Biden Admin Launches $7 Billion Residential Solar Grant Scheme

A worker installs solar panels during the completion phase of a 4-acre solar rooftop atop AltaSea's research and development facility at the Port of Los Angeles, in the San Pedro neighborhood, in Los Angeles, Calif., on April 21, 2023. Mario Tama/Getty Images

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a $7 billion grant competition for low-income communities to expand residential solar energy.

The competition, called Solar for All, will award up to 60 grants to expand the number of low-income communities primed for solar investment, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The grants will cover programs that provide financing and technical assistance, including workforce development, to let low-income and disadvantaged communities benefit from residential solar energy.

“All communities deserve to participate in America’s growing clean energy economy, and under this competition, we will bring more communities along, working together to build a healthier and cleaner future for all,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

The money, which comes from the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, will be used to expand existing low-income solar programs and for entirely new ones.

Households that benefit from the grants will see savings of at least 20 percent on electricity bills, according to EPA.

Investing in residential solar promises to improve air quality and public health while creating new jobs, the agency said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was a key advocate of the program’s inclusion in the IRA and has called for it to be implemented quickly.

“At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, all while dealing with the existential threat of climate change, we must make residential rooftop solar a reality for low-income and working families that need it most,” Sanders said in a statement.

EPA said the program will help meet President Joe Biden’s climate agenda of a carbon-free power sector by 2035 and a net zero emissions economy by 2050 at the latest.

The deadline to apply is Sept. 26, 2023, with eligible applicants including states, territories, tribal governments, municipalities, and nonprofits.

The Biden administration’s climate policies have been met with skepticism in some circles, with some arguing they are weakening the United States by hampering domestic energy capacity and threatening national security.

‘Weakening Ourselves’

Concerns have been raised that climate-related policies implemented at the local, state, and federal levels will put undue economic burdens on ordinary consumers, for example, by mandating that they use electric vehicles and appliances instead of gas-powered vehicles and stoves.

Meanwhile, some in the scientific community have expressed concern that so-called renewable sources of energy, such as wind power, may not be sufficient to meet power grid demands.

At a recent Hudson Institute forum on energy policy, Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.)  argued that the United States is “weakening ourselves” with radical climate policies.

Armstrong said such policies could draw out already lengthy government approval processes for new fossil fuel infrastructure construction. He expressed skepticism with regard to the feasibility of transitioning away from traditional energy sources, while arguing that environmentalists’ goal of “outsourcing their guilt” over carbon emissions to other countries only hurts the environment and America’s national security.

“We have to have permitting reform, regardless of what kind of infrastructure you want to put in the ground,” Armstrong said, referring to infrastructure like oil refineries and pipelines.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) speaks to a reporter as he leaves the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, on July 19, 2021. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Armstrong’s home state of North Dakota is a major source of energy production, and he contrasted federal policy with North Dakota policy throughout the panel.

“We used to be really good at getting this stuff into the ground and being able to do it,” said Armstrong. “We’re not anymore, and it’s through litigation, bureaucratic morass, a thousand different reasons.”

Armstrong said this was partly because Republicans were “late to the game” on the climate fight, not challenging left-wing claims until the notion of manmade global warming had become mainstream. remove

Climate Alarmism?

In mid-2022, about 1,000 scientists and professionals issued a letter decrying the widespread alarmism over the climate.

The signatories wrote that there is no climate-related emergency amid decades worth of predictions claiming civilization will end as we know it due to global warming.

Those scientists suggested that such claims are exaggerated and used in bad faith to amass political power and influence.

“Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific,” a summary reads. “Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming.”

Meanwhile, “politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures,” the declaration said.

Elsewhere, a group of Senate Republicans have put forward a legislative proposal to bar Biden from doing what many environmentalists have been pushing for, namely to declare a national climate change emergency.

The proposal would prevent the president from issuing a climate change-inspired national emergency declaration based upon the National Emergencies Act, the Stafford Act, and the Public Health Service Act’s Section 319. Those three laws provide the current legal basis for presidential declarations of national emergency.

The president could still declare emergencies based on specific events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes.

Jack Phillips, Joseph Lord, and Mark Tapscott contributed to this report.