EPA cuts climate grants, but Solar for All program untouched for now
The agency announced a flurry of actions to undo Biden-era climate work.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Sec. Lee Zeldin has this week unveiled numerous actions to roll back climate-related efforts by the Biden Administration.

On March 11, the EPA announced it is terminating $20 billion in grant funding under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund’s National Clean Investment Fund and Clean Communities Investment Accelerator. The $7 billion Solar for All grant program is also funded by the GGRF, but is not mentioned in this release.

On March 12, the agency said it will terminate the Environmental Justice and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion arms of the EPA.

“Some believe that so-called ‘environmental justice’ is warranted to assist communities that have been left behind. This idea sounds good in theory and receives bipartisan support. But in reality, ‘environmental justice’ has been used primarily as an excuse to fund left-wing activists instead of actually spending those dollars to directly remediate environmental issues for those communities,” said Administrator Zeldin.

The EPA also announced plans to reconsider the mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) and Clean Power Plan 2.0, as well as emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles.

The EPA is touting March 12 as “the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in the history of the United States.”

The National Resources Defense Council responded, saying the actions would leave millions of Americans with more expensive energy bills, breathing dirtier air, facing greater risk of flooding and confronting climate change with no help from the federal government.

“In a staggering spate of actions over just 24 hours, Donald Trump’s EPA told the American people they could no longer count on the federal government to protect them from polluted air and water,” said Alexandra Adams, chief policy advocacy officer at NRDC, in a press statement. “Much of the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the work of the federal government has run aground in the courts, because they violate the law. Many of these actions will be challenged, as well, and we expect that federal judges will continue to block illegal executive actions.”

Updated on March 13