A federal judge on Friday vacated the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to end its $7 billion Solar for All program, saying it illegally terminated obligated grant funding.
“When an agency acts outside the bounds of its statutory authority, it violates the [Administrative Procedure Act],” Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump-appointed judge with the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, wrote in her ruling.
She said that contrary to the government’s argument, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law July 4, 2025, did not convert Solar for All funding into “a lump-sum amount subject to EPA’s discretion.”
“Instead, Congress’s clear intent was that EPA continue to administer the already obligated SFA grants,” she said. “Defendants acted contrary to this intent, and with no other statutory authority, when they terminated the SFA program. The termination decision was therefore contrary to law and in excess of its statutory authority, in violation of the APA.”
The decision is the latest in a series of legal setbacks to the Trump administration’s efforts to stifle renewable energy development.
The Solar for All grant program was part of a nearly $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that was created by the Inflation Reduction Act, which aimed to accelerate the clean energy transition and jumpstart the economy in response to the COVID pandemic.
The Solar for All program was geared towards helping low-income and disadvantaged communities benefit from zero-emission technologies.
The EPA obligated the Solar for All’s funding by a September 2024 deadline, according to the court decision. The funds were to be available for five years.
However, Congress repealed the greenhouse gas reduction fund when it passed the OBBBA. The EPA terminated the Solar for All program and existing grants about a month later.
That day, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said on social media that the “EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive.”
But the language of the OBBBA and its legislative history make clear that the EPA was required to continue administering already obligated Solar for All grants, McElroy said in her ruling.
Groups that filed the lawsuit against the EPA praised the decision.
“For more than a year, families and communities have seen higher energy bills while billions of dollars intended to lower electricity costs sat out of reach. Today’s decision makes clear that EPA unlawfully terminated the Solar for All Program,” Jillian Blanchard, senior vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, said in a statement.
The Conservation Law Foundation, the Southern Environmental Law Center, Lawyers for Good Government and the Lawyers Committee for Rhode Island filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, Rhode Island Center for Justice, Solar United Neighbors and others.
The EPA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
