EPA Internal Watchdog Peeks Under The Hood of $7 Billion Biden Solar Program

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is opening an audit into a $7 billion Biden-era solar deployment program, the OIG said in a Wednesday letter.

The OIG is auditing the Solar For All program, which is part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) created by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The Biden EPA used the program to route massive checks to sixty recipients — primarily state governments —around the country so that awardees could finance solar panel deployment in low-income areas. The Trump EPA is now following up on the program’s funding.

“Our objective is to describe the status of funds, top recipients, and potential risks and impacts of the EPA’s Solar for All program within the Office of the Administrator’s Office of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund,” the letter reads. “We plan to conduct work at headquarters and regions, if necessary.” (RELATED: Biden Admin Hands Out Hundreds Of Millions To Subsidize Solar In Some Of America’s Least-Sunny Places)

EPA OIG SFA Audit Letter by Nick Pope on Scribd

Gloria Taylor-Upshaw, an audit official for the EPA OIG, sent the letter to Julie Zavala, a deputy director of the EPA office responsible for implementing the GGRF.

Some of the states that received massive checks from the Solar for All program happen to be among the least-sunny states in the U.S.

For instance, the Executive Office of the State of New Hampshire received approximately $43.5 million from the program, and the Vermont Department of Public Service reaped nearly $62.5 million while the Maine Governor’s Energy Office raked in $62.1 from the Solar for All program. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s National Solar Radiation Database Physical Solar Model indicates that New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine are among the least-sunny states in the U.S.

One big winner of the Solar for All program was the Texas Southern University’s Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice, which took home $156 million from the Solar for All program. Robert Bullard, the director of the center that bears his name, served as a member of the Biden White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council at the time the funding was awarded, The Washington Free Beacon reported in July 2024.

The Trump administration’s audit of this program comes as it faces a legal battle to terminate billions of dollars doled out by other GGRF programs. They allege that those funds were rushed out the door to politically-connected nonprofits in a fraudulent manner.