a day ago
- Business
- Indianapolis Star
Indiana loses $130 million as EPA cancels low-income solar program
For nearly two years, groups throughout Indiana have been building partnerships and planning how to effectively allocate around $130 million in federal grants to help low-income Hoosiers cut their utility bills with rooftop and community solar projects.
The work paid off. Organizations received signed contracts under the Solar for All program to assist as many as 7,000 homes in Indiana with renewable energy projects that would cut their electricity bills by 20%. That money also would help train Hoosiers for jobs in the solar industry.
Just as the groups were preparing to find contractors for the work, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the federal agency is taking back all that money and shuttering the program — a move staff members of the Indiana organizations working on the projects likened to having the rug pulled out from under them.
'This is a huge gut punch,' said Zach Schalk, Indiana program director for Solar United Neighbors.
In announcing his intent to cancel the solar program in a video posted to his social media accounts, Zeldin said the agency is adhering to the recently passed federal reconciliation bill and acting as a 'great steward' of taxpayer dollars. But he made no mention of environmental stewardship — a central tenant of the agency.
'Since being signed into law on Independence Day, EPA has been diligently working to implement President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill in accordance with congressional intent,' Zeldin said.
The reconciliation bill Indiana Senators Jim Banks and Todd Young, as well as Indiana's entire Republican delegation to the U.S. House, voted to approve repealed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that oversaw the Solar for All program.
'EPA is taking action," Zeldin said, "to end this program for good.'
Zeldin has spent his tenure as EPA's administrator rolling out an onslaught of deregulatory actions. He visited Indianapolis in July to announce the "largest regulatory action in the history of the United States" with the repeal of the endangerment finding, and earlier this year in May he announced large cuts to his own agency.
When the Solar for All program was established at the EPA in 2023, two coalitions formed to bring some of that money into Indiana — one a statewide group, the other a multi-state partnership.
The EPA awarded the statewide group, Solar Opportunities Indiana, about $117 million to 'solarize low-income homes while transforming the market in Indiana by creating new financial products and incentives that jumpstart solar for low-income residents, new affordable housing developments, and more,' according to an April 2024 statement from EPA.
The multistate award went to the Industrial Heartland Solar Coalition. This group united 31 communities across the Midwest and Rust Belt to begin building out residential rooftop solar.
The statewide Solar Opportunities Indiana program was part of the Indiana Community Action Association, a not-for-profit group assisting low-income Hoosiers, and was overseen by Alison Becker, program director at Solar for All.
The group had been in the planning stages since December and was putting together proposals to hire contractors and gearing up for a marketing campaign when the EPA pulled the plug.
'We were so close to the tipping point of things happening,' Becker said. 'There was so much time, effort and energy to make it work throughout the state.'
The loss of this money impacts between 6,000 and 7,000 homes, Becker said. There also was money budgeted for work force development to create and train workers for high-paying jobs to install the solar projects.
The Solar for All program already had signed contracts for the grant money, and Becker said that money is considered obligated under federal law, though Zeldin said the agency no longer has the authority to distribute those funds after the reconciliation bill was signed into law. The EPA's decision to pull back these funds likely will result in several lawsuits.
The termination agreement gives groups 21 days to dispute the decision, Becker said, and several states and some grant recipients are looking at potential litigation.
'All of those decisions still have to be made, or it's simply winding down operations and not continuing operations anymore,' Becker said.
One group working under the SOI umbrella was Black Sun Light Sustainability, which is focused on reducing harmful emissions and advancing clean energy projects in Indiana. Denise Abdul-Rahman, founder and CEO of the group, said Zeldin's announcement was a disappointment and missed opportunity.
'It's a really sad day for communities in need of energy affordability,' Abdul-Rahman said.
Black Sun Light hired staff members to help with the statewide program before federal dollars were taken off the table. They were tasked with researching resiliency hubs and were working with groups like the United Methodist Women on identifying project locations in Indiana.
The hubs would have provided communities with relief during power outages and given people with medical needs such as oxygen machines and refrigerated insulin the electricity they need, Abdul-Rahman said.
The City of Indianapolis was involved with both the statewide program and the wider Heartland program.
Mo McReynolds, director of Indy's Office of Sustainability, said some of the federal money was going toward a 5-megawatt solar array on city property. The grant would have supported the feasibility study for that project, which would have brought rates down to help households with high energy costs.
The city was also using Solar for All funds to implement individual projects on single- and multi-family homes.
Indy residents benefitting from the program would have seen around a 20% reduction of their energy burden, McReynolds said.
Joe Bowling, executive director with the Englewood Community Development Corporation, had sent a letter of support for Indiana winning these awards to Schalk at Solar United Neighbors. Bowling and the CDC have an affordable housing program on Indy's near east side that manages about 400 homes.
"I believe we need to do all we can to create a lot more energy," Bowling said, "and if we can do that on rooftops at the point of consumption with renewables that do not pollute the air or warm the environment, that seems like a good thing."
The large upswing of data centers coming to Indiana is creating an increasingly large demand for energy in Indiana, and Bowling said closing off opportunities to create more energy is a bad idea.
Bowling also noted many Hoosiers are already feeling a financial squeeze by utilities as rates increase, and residents living on fixed Social Security incomes are going to have an increasingly difficult time keeping up with rent and rising electricity prices.
"Solar for all was going to benefit low-income grandmas living on very little income," Bowling said. "That's whose interests we would live to see served."
Schalk and Solar United Neighbors were providing technical support for the statewide program.
The loss of money is a loss to struggling families as they face electric bills going up, Schalk said. A recent report from Citizens Action Coalition shows Indiana saw, on average, the largest utility bill increases this past year since at least 2005.
Shannon Anderson, director of advocacy at Earth Charter Indiana, also had been working on getting this money to Indiana communities since the program began in 2023. She and other Indiana groups are wondering where they might find other types of funding, but nothing will match the federal dollars that were pulled away.
'My biggest heartbreak is that so many of us worked so long to come to a place where we cleared all kinds of hurdles and promised to use this money in a way that we feel is not just most accountable to the EPA and to taxpayers, but to our own consciousness,' Anderson said.
Solar for All would have provided benefits to historically underserved neighborhoods, Anderson said, and those communities are already dealing with the some of the state's worst air quality.
'It would be wonderful to see new programs come into Indiana in the wake of this,' Anderson said. "People who often experience legacy pollution are really served beyond just financial saving with the environmental benefits of solar energy.'
While Zeldin's announcement left Anderson bereft, she is not ready to give up and encourages Hoosiers to reach out to their federal representatives.
'As summers get hotter, people who might have to make financial decision to turn off their AC and that could be difference between life and death for them,' Anderson said. 'I can't underscore how important programs like this could be in that equation.'
IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
