Gov. Katie Hobbs and Democratic members of the Arizona’s congressional delegation have sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, demanding he release money that’s part of the Solar for All program. The agency earlier this month announced it was ending the program, arguing President Donald Trump’s spending bill rolled back the funding.
The Solar for All program came out of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act and allocated more than $150 million to Arizona. It also was to send $25 million to the Hopi Tribe.
But Chairman Timothy Nuvangyaoma says they, too, got a termination notice from the EPA. He says there are nearly 1,000 homes in his community that don’t have access to electricity at all — and that solar is the best, most efficient and in some cases the only way to connect these homes and their residents to power.
Full conversation
NUVANGYAOMA: You look at different plans that you put in place — plan A, plan B — what can we do to bring some of that energy into homes that currently aren't connected to the grid? And I think I have to mention that COVID really exacerbated what we have here on the reservation.
And the need to electrify some of these homes, most of which are multi generational, did provide that hope. And being awarded the funding for that actually was turning that into reality. So when we're looking at renewables as a solution to that, it definitely was a step forward in the right direction.
BRODIE: Were you able to get any of the homes connected to solar power before the money went away?
NUVANGYAOMA: So, to echo what you just mentioned earlier, there have been identified approximately 900 homes that currently aren't connected. And we have hundreds of applications coming in towards requesting the solar to be installed to that household. So this has been in the planning phase once we got awarded for, I would say, going on a year, maybe even longer.
We've collaborated with Arizona State University and others to begin these home visits, the site visits out at these particular housing to help identify priorities that are associated with that also. And this is in coordination also with our community health representatives who have been a part of that, to look at the health needs of some of the households that they're visiting. Meaning we have elders in some of these households.
We have some that have required medical equipment that they have to be hardwired and connected. And so this was another solution to that as well. So, the work has been going, so it's not, it definitely does create that pause and concern about what we're going to do to figure out a plan B, plan C if you will.
BRODIE: Do you have a plan B or a plan C at this point?
NUVANGYAOMA: So again, we've been fortunate with the establishment of Hopi Utilities Corporation (HUC), and the energy portion of them has secured additional funding that, although we're going to have to really scale back the amount of households that we were working to connect, there is some money still available. But again, that really limits the amount of households that HUC is going to be able to get connected via renewables.
And whenever you do that, Mr. Brodie, we know that when you're pulling funding from another source, it's taken funding away from another initiative. So it's really a hard balance. But there's so much hope in this community that we see the need, and so we have to reprioritize what we're looking at.
BRODIE: When you talk about scaling back, do you have a sense of how many homes you have the money to connect to power now?
NUVANGYAOMA: I'm not completely clear on what that looks like because we have to hit the reset button and look at the budget. But it's a significant decrease in what we are looking at, with the target of at least 650 homes. So once we do the math on it, I think we'll have a better answer to that question.
BRODIE: You've mentioned a few times the word hope, especially for folks who haven't had electricity before that were thinking they were going to get it and what that would mean for them. I wonder if there are some people in your community who are maybe losing hope or giving up on this.
NUVANGYAOMA: So there definitely is some concern. And we've heard from some of our Hopi members asking a question: "So what does that mean for us?" And the hard part about this, Mr. Brodie, when we received the termination notice and huddling back with our team members out here in this energy space, I told them, "OK, now the hard part about this is having to inform our community members about the termination of this funding."
And even just hearing myself say that was very difficult, because we know that there's households — these families that were excited about finally an opportunity to bring that power in. So we did put together a public service announcement for our community, and we did release that. Because we have to be transparent with our community as well, to let them know what we're dealing with in this present.
So, I don't know that people are giving up hope, because we always try to remain optimistic. Is there a path around this? And I think that leads into where we're at now and what we've kind of, I guess, determined as even — I'll be as bold to say illegal action taken by the EPA on some congressionally approved funding for these particular projects.
And I wish I could find a way to really help those that make this decision to understand what this kind of project means to a rural community, the Hopi Tribe and those households. If they could come out and see some of the faces and hear some of the words that are expressed to us in the realization, "Is this going to happen or did we just get our hopes up again?"
It's really a hard place to be when it comes to the community and this kind of hope that was there for them.
BRODIE: Do you think it's a realistic possibility that this money could be reinstated?
NUVANGYAOMA: Again, I am hopeful that the realization from those decision makers will reassess what was done and reverse that and make it available. But I do see a fight coming on, but it's a good fight — not a fight with the intent that we want to harm one another, but we want to see the funding made available.
And I just see a court scenario within this clawback of this funding. But we're prepared to do what we need to do to continue advocating for our community and see if we can reverse this ruling.
BRODIE: Has there been talk either within the Hopi Nation or between other tribes of filing a lawsuit to try to get this money back?
NUVANGYAOMA: We're keeping those options open, and it's definitely a consideration for the Hopi Tribe as well.
BRODIE: OK. At this point, do you still believe that solar is the best option or maybe the only option for powering up homes in your community that aren't quite yet?
NUVANGYAOMA: Right now, it's the shortest path to getting that done. I wish there was an easier way around this. But right now, the shortest path to getting some electrification to these homes is solar. And that was one problem that we were looking at solving. But now we're kind of back to the drawing board on that.
BRODIE: Yeah, it sounds like you're kind of back to square one, huh?
NUVANGYAOMA: Right. Right. It's taking 10 steps back.
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