On October 16, 2025, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, and District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb co-led a group of 23 plaintiffs in challenging Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin’s unlawful termination of the Solar for All program. Zeldin arbitrarily cancelled the multi-billion dollar program and clawed back billions in funds that had already been allocated to help low-income households access clean solar energy and lower their electricity costs.  

The Solar for All program was established by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Under that law, Congress directed the EPA to establish a competitive grant program for states and other eligible parties to apply for funding to help low-income communities to benefit from zero-emissions technologies including rooftop solar installations. States worked for nearly two years to develop and negotiate program designs, workplans, and budgets with the EPA. Final grant agreements were reached by February 2025, and the EPA obligated the funding under these agreements. In August 2025, however, the EPA unlawfully cancelled the program and withdrew obligated grant funds from plaintiffs’ accounts, claiming falsely that the reconciliation bill passed in July 2025 (the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) required clawing back obligated funding. The attorneys general assert that, with these actions, Administrator Zeldin and the EPA violated of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as well as the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.   

The EPA’s termination of these grants will cost states and their vulnerable residents billions of dollars. Low-income households that would have received zero-interest loans and grants under the program will no longer benefit from reduced power bills, cleaner air, and workforce development programs. In Washington, for example, more than $156 million in qualifying solar projects are now jeopardized.  

The states have asked the court to rule that Administrator Zeldin’s actions in clawing back obligated funding were unlawful under the reconciliation bill, as well as a violation of both the APA and the U.S. Constitution. The suit asks that court to prevent the EPA and Administrator Zeldin from withholding the funds due to the states.

Beyond the fact that this energy infrastructure funding has already been appropriated to our state and is owed to Arizonans, protecting solar projects and lower electricity bills is personal to me. Arizona families are already facing sky-high electricity bills, and I will not let the EPA wriggle out of its commitment to fund solar energy projects that would lower costs for more than 11,000 Arizona households. Attorney General Kris Mayes