The bill-payers in a household know the challenges of electricity in the modern age: Costs skyrocketing, and now, intermittent power shutoffs due to wildfire danger. Both of these things can create headaches: one is a strain on household budgets; the other is potentially life-threatening, for those who rely on electricity for things like home oxygen or a CPAP machine.
These are two very good reasons that more Americans have looked forward to installing solar energy kits at their homes. Having a way to generate and store power right at home means more stable — or eventually even zero — electricity costs. It can also promise stability for those for whom electricity is a matter of life and death.
But if you hear the current administration discuss it, solar power, and supporting solar power for low-income households, is just part of a woke agenda, perpetuated by the Biden administration, that now deserves to be kicked to the curb. For the people currently in power at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, kicking that “radical, environmentally friendly” agenda to the curb is important enough to risk possibly breaking the law to do so.
In a time when the needs of large companies running Artificial Intelligence servers are sopping up more of the energy grid, individual Americans need more options for generating energy, not fewer.
This week, leaders at the EPA announced the end of a $7 billion program called Solar for All, which would have offered money to various state and Tribal agencies, that in turn became grants to install solar setups at the homes of low-income Americans. It was passed through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and entities were soon to be receiving the funds. Oregon was set to receive $86.6 million from that program, according to the state’s delegation in Congress. Some 8,000 buildings in Oregon were slated to receive funds for solar installation. The program was already funded in Congress, and technically, the federal government does not have the authority to rescind the funds that have already been approved.
But that seems hardly to matter to this administration, which seems to be able to politicize even universally accepted energy programs. The majority of Oregon’s Congressional delegation sent a letter to the head of the EPA this week, asking for answers.
“If allowed to spend the federal funds it was legally awarded, the State of Oregon has plans to establish a program that would support solar panel installation on multi-family buildings and the development of community solar projects, while also investing in workforce development activities to ensure a robust and efficient solar industry in Oregon,” reads the text of the letter. “This program would be the only statewide residential solar incentive program and without it, residential solar will not be a cost-effective option for low-income Oregonians.”
In a time when the needs of large companies running Artificial Intelligence servers are sopping up more of the energy grid, individual Americans need more options for generating energy, not fewer. We will not make America great by moving back to a nostalgic time when oil and coal were the only options. It’s not woke to invest in multiple energy options, and it’s certainly not woke to care about the increasing cost of energy, which is a burgeoning burden on everyone.
This article appears in the Source Aug 14, 2025.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Where to begin? First of all, why should one nickel of my tax $ go to provide solar to low-income households? I’m not low-income but I still can’t afford a solar/battery solution for my small house. The payback period is probably 50 years for me. Why so long? Because I’m a CEC customer and I pay less than 8 cents per KWh. And I don’t have to deal with outages due to peak usage, wildfire danger, etc. CEC doesn’t play that game.
Why should one nickel of my tax $ go to CEC customers for energy efficiency programs? Because energy efficiency benefits everyone.
Solar still makes sense here in Central Oregon, we have so much sun, and there are still programs available to make it pencil. Granted, low kWh utilities like CEC and other co-ops in the area might have a harder time for the payback period but I was happy with the quotes I got from some of the local companies. I didn’t contact a larger company for the main reason of not getting price gouged. Happy with our solar purchase from National Solar.