Amid Paused Solar Funding, EPA Floats Workforce Reductions

The Trump administration has informed EPA employees in the Solar for All program that they could be “immediately terminated” as recent hires, now that funding for the Biden administration initiative for helping homeowners in low-income communities install solar panels has been frozen pending further review. 

The employees received an email on Wednesday notifying them that they had been identified as a “probationary/trial term” in the civil service system. The EPA “has the right to immediately terminate you pursuant to 5 CFR $ 315.804,” the email read, referencing federal statutes for firing an employee for “unsatisfactory performance or conduct.” Under that law, employees could receive notice of termination and be let go immediately, the agency claimed.

The email to the solar program employees was separate from the notice that most federal government employees received this week offering them pay through September if they resigned by Feb. 6.

Solar for All is a $7 billion grant program designed to help homeowners in low-income communities save money on energy bills, reduce local air pollution and bring electricity to isolated areas of the country. The program was part of a $27 billion allocation administered by the EPA in former President Joe Biden’s climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  

An EPA spokesperson said on Friday that President Trump would continue to promote “economic growth for families across the country,” but did not respond to questions regarding emails employees received indicating they could be fired.

When the federal government passes large spending bills, like the Inflation Reduction Act, federal agencies often hire additional civil service employees to help administer grants. In the EPA’s case, a majority of the staff working on Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds were hired with contracts for four years or with a duration tied to the administering and monitoring of $27 billion in funding. More than 900,000 households are slated to benefit from Solar For All funding.

Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order halting Solar For All Funding directed all agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” upon further review of their compatibility with his agenda. 

Trump has vowed to “unleash” the United States’ fossil fuel industries, despite fossil fuels’ climate-damaging effects. Oil and gas drilling and exports had already reached an all-time high under Biden. In another executive order, Trump declared a national energy emergency but nonetheless attempted to restrict renewable energy sources like wind and solar.    

Politico reported on Wednesday that Solar for All communities had received a letter from the EPA saying the funding they had qualified for and been promised had been paused.

“This pause has caught a lot of grantees by surprise because it is unprecedented and illegal,” said Zealan Hoover, the EPA director of implementation under President Biden. “It
is really slowing down the deployment of actual projects that will get solar deployed to the benefit of low-income households.”

It may prove difficult for the Trump administration to wrest back the Solar for All funding, because the EPA is contractually bound to pay out those funds to qualifying communities. Once Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act and the EPA began administering the funding, it did so by entering into contracts with state energy departments, tribal governments and national nonprofits. 

“The president is not entitled to cut off agencies’ contractual obligations,” said Amy Turner, director of the Cities Climate Law Initiative at the Sabin Center, a climate law program affiliated with Columbia University. “Those contracts list only very specific circumstances in which EPA can withhold or cut off funding.”

Already, 22 states and Washington D.C. have filed legal motions challenging President Trump’s executive orders halting funding for the energy transition, as have a consortium of nonprofits.

Hoover called into question the efficacy and necessity of cutting the federal workforce through buyouts or sending emails about firings to civil servants. The Trump administration has “talked a lot about the need to ensure that federal dollars deliver on the intent of Congress,” but “at the same time, they are threatening to fire a huge swath of the federal government” responsible for making that happen, he said. 

Hoover estimated that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the $7 billion in Solar for All gets spent on salaries and benefits for EPA employees administering the money. “You’re not going to change the fiscal position of the federal government by hacking away at payroll—and, in fact, you are going to make it far more difficult to achieve real, sustainable improvements,” he said.