States Sue Trump’s EPA Over ‘Solar for All’ Grant Cuts (1)

More than a dozen states are launching lawsuits alleging the Environmental Protection Agency illegally ended its “Solar for All” program, adding to a growing array of legal challenges brought against the department over the program’s termination.

The states filed a complaint in the US Court of Federal Claims Wednesday, accusing the agency of violating program agreements and not acting in good faith. The states are also launching a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, in which they accuse the agency of going against the Administrative Procedure Act and US Constitution in canceling the program.

The EPA’s ending of the program “jeopardizes $156 million for qualifying solar projects in the state,” the Washington state attorney general’s office, which is co-leading the suit filed in its home state, said in a press release. Attorneys general for Arizona, Washington DC, and Minnesota are also leading that suit.

“Congress passed a solar energy program to help make electricity costs more affordable, but the administration is ignoring the law and focused on the conspiracy theory that climate change is a hoax,” Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown (D) said in prepared remarks.

Attorneys general for Connecticut, California, Colorado, Michigan, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New York, New Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont, Oregon, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Hawaii are among the plaintiffs in both suits, as are the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

“In keeping with a longstanding practice, EPA does not comment on pending litigation,” an EPA spokesperson said in an email.

Vermont received $62 million in funding last year as part of the “Solar for All” program which could help thousands of residents lower their electric bills, the state attorney general’s office said in a press release. Most of that money was already in the state’s account before the program was killed, but by the middle of September, the bulk of that money was gone, according to the release.

The two legal challenges come on the backs of others already filed over the program’s termination. A group of businesses and nonprofits also sued the Trump administration earlier this month over the program’s cancellation, alleging that the EPA violated the APA and US Constitution. Harris County, the largest county in Texas which includes the city of Houston, also sued the administration over its ending of the program.

“Solar for All” was a $7 billion program under the EPA’s larger Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund paid for with money from the Inflation Reduction Act. The tax-and-spending package signed into law in July took away the program’s funding, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the following month that the agency would end the program.

The states’ filing of multiple suits addressing the same topic in different courts comes amid debate among judges over whether lawsuits brought against the administration over the cancellation of grants specifically must be filed in the US Court of Federal Claims.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) in a press conference Thursday addressed what he called the states’ “dual-track approach” in filing two suits, specifically noting US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s recent concurrence where she explained that these types of challenges related to grant funding should go through the claims court.

Bonta said he thinks they can get monetary relief from claims court, but that in district court, they’re looking for declaratory and injunctive relief.

“They go hand in hand,” he told reporters. “They’re different buckets of relief, if you will.”

The case in the Court of Federal Claims is Md. Clean Energy Ctr. v. United States, Fed. Cl., 10/15/25.