The Greenhouse Gas Windfalls Blew Hard for Solar in the Biden EPA

Fresh off its decision to claw back $20 billion in “greenhouse gas reduction” money the Biden Environmental Protection Agency parked at Citibank, the Trump administration is setting its sights on another massive chunk of planned green spending receiving less attention.

The $7 billion Solar for All program – part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund — is meant to “enable over 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities to benefit from distributed solar energy,” according to the EPA’s website. 

The $27 billion fund was created by Congress in 2022 as part of a massive tax and spending measure called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Some $20 billion of it was moved to Citibank late in the Biden administration and is now the focus of a high-profile legal battle by the Trump administraton to get it back. On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked its effort.

Less publicized is the program’s remaining $7 billion, which the new administration froze on Jan. 20 through an executive order that instructed federal agencies to halt compliance with the IRA while the government explores whether its provisions are at odds with efforts to maximize fossil fuel development. Some states and nonprofits are now suing the Trump administration over the pause.

Related: Why Was Biden EPA’s $20B Moved to Citibank at the 11th Hour?

While Solar for All (and much else) remains in limbo, supporters continue to defend it as essential to fight climate change. But critics are denouncing it as a green boondoggle aimed at lining progressives’ pockets. Sixty Solar for All grants have been earmarked for various state and tribal agencies, as well as other green energy nonprofits that rely on public funding for much of their work. 

A RealClearInvestigations review of Solar for All’s records reveals a tight circle of publicly funded environmental outfits and government agencies, with the lion’s share of the now-frozen funds slated to go to Democrat-run states. So far, $30.8 million of Solar For All grants have been distributed, according to the EPA.

“These grant programs are the most blatant instances of self-dealing I’ve ever witnessed,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, one of 50 free market-oriented groups that called on Congress to repeal the IRA’s climate spending. 

 “The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress loaded the IRA with billions of dollars of walking around money to fund organizations – some of which didn’t even materialize until after the bill was passed – to promote and advance the green agenda at the expense of American taxpayers and families,” Pyle said.

Almost $450 million of Solar for All was supposed to go to various Native American groups. A group called Three Affiliated Tribes was set to receive $135.2 million, while another $304.4 million was to be divided between four other Native American entities, records show.

The biggest award to a green nonprofit, $311.4 million, was won by Grid Alternatives, an Oakland-based nonprofit that said it would use the money to help 37,000 households gain access to solar energy. Prior to the Solar for All freeze, Grid Alternatives had received $756,791 from its grant, records show.

“This groundbreaking program, funded by the EPA and led by Grid Alternatives, is designed to bring the benefits of clean energy to income-qualified and environmental justice communities across America,” it announced on its website. 

Tax-exempt since 2014, Grid Alternatives’ work notably includes government contracts with the state of California and the District of Columbia. The company’s website states its four guiding principles are “equity, anti-racism, economic justice (and) environmental justice.” One of its founders, Tim Sears, was named a “White House Champion of Change for Solar Deployment” during the Obama administration in 2014. 

Among Grid Alternatives’ public partners is the District of Columbia’s Department of Energy and Environment, which was slated to receive its own Solar for All award of $61.9 million. As of March 10, however, there are no recorded payments made on that grant, records show.

The second largest batch of awards involved nearly $1 billion divided among four recipients. Those four grants – all for the same amount, $249.3 million – were awarded to entities in Democratic strongholds. Three went to the California Energy Commission, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and Harris County, Texas’ deep blue 18^th Congressional District in Houston, according to the Treasury Department’s usaspending.gov.

The fourth award of $249.3 million went to Inclusive Prosperity Capital in Hartford, Connecticut. That nonprofit provides financing for “traditionally underserved markets” and lists as one of its partners Inclusiv Inc. in New York City, which itself was given a separate award of $1.9 billion from the  Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund money deposited in Citibank. 

Six-Figure Incomes for Inclusive Prosperity Capital Inc.

Inclusive Prosperity Capital, which did not respond to a request for comment, has been tax-exempt since 2014, and in 2022, its salaries and compensation exceeded its revenue, according to its tax return. All told, a half dozen people at Inclusive Prosperity make more than $200,000 annually, and another five make more than $100,000, tax records show.

The Hartford nonprofit is one of the lucky recipients who got money before the Solar for All freeze, receiving $874,012, federal records show. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority had received less of its grant – $281,365 as of early March – while there are no records available for the State of California Energy Commission’s award. Harris County in Houston has received just $27,206.

Payments already made on Solar for All grants came from the Treasury Department, which retained control of the $7 billion, while the $20 billion carveout went to Citibank. 

Federal arrangements with outside groups are often described as “awards” and “grants,” but this language can be misleading. Beneficiaries are rarely given checks for the full amount. Instead, they submit periodic paperwork to the federal agency, which approves the spending, or they have what amounts to a line of credit with Treasury, a setup usually reserved for states and major, repeat government contractors. These “obligated” funds become actual spending when they are released. 

A large number of Solar for All grants – each for $155.7 million – were for state agencies or nonprofits. Of the 16 grants from this batch that went to state government agencies, 10 were awarded to states with Democratic governors (New Mexico, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Washington, Michigan, and North Carolina), while four were won by Republican-led states (Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee). Another went to Puerto Rico’s “Oficina de Gerencia y Presupuesto,” or Office of Management and Budget.

Additional $155.7 million grants went to nonprofits, most of them relatively small operations with highly paid leaders and located in Democratic zones. Growth Opportunity Partners in Cleveland, Ohio, for example, reported revenue of $993,590 for 2023. That same year, it paid about $1 million in salaries, including $448,474, to its president and CEO, Michael T. Jeans. Hope Enterprise Corp. of Jackson, MS. – located in a district represented by House Democrat Bennie Thompson for more than 30 years – reported $19 million in total revenue in 2023 while paying $5.2 million in salaries. This included $582,826 to its president and CEO, William Bynum, who reported working 27.6 hours per week.

Hope Enterprise Corp., which has received $355,502 of its grant, did not respond to requests for comment. Only $44,000 was paid to Growth Opportunity Partners, records show.

Other nonprofits slated to receive $155.7 million included Groundswell Inc., a Washington, D.C. nonprofit whose 2022 salaries and compensation took more than half of its $3.7 million revenue, and the Capital Good Fund in Rhode Island, where salaries and compensation accounted for 51% and 47% of revenues in 2022 and 2023 respectively, records show.

This network and the occasional overlaps smack of government favoritism, according to Amy O. Cooke, president and chair of Always On Energy Research.  

“As someone who recently co-founded a nonprofit for which I have to raise money, I don’t think any of those groups would exist if they had to compete to raise their own funds in the marketplace of ideas,” she told RCI. “It’s a redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to the well-connected.” 

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund money was supposed to be spent largely on loans, and the EPA stipulated it should attract $7 of private money for each $1 of federal funding. At least 70% of the billions is supposed to be spent on low-income or disadvantaged communities, and some recipients pledged to exceed that percentage in their spending in those areas. 

Similar government programs have produced dubious returns in the past. A 2022 article in RealClearInvestigations reported that a program that sought to provide free home and apartment renovations – such as insulation, duct sealing, new heating systems, and kitchen appliances to low-income households – has been rife with fraud, waste, and abuse.

Finally, multiple Solar for All awards for smaller amounts were also named. There were 17 grants of between $62 and $63 million. These went to nonprofits, tribal groups, or state agencies in Hawaii, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, and others, including the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam, records show.

“Grants like these clearly reinforce big-government activism at the expense of individual liberty,” said Travis Fisher of the libertarian Cato Institute. “Individual taxpayers are being fleeced to support these institutions, which use that money to advocate for bigger government and more taxes. We need to break this vicious cycle.”

That may not be easy, according to some EPA officials. They believe the far-flung web of recipients may offer Solar for All more bipartisan support, and Biden’s EPA raised that point with RCI last year. But Trump administration officials pointed to other oddities with the program.

The $7 billion involved in 2024 Solar for All grants was more than double what the agency spent on hazardous substance superfunds and roughly $3 billion more than the EPA dedicated to “environmental programs and management.” Yet, of the 15,000-16,000 EPA employees, the Biden administration had only 12 handling Solar For All matters, officials told RCI.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin may have an out from politics as he contemplates the future of Solar for All. Privately, some officials noted the program, contrary to the claims of its backers, is not specified in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed through reconciliation without any Republican support. On Wednesday, the agency’s Inspector General announced an audit of the program.

“At a minimum, it is questionable how the Biden EPA decided to award the $7 billion, but there is no express Solar for All title listed in the IRA,” said Daren Bakst of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute and a critic of Green New Deal programs.

“The applicable provision appropriating the $7 billion doesn’t say all of the money should be used for solar projects,” he said. “The language indicates that Congress was expecting the money to be used for technologies beyond solar. If it wanted it to be just solar it would have said it.”

For now, Pyle said, “The Trump administration was correct in freezing these funds,” but he thinks “Republicans in Congress should immediately terminate these programs.”

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.