The grants in limbo

As legal uncertainty looms, hundreds of billions in funding for everything from grid resilience to rural energy projects hangs in the balance.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has confirmed that it is withholding funds for congressionally mandated programs, including the $7 billion Solar for All program. EPA officials have directed Canary Media to contact the U.S. Department of Justice for comment on these matters. A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment.

“We are disappointed that this pause is coming so close to our anticipated launch,” said Alicia Brown, director of Georgia Bright, a public-private partnership that won a $156 million Solar for All grant. The funding was slated to lower the cost of financing new rooftop and community solar projects that will be committed to reducing low-income households’ energy bills ​“We remain hopeful that a path forward can be found to deliver the promised benefits to Georgia residents without significant delay,” Brown said.

Zealan Hoover, former senior advisor and director of implementation at the EPA under the Biden administration, told Canary Media on Monday afternoon that the EPA’s online portal for grantees to draw funding and receive reimbursements for expenses incurred for work done under their contracts had not yet been restored. That portal has been inoperative for at least a week.

As for the USDA, grants for energy-efficiency projects like those Funk is working on aren’t the only ones at risk. So are billions of dollars in grants and loans issued under a set of Inflation Reduction Act programs for rural electricity cooperatives, which provide power to the most sparsely populated areas in the country.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which serves parts of rural Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nebraska, was awarded $2.5 billion in low-cost financing and grants to accelerate the closing of 1,100 megawatts of coal-fired generation and contract for 1,280 MW of power from newly built solar, wind and energy-storage hybrid projects.

In a Jan. 30 email, Tri-State spokesperson Mark Stutz declined to state whether USDA had shared information on the status of that funding. The cooperative has ​“executed our commitment letter” with USDA to receive the promised funding, Stutz wrote, and stands ready to ​“invest in new resources that drive rural economic development” and ​“help secure the American energy dominance that the Administration is prioritizing.”

The USDA did not respond to phone messages and emails requesting comment on Monday.

Even larger amounts of energy funding from the U.S. Department of Energy also remained in uncertain status as of Monday.

In a Friday letter, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, both Democrats, demanded that DOE Acting Secretary Ingrid Kolb respond to a detailed list of questions about what they described as ​“unlawful actions to halt programs that are imperative to the Department’s mission of ensuring America’s security and prosperity.”

“Today, our understanding is that much of the Departmental funding is still frozen,” the lawmakers wrote, detailing a list of directives issued by DOE that ​“halt a vast array of the Department’s essential programs — programs American families and businesses are counting on.”

The DOE did not respond to phone messages and emails requesting comment on Monday.

Kaptur and Murray singled out the Inflation Reduction Act’s $8.8 billion in home energy rebates, which are projected to spur efficiency and gas-to-electric heating and appliance retrofits that could ​“save households up to $1 billion per year on energy bills and support over 50,000 U.S. jobs. The President’s attempt to freeze the Home Energy Rebates Program means these costs will fall back on American consumers.”

Backers of the program had feared that Republicans in Congress may pass legislation undoing the spending this year but had not anticipated the Trump administration instructing the DOE to unilaterally restrict the flow of funds.

“Is this administration really going to stop programs that are aimed squarely at cutting electric bills for low-income Americans?” said Harry Godfrey, head of the federal investment and manufacturing working group of trade group Advanced Energy United. ​“Is Texas not going to get $690 million for rebate programs? Is Ohio not going to get $250 million, or Virginia $189 million?”

Similar questions pertain to more than $10 billion in grid-modernization grants authorized by the bipartisan infrastructure law, Godfrey said. Those include more than $600 million in grants to support Southeastern utilities recovering from Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene.

“I could be wrong, but I doubt those funds have gone out the door yet,” Godfrey said ​“Does this mean those communities won’t be receiving federal dollars to rebuild their grid?”

David Warm, communications director for Gainesville Regional Utilities in Florida, which was awarded up to $47 million in grants, told Canary Media that the DOE had sent a statement last week stating that ​“all funding-related actions are on pause while we await additional implementation guidance. We will provide updates as soon as we are able.”

Nicole Arnold, communications and public affairs manager for Randolph Electric Membership Corp. in North Carolina, which was awarded up to $11.4 million in grants, told Canary Media that the cooperative utility had ​“not received any direct communication from federal sources” regarding its grant. ​“We are committed to the long-term success of this project and will patiently await future communication on our grant.”