Harris County v. EPA

On September 22, 2026, in a lawsuit filed by Harris County, Texas, the recipient of a $249.7 million SFA grant, the federal district court for the District of Columbia also vacated EPA’s termination of the Solar for All program. The court rejected the defendants’ argument that under the Tucker Act, exclusive jurisdiction over Harris County’s claims was in the Court of Federal Claims. The district court found that Harris County’s claims were not in essence contractual because the rights asserted by Harris County “arise from statute rather than from the terms of its grant agreement, and the relief it seeks is neither damages nor specific performance.” In particular, the court described Harris County’s claims as a challenge to EPA’s “policy-level determination” that it was “no longer legally permissible” to operate the SFA program after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) repealed the Inflation Reduction Act provision that created the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund pursuant to which SFA was established. The court also rejected the defendants’ argument that Harris County’s injury—lost grant funds—was not redressable and the County therefore did not have standing. The court found that even though the court could not grant relief restoring the funding, “setting aside the decision would remove [a] barrier to relief.” The court also found that EPA’s decision to terminate SFA was a final agency action subject to review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). On the merits of the APA claim, the court found that statutory text and the legislative record confirmed that Congress declined to rescind obligated funds in the OBBBA, and that EPA’s termination of SFA therefore exceeded its statutory authority and was arbitrary and capricious. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants on Harris County’s ultra vires claim, finding that it was duplicative of the APA claim, and on the County’s constitutional claims based on the Appropriations and Presentment Clauses. The court said the County’s constitutional claims were an “attempt to assert non-statutory rights to vindicate separation-of-powers principles” and that there was no cause of action to bring such “freestanding constitutional claims.” The court concluded that vacatur of EPA’s “policy-level determination” was the appropriate remedy, declining to limit the vacatur’s applicability to the County’s grant. The court denied without prejudice the County’s request for an injunction.

Harris County, Texas filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Columbia challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's termination of the Solar for All program. The County alleged that it was the “recipient of one of the largest Solar for All awards and leader of the Texas Solar for All Coalition” and that harms suffered by the County due to the dismantling of the program were “illustrative of the devastating harm” the action would cause nationwide. The complaint alleged that “Solar for All was an integral part of this country’s most ambitious effort to slow the climate crisis, promising millions of Americans access to affordable, clean solar energy; improved public health; American energy production and independence; resilience to grid failures in extreme weather; and hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs.” The County asserted violations of the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause and separation of powers principles. The County also asserted that EPA’s action was ultra vires because it was not authorized by statute and was contrary to the Constitution.