Good.
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee filed a lawsuit Monday contesting the Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $400 million in solar energy grants earmarked for Texas-based organizations.
The federal funding, part of a $7 billion Biden-era program known as Solar for All, was meant to help lower-income families access solar panels and battery storage systems. It was expected to save participants an estimated $1,740 annually on their utility bills, county officials said.
Across Texas, cities and nonprofits also planned to outfit community centers and minority-serving colleges with solar panels, so the technology’s potential to lower electricity bills and mitigate power outages could be shared with nearby neighborhoods.
But the funding’s fate was never secure after President Donald Trump took office in January and directed a barrage of government actions to batter renewable energy and unleash fossil fuels.
For months, Solar for All grants were frozen and then unfrozen as Texas-based organizations struggled to stand up their various programs. In August, the Environmental Protection Agency pulled the plug on Solar for All, citing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law the previous month.
“The bottom line is this: EPA no longer has the authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in August. “EPA is taking action to end this program for good.”
In his Monday lawsuit, Menefee stated that the Big Beautiful Bill gave the EPA no such authority to cancel the Solar for All grants, as those funds had already been legally committed to the program.
“EPA has time and again disparaged Solar for All… making plain its determination to shut them down by whatever means necessary — legal or not,” Menefee wrote in his legal complaint.
See here, here, and here for the background. As the story notes, there was another lawsuit filed by another group of plaintiffs, in Rhode Island, a week before this one. I was rooting for Harris County to sue when the grants were canceled, so I’m glad we’re doing it now. The county has had some success with these lawsuits this year, I hope that will continue.