Just a year ago, the Biden administration’s Solar for All program selected 60 states, nonprofits, municipalities, and tribal consortiums to receive a total of $7 billion in grant funding to set up solar infrastructure in low income areas.
In February, those grants were placed in purgatory after President Trump froze Environmental Protection Agency funding.
“It feels like everything’s up in the air,” Joseph Eagleman, CEO of the Chippewa Cree Energy Corporation, told Tech Brew. “If things don’t go right, it’ll leave a lot of people behind.”
Eagleman has been working to get solar power set up at the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana through a nearly $136 million grant awarded to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (MHA Nation). The reservation’s plan was to power 200 homes through new solar infrastructure paid for by the grant, with the first recipient being a tribal elder who struggles with high electric bills, according to Eagleman.
Luckily for grantees like the MHA Nation, Trump unfroze Solar for All funding last month, meaning all the MHA subawardees, like the Chippewa Cree tribe at Rocky Boy, are set to move forward with buying the equipment they need to build solar on Native American land. But tribal representatives told Tech Brew they’re shaken by the freezing and thawing of funds, and plan to move as quickly—and cautiously—as possible going forward.
“[We] really don’t want to stand out,” Eagleman said of submitting invoices and related paperwork to the Trump administration-run Solar for All program. “Just want to ensure that we’re not raising any eyebrows or any questions and just get this done to help our people out.”
For the Chippewa Cree, solar infrastructure would bring educational opportunities to get youth interested in working in renewable energy, job opportunities for the community, and greater energy independence for the tribe.
“We as a tribe do want to have [our] own utility set up to be able to run these things ourselves,” Eagleman said. “Because at this point, most of the energy payments just leave the reservation and they don’t come back.”
And Solar for All wouldn’t just boost the economic might of the Rocky Boy Reservation: Cody Two Bears, CEO of Indigenized Energy, said that Solar for All grants are a “historic opportunity” for all the tribes that received them. Indigenized Energy is a Native-led organization that helps tribes set up solar infrastructure on their lands and is working as an intermediary between subawardees like the Chippewa Cree and the MHA Nation.
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“This Solar for All program is not a handout,” Two Bears told Tech Brew, in response to the Trump administration calling such initiatives “a waste of taxpayer dollars.” “It’s an economic opportunity to really allow low-income…communities all over the country to flourish with green energy.”
Solar for All grants work via reimbursements: As awardees spend money on solar infrastructure, they are then paid back from their grant. So in an effort to avoid further uncertainty, Two Bears said Indigenized Energy is planning on collecting reimbursements from the grant more frequently—so if the funding is frozen again, tribes aren’t “sitting there, a couple million dollars in the hole.”
“We’re really looking at pivoting or shifting our approach on how we’re going to be doing this, not knowing what the future of this program is going to look like,” Two Bears said. “We’re trying to figure out how we can speed up the process, to get implementation started faster, to get some of this [grant] money spent.”
Ann Vallie, solar program manager for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, told Tech Brew that she plans to follow that strategy when it comes to drawing down funds for solar infrastructure bought for the Turtle Mountain Reservation.
“We haven’t done any drawdowns yet,” Vallie said. “Hopefully we can do it monthly, maybe even faster—but it depends because we are a subawardee.”
Vallie said the tribe’s plans are to install solar on 173 homes over the next five years. Planning has been stalled due to the freezing of funds, but now they’re “finally getting started,” which has included more paperwork than was required when the Biden administration ran the program.
“We just have to just keep better records. Checks and balances—there’s nothing wrong with that,” Vallie told Tech Brew. “All that matters for me is to be able to help my community and put this solar out there and hopefully build from it.”
And it’s that purpose that’s guiding her through the uncertainty surrounding the funding.
“I don’t know, I just feel we’re going to be OK,” Vallie said. “I’m going to be optimistic.”