BOISE, ID – With the Trump administration’s recent decision to cancel the Solar for All program, thousands of Idahoans are set to lose the opportunity for rooftop solar panels.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement terminating the $7 billion program created under President Joe Biden will result in a loss of $56 million in grants to Idaho.

Director of the Idaho Chapter of the Sierra Club Lisa Young said the program was designed to lower power bills for people who might otherwise struggle to install solar panels.

“This would have funded all of those types of projects,” said Young, “particularly in rural Idaho and for other low-income and disadvantaged communities, including tribes in Idaho. It’s estimated that it would have helped lower power bills for 15,000 Idahoans.”

The program is supposed to start in 2026 in Idaho, offering rooftop solar and small-scale solar projects to which local residents can subscribe.

The grantee in charge of the program in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming is the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. Young said a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s efforts to claw back the Solar for All program funds is expected.

Young said many lower income people have a substantial energy burden, sometimes spending a quarter of their income on energy costs.

“These are folks who really are in need of some support for paying their power bills, especially as those bills continue to increase,” said Young. “Solar is an amazing resource because it really helps to certainly lower and stabilize power bills.”

Young added that the EPA’s claim that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s passage required the end of the Solar for All program is dubious.

“I think we’ve got a strong case to hopefully win this back and keep this moving forward,” said Young. “So we’re remaining hopeful this will just be a bit of a setback, a bit of a delay, which is really unfortunate, but hopefully not the end.”