U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the District of Columbia on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, sided in part with Harris County, Texas, on summary judgment in Harris County, Texas v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, vacating the Environmental Protection Agency’s termination of the Solar for All grant program, according to Reuters reporting on 23 September and the CourtListener docket for No. 1:25-cv-03646. A memorandum opinion and order entered the same day grant the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment in part and the defendants’ cross-motion in part.
Congress created the roughly $7 billion Solar for All program in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to expand solar energy in low-income communities. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced termination of the program about a month after President Donald Trump in July 2025 signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which eliminated the program’s funding source, Reuters reported. Harris County had been awarded a $249.7 million Solar for All grant in 2024, Reuters said; Bloomberg Law’s account of the opinion describes that award as about $250 million aimed at solar installation in low-income and disadvantaged communities in the county.
Chutkan held that EPA’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act because it rested on an incorrect reading of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The statute, she wrote, rescinded unobligated administrative funds but left obligated grant funds undisturbed. Reuters quotes: “Whatever the practical consequences of Congress’s rescission of unobligated administrative funds, they do not change the fact that Congress expressly chose to leave obligated grant funds undisturbed.” Bloomberg Law quotes a parallel passage from the opinion: “By rescinding only unobligated balances available to carry out, Congress impliedly declined to rescind obligated ones, meaning the provision left funds already obligated to grant recipients undisturbed.”
Vacatur is not the same as an order to reinstate every award overnight. Bloomberg Law reports that Chutkan vacated the termination decision but stopped short of ordering EPA to restore Harris County’s grant. The opinion, as Bloomberg summarizes it, notes that Solar for All funds remain in a Treasury account until 2031 and that hostility to greenhouse-gas programs does not show the agency would defy a court judgment. Reuters likewise reports EPA is considering appealing both Chutkan’s decision and a companion Rhode Island ruling.
She is the second federal judge to reach a vacatur result on Solar for All termination. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island vacated EPA’s action on similar grounds about a week earlier, Reuters reported; Bloomberg Law notes that the Rhode Island AFL-CIO also won a case last week to scrap Solar for All cancellation language, and that several courts have ruled the agency failed to review the terms of each grant.
Procedural path on the CourtListener docket: Harris County filed the complaint on 13 October 2025 against EPA, Administrator Zeldin, and related defendants; after preliminary-injunction and temporary-restraining motions were withdrawn in November 2025, the parties briefed cross-motions for summary judgment in early 2026, with an amicus brief from members of Congress led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse allowed in March. The 22 September memorandum opinion and order resolve those cross-motions in part for each side.
Counsel of record as Reuters lists them: for Harris County, Beth Neitzel, Emily Nash, and Noah Shaw of Foley Hoag; for EPA, Bethany Theriot, Tiffiney Carney, and I-Heng Hsu of the Justice Department. Bloomberg Law likewise notes Foley Hoag for the county.
What to watch: whether EPA notices an appeal from Chutkan’s order, from McElroy’s, or both; whether any further relief order addresses Harris County’s $249.7 million award specifically; and how obligated Solar for All awards are treated while funds sit in the Treasury account through 2031.
Floor: D.D.C. Judge Tanya S. Chutkan 22 Sep 2026 — Harris County, Texas v. EPA, No. 1:25-cv-03646; SJ in part; vacated EPA termination of Solar for All (~$7B, IRA 2022) under Admin. Lee Zeldin. OBBB Jul 2025 rescinded unobligated admin funds but left obligated grants undisturbed — APA violation. Vacatur ≠ order restoring Harris County’s $249.7M award (Bloomberg). Second judge after Mary McElroy (D.R.I.) ~prior week. EPA considering appeal. Reuters 23 Sep + Bloomberg Law 23 Sep + CourtListener docket.