R.I. AFL-CIO sues Trump’s EPA over termination of $7 billion Solar for All program

“Solar energy is key to Rhode Island’s march towards a carbon-free economy,” Rhode Island AFL-CIO President Patrick Crowley said in a statement. “The Solar for All program is critical to meeting the mandates of the Act on Climate and could lead to hundreds of good paying union jobs, that is why the Rhode Island AFL-CIO is happy to join this court action.”

In 2021, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed the Act on Climate, making the state’s goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions mandatory and enforceable: 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, 80 percent below those levels by 2040, and at “net-zero emissions” by 2050.

“The Rhode Island AFL-CIO is the lead plaintiff because we think canceling this project is just another attempt to have Rhode Island stay in this backwards energy environment when the people of Rhode Island want an all-of-the-above approach — wind, solar, whatever the case may be," Crowley said.

While the program does not guarantee union jobs, it does require prevailing wage and it uses apprenticeships, he said, so the Rhode Island AFL-CIO had expected hundreds of good-paying jobs to come to the state.

In August, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said authority for the solar program was eliminated under the tax-and-spending bill signed by Trump in July. The law eliminated the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund approved under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The fund set aside $20 billion in “green bank” money for community development projects to boost renewable energy, plus $7 billion for the solar program.

The lawsuit says that Congress only rescinded “unobligated balances,” which preserved all $7 billion of the obligated funding EPA already had awarded through Solar for All grants. But instead of distributing the funds, the EPA “hastily and unlawfully terminated the Solar for All program,” the suit claims.

The cancellation is part of a larger attempt by the Trump administration to hinder the nation’s shift to renewable energy.

Earlier this year, the Trump halted work on the $4 billion Revolution Wind project, which was 80 percent complete and poised to deliver renewable energy to 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. But on Sept. 22, a federal judge sided with the Revolution Wind developers, allowing construction of the wind farm to continue, for now.

The Rhode Island Center for Justice joined the legal challenge as a nonprofit working to lower the cost of electricity for low-income consumers.

“Our clients are struggling with unaffordable electric bills and facing a cycle of shut-offs that puts the health and safety of utility customers, including those who are elderly and living with disabilities, at risk,” said Jennifer L. Wood, executive director of the Rhode Island Center for Justice. “Affordable access to solar is vital as part of the long-term solution to meeting the Act on Climate goals in Rhode Island while not leaving low-income Rhode Islanders behind.”

Monday’s lawsuit was filed by local attorneys representing the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, as well as Southern Environmental Law Center, Lawyers for Good Government, and the Conservation Law Foundation.

“The Trump administration’s rollback of the Solar for All program is a shameless attempt to prop up fossil fuel companies at the expense of families,” said Kate Sinding Daly, the Conservation Law Foundation’s senior vice president for law and policy. “This program would provide families with low incomes access to clean, affordable solar power: energy that lowers bills, improves air quality, and keeps people safer during extreme heat. Stripping those benefits away is unlawful and betrays communities.”

Amy R. Romero, chief legal counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, said, “EPA’s unlawful termination halts the creation of hundreds of union jobs in Rhode Island, and then compounds the risk of utility shutoff and perpetuates energy insecurity in the very low-income households that Congress sought to protect with this program.”

In a statement, the plaintiffs said the average low-income household benefiting from a Solar for All grant program would have saved about $400 each year on their electricity bills. They said programs funded by Solar for All would have created “hundreds of thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs.” And they said the program would have reduced or avoided greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30 million metric tons, equal to the emissions of more than 7 million vehicles.

Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @FitzProv.