This story was originally published by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has unfrozen all grant funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure and Investment and Jobs Act, a spokesperson for the organization confirmed in an email to Floodlight late Wednesday afternoon. “EPA worked expeditiously to enable payment accounts for IIJA and IRA grant recipients, so funding is now accessible to all recipients,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
The announcement appears to release almost $100 billion allocated by Congress under the Biden administration to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse emissions through a large-scale transformation of the U.S. energy system.
A spokesperson for a Nevada nonprofit confirmed it has been able to begin accessing the $156 million it was set to receive under the EPA Solar for All program.
The $7 billion program provides funding to states and nonprofit groups to offer solar power to households in low-income and disadvantaged communities through grants and loans. The aim is to help ease annual utility costs and meet climate goals.
“As of Thursday we’ve been able to draw down our funds,” said Kirsten Stasio, chief executive officer for Nevada Clean Energy Fund. “It’s unclear if a freeze will be reinstated in the future, but this is a positive sign.”
The EPA funds were frozen almost immediately after Jan. 20, the day Donald Trump took office for his second term as president and issued a series of executive orders seeking to halt climate-related funding and declaring an “energy emergency” aimed at boosting fossil fuel production.
The executive orders were quickly followed by a Jan. 29 memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) freezing trillions of dollars in federal financial assistance as part of a government-wide “review” of spending. At least two federal judges, one in Rhode Island and another in Washington, D.C., issued temporary restraining orders barring the Trump administration from freezing the funds. The OMB memo was rescinded on Feb. 3.
In the wake of the rulings and the memo’s withdrawal, some funds started to flow again, but billions of dollars tied to the two signature pieces of legislation of the Biden era remained on ice. On Feb 10, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island found that the administration had continued to freeze funds despite his temporary restraining order.
That seems to have changed — at least at the EPA. The change in policy comes a day after U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan in Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration, barring it from continuing its funding freeze in any form.
“To be sure, the government is normally entitled to a presumption of good faith on voluntary cessation,” AliKhan wrote in her order. “But the court will not confer that presumption when the government says one thing while expressly doing another. And it will not reward parties who change appearances without changing conduct.”
Sidney Hill, spokesperson for the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, confirmed the state now has access to the $156 million grant it received under the Solar for All program.
Hill explained the state hasn’t done enough work to begin applying for reimbursement payments through the EPA program. But like other recipients, it had been locked out from doing so when the freeze began, he said.
“We can actually access the payment system now, but we haven’t applied for any reimbursements yet,” Hill said. ”But the system is back open to us to do so.”
