A federal judge in Rhode Island has ruled that the US EPA acted illegally when it decided to cancel the $7 billion Solar For All program. The ruling is no surprise. Everything the toadies to the Ogre of the Offal Office do is illegal. What is surprising is that the judge who issued the ruling was appointed by none other than Donald J. Trump, master of all he surveys and ruler of the known world. “The OBBBA did not convert SFA funding into a lump-sum amount subject to EPA’s discretion. Instead, Congress’s clear intent was that EPA continue to administer the already obligated SFA grants. Defendants acted contrary to this intent, and with no other statutory authority, when they terminated the SFA program,” the judge wrote in her court opinion. The Solar For All program was designed to lower electricity bills and bring affordable solar power to families and communities across the country. Its primary target, though, is lower income communities in which residents struggle to pay their utility bills. For wealthy Americans, the monthly payment to the electric company is a pittance — a mere trifle on top of their country club dues and payments on the Land Rover. For low income residents, their utility bill can account for up to 15 percent of their monthly income. In 2024, the EPA awarded $7 billion for the Solar for All program, estimating it would benefit more than 900,000 households, including many located on tribal lands. There are currently about 134 million households in the US. Solar For All was expected to save families $350 million a year on electricity bills while helping to create 200,000 jobs and associated workforce training opportunities. In August 2025, the Trump administration abruptly cancelled the program before much of that funding could reach communities. The Conservation Law Center, the Southern Environmental Law Center, Lawyers for Good Government, and the Lawyers Committee for Rhode Island filed suit in federal court last October on behalf of workers, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals harmed by the cancellation. Local Rhode Island groups including the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, Rhode Island Center for Justice, Solar United Neighbors, and several individuals and small businesses joined the lawsuit, as did attorneys general from 23 states. EPA Acted Illegally “The court ruled the Trump administration never should have terminated Solar for All because Congress intended it to continue, and EPA broke the law when it killed the program and pocketed the money,” Nick Torrey, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, told the press. “Electricity bills are skyrocketing, so low-cost solar projects — which guarantee big savings — are needed now more than ever. Today’s victory means EPA must stop sitting on the $7 billion in funding for this program and start getting it out into communities to provide hardworking American families much-needed relief.” Turrey may be overly optimistic. The current administration will surely appeal this decision by Judge Mary McElroy and take it all the way to the US Supreme Court. Even then, the Trump troupe will slow walk any compliance efforts until the clock runs out on January 20, 2029. “Today’s ruling confirms what we have argued from the beginning: EPA cannot erase a $7 billion program that Congress created and funded. For more than a year, families and communities have seen higher energy bills while billions of dollars intended to lower electricity costs sat out of reach. Today’s decision makes clear that EPA unlawfully terminated the Solar for All Program,” said Jillian Blanchard, senior vice president for climate change and environmental justice at L4GG. Benefits Denied For Indigenous People Some of the money pledged for the Solar For All program had already been spent before the EPA terminated the program. Indigenized Energy, a nonprofit group led by Native Americans, completed the country’s first two Solar for All projects in October 2024. It installed residential solar and battery storage systems for members of the Chippewa Cree Tribe in Box Elder, Montana and the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Porcupine and Pine Ridge, South Dakota. “One in five households on reservations lack access to electricity, and this program was an opportunity to close that gap,” said Cody Two Bears, the chief executive of Indigenized Energy. “But those were just two kickoff projects to show what was coming for the next five years.” Here’s a short video put together by the State of New York that explains how the Solar For All Program is supposed to work: