Whitehouse, Sanders, Merkley, Fletcher, Cleaver Lead More than 80 Colleagues in Filing Amicus Brief Urging Court to Restore Illegally Terminated Solar for All Funding

“EPA has given no reason why its unlawful actions to unwind Congressional appropriations should stand,” wrote the lawmakersc

Washington, D.C.—U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW); Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and U.S. Representatives Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX-07) and Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO-05) led 84 Members of Congress in submitting an amicus brief to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the case of Harris County, Texas v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency et al. The brief urged the Court to restore all funding for Solar for All, which had been fully obligated according to statute before it was illegally terminated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Under the Solar for All program, which is part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), states, territories, Tribal governments, municipalities, and nonprofit organizations in all 50 states had already been obligated $7 billion for initiatives that lower household energy bills by expanding access to affordable solar energy.  The lawmakers pressed the Court to vacate EPA’s illegal termination of the program’s funding, which was a clear attempt to “evade its statutory obligations [and] aggrandize[e] executive power at the expense of settled legislative prerogatives.” GGRF, a $27 billion national climate financing fund passed into law as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, has been a frequent target of the Trump Administration’s war on climate safety and low-cost clean energy. Congress created the fund to spur economic development, lower energy costs, and reduce pollution.

“EPA has provided “‘shifting, post-hoc, and unsupported allegations’” to justify its termination of the GGRF programs, including Solar for All. EPA now seeks to avoid accountability for its unlawful cancellation of the Solar for All program, in violation of the plain text of the OBBBA and explicit Congressional intent,” explained the lawmakers. 

EPA has attempted to argue that the only way it could restore funding would be to issue replacement grants. The lawmakers made clear that argument is false: “The Court need not reach the question of whether EPA has authority to issue replacement grants; that question is a red herring. If this Court finds EPA’s termination unlawful, it can vacate that termination.”

Despite the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s unambiguous terms rescinding only “unobligated balances,” EPA has erroneously claimed that the OBBBA enabled it to cancel fully obligated Solar for All funding. But, as the lawmakers argued, EPA’s claims are inconsistent with the OBBBA’s text and Congressional intent: “Congress could not have made clearer its intention to leave the already-obligated Solar for All grants untouched, as evident in the statutory text and in contemporaneous statements. EPA nonetheless cancelled the Solar for All grants, claiming that the OBBBA justified that termination. In a mind-bending display of circular reasoning, EPA now argues that, regardless, the OBBBA renders its cancellation of the obligated Solar for All grants unreviewable. It simply cannot be the case that an executive agency can unilaterally cancel a Congressionally mandated program in its entirety—and in violation of the terms of a reconciliation bill—and then use that same statute as cover to evade accountability for its unlawful action.”

That unobligated funds are not subject to OBBBA was reinforced by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s scoring of the reconciliation bill: “CBO scored the provision as saving $19 million of the $30 million in funding set aside from the GGRF grant programs for EPA administration and oversight… If the OBBBA had authorized EPA to claw back GGRF money that the federal government had already obligated, the budget score would have reflected savings of another $27 billion: $7 billion for Solar for All and $20 billion for the GGRF’s green bank programs. CBO further confirmed that repeal of the program language did not create any additional savings.”

Furthermore, during the markup of the Energy and Commerce Committee title for the House version of the bill, then-Chair of the Environment Subcommittee Morgan Griffith (VA-09) stated: “‘I just want to point out that these provisions that we are talking about only apply as far, as this bill is concerned, to the unobligated balances. So if a grant was already given, as far as this bill is concerned, then that would still be going forward… [W]e can’t rescind expenditures that have already been obligated.’”

Senators Whitehouse, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Debbie Dingell (D-MI-06) previously led 36 Members of Congress in submitting an amicus brief urging the Court to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) illegal efforts to eliminate the National Clean Investment Fund and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator programs, both of which are also part of GGRF. 

Joining Senators Whitehouse, Sanders, and Merkley and Representatives Fletcher and Cleaver, II in signing the amicus brief were Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Representatives Becca Balint (D-VT-AL), Nanette Barragán (D-CA-44), Wesley Bell (D-MO-01), Donald S. Beyer, Jr. (D-VA-08), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-01), Shontel M. Brown (D-OH-11), Julia Brownley (D-CA-26), Janelle S. Bynum (D-OR-05), André Carson (D-IN-07), Troy A. Carter Sr. (D-LA-02), Greg Casar (D-TX-35), Ed Case (D-HI-01), Kathy Castor (D-FL-14), Joaquin Castro (D-TX-20), Judy Chu (D-CA-28), Steve Cohen (D-TN-09), Herb Conaway (D-NJ-03), Joe Courtney (D-CT-02), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX-30), Danny K. Davis (D-IL-07), Madeleine Dean (D-PA-04), Diana DeGette (D-CO-01), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA-10), Suzan K. DelBene (D-WA-01), Debbie Dingell (D-MI-06), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX-37), Veronica Escobar (D-TX-16), Valerie P. Foushee (D-NC-04), Laura Friedman (D-CA-30), Sylvia R. Garcia (D-TX-29), Daniel Goldman (D-NY-10), Jared Huffman (D-CA-02), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-07), Ro Khanna (D-CA-17), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL-08), John B. Larson (D-CT-01), Susie Lee (D-NV-03), Summer L. Lee (D-PA-12), Ted W. Lieu (D-CA-36), Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA-08), Seth Magaziner (D-RI-02), Sarah McBride (D-DE-00), Betty McCollum (D-MN-04), Morgan McGarvey (D-KY-03), James P. McGovern (D-MA-02), Christian Menefee (D-TX-18), Robert J. Menendez (D-NJ-08), Dave Min (D-CA-47), Kevin Mullin (D-CA-15), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ-06), Brittany Pettersen (D-CO-07), Mike Quigley (D-IL-05), Emily Randall (D-WA-06), Deborah K. Ross (D-NC-02), Andrea Salinas (D-OR-06), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09), Kim Schrier (D-WA-08), Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA-03), Adam Smith (D-WA-09), Eric Sorensen (D-IL-17), Darren Soto (D-FL-09), Melanie Stansbury (D-NM-01), Greg Stanton (D-AZ-04), Marilyn Strickland (D-WA-10), Shri Thanedar (D-MI-13), Dina Titus (D-NV-01), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-12), Jill Tokuda (D-HI-02), Paul D. Tonko (D-NY-20), Juan Vargas (D-CA-52), Marc Veasey (D-TX-33), Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY-07), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ-12).

Full text of the brief is available HERE.