officials. He pointed to J&Co., the developers behind the controversial Nobscot development, and other developers donating to local campaigns. "I feel like when developers pay you $1,000, they expect something back," Epstein said. About his name... While Framingham residents have known about Epstein for awhile, his campaign recently picked up some viral attention after the name of a certain American financier and child sex offender — the late Jeffrey Epstein — again became part of the news cycle. Epstein's campaign was soon picked up by Politico's Massachusetts Playbook, the New York Post, HuffPost, NewsNation and WBZ's TikTok with reporter Matt Shearer. The Framingham mayoral candidate, who pronounces his last name "ep-stine" as opposed to "ep-steen" has no interest in running from his name. "He was a pretty dark guy and did some terrible things," Epstein said. "You just have to take it as it comes and laugh about it, and that's the approach I've taken because it is my name. I like my name. It's nothing to do with him, but also, I believe with any trouble that comes with any discomfort, you got to talk about it." Framingham election to be held in November Framingham's city election is Nov. 4. The deadline to register to vote is 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 25, if in person and 11:59 p.m. that day if online. All public officials are sworn in on Jan. 1. This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Geoff Epstein outlines priorities in campaign for Framingham mayor Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
21 minutes ago
- New York Times
Trump Wants to Fight Democrats on Crime. They're Treading Cautiously.
With his efforts to take control of law enforcement in Washington, D.C., this week, President Trump has pushed the issue of crime back to the foreground of American politics. In doing so, he's invited a fight with Democrats, who are treading cautiously as they seek to forcefully oppose the federal incursion into the nation's capital, something no president has ever attempted, without getting caught up in a debate over public safety on Mr. Trump's terms. Mr. Trump and his Republican allies wielded the sharp increase in violent crime in urban areas during the pandemic as a campaign cudgel, winning control of the House in the 2022 midterms. Mr. Trump expanded his winning coalition two years later, in part with promises to prevent the rest of America from becoming like the cities he called 'unlivable, unsanitary nightmares,' deriding the data that showed improvement across the country. While his tactics in Washington, D.C., are extraordinary, the effort is an actualization of one of his most tried-and-true political arguments: Democrats — often Black Democrats — have let lawlessness run rampant in the cities and states they were elected to run. At a moment when Mr. Trump's approval ratings even among his supporters are declining, he appears to be laying the groundwork for Republicans to once again weaponize the issue in the midterm elections. Mr. Trump has sent National Guard troops to patrol the streets, turned federal law enforcement officers into beat cops and sought to put the local police department fully under his administration's control. And the president has suggested he wants to bring his brand of law and order to Chicago; Baltimore; Oakland, Calif.; and New York, all liberal cities in blue states, while avoiding any mention of high-crime cities in red states, like Memphis or St. Louis. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CNN
21 minutes ago
- CNN
‘An existential threat': For Silicon Valley, falling behind in AI is a bigger threat than tariffs
If there's one thing the White House, Wall Street and Silicon Valley can agree on, it's that artificial intelligence is a top priority. Tech giants are pouring billions into new data centers and infrastructure to support the technology. The White House came out with an AI action plan in July to boost America's leadership in the space, underscoring the tech's importance to the administration. Wall Street keeps pushing AI-related stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) to new records. But President Donald Trump's trade war has raised questions about whether the administration's policies could work against its big AI push. Certain tariffs could raise the costs of materials and components necessary to support those AI models. For example, the president said on August 6 that he would issue a 100% tariff on semiconductors imports, although he added that companies that have committed to expanding their manufacturing operations in the US would be exempt. (He did not give an exact timeline for when those tariffs would start.) And in late July, he imposed a 50% tariff on copper, which is used in electronic components such as printed circuit boards and chips. But while tariffs could stoke uncertainty around costs, experts say they won't slow technological advancements, primarily because the stakes are simply too high to fall behind in the global AI race. For large tech companies like Meta and Microsoft, losing in AI would be a higher price to pay than any additional costs from tariffs. Dallas Dolen, the US technology, media and telecommunications lead for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said these types of companies likely view the AI boom as an 'existential moment' for their businesses. 'Cost, if you have enough money, is not the most important variable that you take into account when you're told it's an existential threat,' he said to CNN. When Meta, Microsoft and Google reported earnings in late July, one message rang loud and clear: Big Tech is spending big on AI, and it's starting to pay off. Meta spent $17 billion in capital expenditures for the quarter that ended in June, and it saw its earnings per share go up 38% compared to a year ago. Capital expenditures typically refer to money spent on things like data centers and infrastructure, likely a sign that Meta is investing more in the servers needed to power its burgeoning AI services. Wall Street cheered the results; Meta shares (META) rose 9% in after-hours trading when it posted the results on July 30, and shares are up roughly 30% year to date. Microsoft (MSFT) also posted strong results thanks to its cloud computing business. It spent $24.2 billion in capital expenditures during its most recent quarter, and it plans to spend another $30 billion in the coming months, the company said in late July. Microsoft became the second company to reach a $4 trillion valuation last month, following Nvidia, and its shares are up about 26% so far this year. And Google parent Alphabet increased its capital expenditures for 2025 to $85 billion because of demand for its cloud products. The company said its cloud services are used by 'nearly all gen AI unicorns,' referring to privately held companies worth $1 billion or more in the generative artificial intelligence space. Alphabet shares (GOOG) are up nearly 7% year to date. That additional infrastructure may be essential; Goldman Sachs estimates that global power demand from data centers will surge 50% by 2027 and 165% by 2030 compared to 2023 because of AI. 'We have barely scratched the surface of this 4th Industrial Revolution now playing out around the world led by the Big Tech stalwarts such as Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon,' Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a research note following the companies' earnings results. Trump's rapidly changing tariff policies have made it difficult to estimate how exactly the levies could impact the cost of building and operating data centers. But PwC's Dolen said he's seen estimates indicating that tariffs could increase construction costs by 5% to 7%. The National Association of Manufacturers' outlook survey also found that trade uncertainties and increased costs of raw materials were the top business challenges for manufacturers in the first quarter of 2025. However, big tech companies are likely to eat any additional costs related to AI infrastructure because 'demand is so strong,' said Michelle Brophy, director of research for tech, media and telecom at market intelligence firm AlphaSense. It's a different story for smaller companies that don't have billions to spend each quarter. They also typically have private investors demanding a fast return on investment, and data centers are long-term bets that could take years to show value in a meaningful way. Between 2015 and 2020, it took one to three years on average to construct a data center, according to commercial real estate services firm CBRE. And a data center is useful for 25 years to 30 years on average, McKinsey & Company senior partner Pankaj Sachdeva said in October 2024. Because data centers are long-term projects, 'the degree of uncertainty will have a larger impact in terms of, you know, committing to something that will take multiple years to execute,' said Laurence Ales, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University. It's also unclear whether Trump's semiconductor tariffs will raise the cost of future data centers. The president said companies that have 'committed' to building in the US won't have to pay a levy on semiconductors. 'But the good news for companies like Apple is, if you're building in the United States, or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge,' he said on August 6 during an event announcing Apple's $100 billion initiative to produce iPhone parts in the US. Trump didn't specify which companies would be exempt, but chipmaking giants Nvidia and TSMC have both said they would expand their US operations. Experts believe more collaboration between the White House and Silicon Valley is likely to come, possibly easing any potential tariff-induced costs for tech giants. Trump showed his willingness to negotiate with tech leaders earlier this week: He allowed Nvidia and AMD to sell their AI chips to China as long as they provide a 15% cut to the US government in exchange for export licenses. And the White House is reportedly discussing taking a stake in chipmaker Intel. Building AI infrastructure is a key part of the White House's AI action plan, which includes policy recommendations for streamlining permits for facilities like data centers and semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The United States already has more data centers than any other country, according to data from Cloudscene, a platform that connects businesses with cloud services, compiled by Statista. Many of the world's largest cloud providers, like Microsoft and Amazon, are American companies. 'We need to be mindful that this is an area in which we have an advantage,' Matt Pearl, director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, said to CNN. 'And we don't want to give that up.'
