U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright made news during his Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) budget hearings in April, announcing that the Department’s review of all grants made under the previous administration was nearly complete. After over a year of uncertainty and radio silence from DOE, nearly 2,000 grantees finally got a signal that their awards could advance. Noticeably absent from the list of released awards, however, was any mention of thousands of additional grants made through DOE’s Office of State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP) to local, state, and Tribal governments, even though many of those awards have been frozen since the beginning of the current administration.
SCEP’s History
After Congress infused nearly $16 billion in funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), DOE established SCEP in 2022 as the “front door” to local, state, and Tribal governments, as well as schools, nonprofits, workforce development agencies, and community organizations. IIJA and IRA supercharged existing programs with bipartisan support, like the State Energy Program (SEP) and Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), and created new technical and financial assistance programs, such as Home Energy Rebates and Renew America’s Schools. SCEP also developed new programs through annual appropriations for long-term capacity building, like the Local Government Energy Program and Energy Future Grants. Together, SCEP’s nearly 30 programs play an essential role in deploying billions in funding to lower energy burdens and costs, improve energy efficiency, plan future energy needs, strengthen reliability, and build more sustainable, resilient communities in every corner of the country, including U.S. territories.
Federal Funding Freeze
Last year, the new administration’s directive to pause disbursements for most federal grant and loan programs created significant uncertainty that has uniquely impacted SCEP’s programming and the local and Tribal governments, small nonprofits, and school districts it serves. The impacts include wasted time and resources, lost employment for contractors and staff, financial uncertainty for SCEP projects, and delays and even cancellations of energy savings programs, especially for low-income communities. Even if the pause is lifted tomorrow, the impacts of funding freezes for the last year and a half will not be reversed easily. In particular, staffing across DOE’s clean energy programs, including SCEP, has dropped to historic lows, and fulfilling Congress’s intent for these programs will be difficult to achieve without added workforce capacity. Below is a glimpse into some of the core SCEP programs which have been frozen.
Cost and Energy Saving Programs and Projects in Limbo
Congress prescribes the way in which SCEP funds are spent in two main categories: 1) formula-based and 2) competitive funding. Approximately 90% of SCEP funds are ‘formula’ dollars, which are allocated using a mathematical equation rather than a traditional, merit-based grant application process. Congress sets the total pool of money, and a specific formula ensures funds are distributed fairly among states, tribes, territories, or local governments.
The rest of SCEP’s funds are awarded through the competitive, merit-based grant application process that is common across DOE. In this process, DOE writes a solicitation, also known as a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), organizations develop and submit applications which are then reviewed by a committee of experts, and then selected for final negotiation. DOE traditionally informs the public who has won the competition at the point of selection, although the contract is not signed until after the final negotiation. Over the past year and a half, DOE has ‘ghosted’ many competitively selected SCEP awardees, including in the following programs.
Several Competitively Selected SCEP Programs are Ghosted
The Renew America’s Schools Program was created under the IIJA to invest $500 million in public schools’ energy infrastructure to decrease energy use and costs, improve indoor air quality, and foster healthier learning environments. Schools spent valuable time and substantial resources developing applications and those who were selected planned their budget and future spending plans around the promised grants and their benefits. For awards issued under round one in 2023, only 21% of funds have been spent. Eight awards have zero funds spent, and four of those have already passed their planned end date. For awards issued under round two in 2024, roughly half of the selectees had their funds obligated, and none of them have received any funds from DOE to date.
DOE announced a third round of funding opportunity in Fiscal Year 2025, but the new Administration subsequently delayed awards to conduct a review for alignment with its policies. In July 2025, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) “conclude[d] that DOE violated the [Impoundment Control Act] when it delayed the obligation of fiscal year (FY) 2025 [Renew America’s Schools] funds appropriated by IIJA for policy reasons.” The act operates on the constitutional premise that the President must obligate funds appropriated by Congress, unless Congress approves otherwise. In the year since the Impoundment finding, DOE has not taken corrective action.
Energy Future Grants (EFG) is a $27 million financial and technical assistance program that supports innovative, community-driven planning projects across buildings, power, and transportation sectors led by local, state, and Tribal governments. In April 2024, DOE announced 40 selectees across the country. Their projects included resilience hubs for emergency preparedness, community ownership models for microgrids and virtual power plants, and energy savings and improvement programs for residents and businesses. Selectees expressed excitement at the opportunity to devote significant funding to planning — a rare opportunity — and to compete for implementation funds in a future phase of the program. One team shared with DOE that their EFG project represented the biggest opportunity for decarbonization of their career. These 40 project teams began the selection process, forming cohorts facilitated by contracted technical assistance providers, attending trainings, and developing their award packages to meet compliance and align program and project goals. Unfortunately, DOE never finalized these awards, and under the new administration, communication from DOE ceased and funds never reached communities.
The Local Government Energy Program (LGEP) was envisioned as the “long-term home” for energy project implementation dollars delivering community benefits, specifically serving Tribal Nations, smaller local governments, disadvantaged and energy transition communities. While the team initially announced $18 million in annual appropriations to support financial and technical assistance, the first-time funding round was over 15.5 times oversubscribed, with applicants requesting $279 million for projects. In response to the strength of applications and the sheer need presented, in September 2024, DOE selected 12 communities to receive over $31 million in grants and technical assistance, including on-the-ground fellows to support project work. These 12 communities represented a mixture of innovative, locally-tailored approaches to lower energy costs, build local efficiency and resilience, and spark jobs and investments. Projects included transforming a closed school into a community resilience hub, adding grid-tied battery energy storage to support tribal energy reliability, building solar and workforce in an Alaska Native Village, redeveloping vacant lots into electric, Net-Zero Energy Homes, expanding local mechanic workforce trainings, and leveraging clean energy financing in rural communities. These 12 communities entered award negotiations in September 2024; 11 have received no substantive communication from DOE since January 2025.
Two years later, across both EFG and LGEP, all 52 selected projects have not received their promised funding. These 52 communities–waiting in limbo for the disbursement of over $50 million–span 25 states: Alaska, Ariz., Calif., Colo., Fla., Ga., Hawaii, Ill., Ind., La., Mass., Md., Mich., Minn., N.C., N.J., N.M., N.Y., Ohio, Ore., Penn., Tenn., Texas, Va., Wis. Some states stand to lose a substantial amount of funds, for instance seven selected projects in Minnesota total over $10 million, five selected projects in Florida total almost $5 million, and three projects in New Mexico total nearly $6 million.
Since April 2025, no selectee from either program has had any communication from DOE. Additionally, DOE has provided no information about when these programs may resume or if they will be terminated. Selectees have had to pivot to secure funding from other sources to keep their projects viable. Some have been successful while others have not. One EFG selectee told the DOE Alumni Network that their work has continued but not at the scale the promised federal funds would have allowed.
Delays to Formula Funding
Formula funded programs are awarded differently from competitive awards. For programs funded with formula dollars Congress determines which communities will receive how much funding, based on a formula written in statute. The states, Tribes, and communities that are eligible for formula funds are entitled to these funds and do not have to compete. As such, formula funds can reach smaller communities that have less capacity to compete for sophisticated and complicated competitive funding opportunities. DOE cannot withhold funds for Congressionally-mandated formula programs, as doing so would violate the Impoundment Control Act.
SCEP’s Home Energy Rebates supports states by funding two programs totaling $8.8 billion. The first, under IRA Section 50121, the Home Efficiency Rebates (referred to as HER or HOMES), provides funding for building retrofits based on the amount of efficiency gained. The second, under IRA Section 50122, the Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates (referred to as HEAR or HEEHR), provides rebates for the purchase of appliances to offset their costs. Both programs are run through the state energy offices and then distributed to residents. The current Administration had not approved a single state program since entering office in January 2025, which meant only a handful of state programs – launched during the previous administration – have been operational, while dozens of others continue to await approval. As of June 2026, 12 states and Washington, D.C., have launched HEAR programs, while only seven have launched HOMES programs.
On May 29, 2026, the Department of Energy (DOE) released long-overdue guidance for both programs. By statute, the HEEHR rebates can be used (a) to purchase an electric appliance “as part of new construction, to replace a nonelectric appliance, or as a first-time purchase of that appliance”. Despite the flexibility explicitly included in the statute, the new DOE guidance imposes restrictions on the HEEHR program, prohibiting states from allowing consumers to replace non-electric appliances (like gas appliances) with electric ones. By narrowing the scope of eligible uses, the new guidance not only limits consumer choice and appears to contravene the language of the law.
The new guidance applies to states whose rebate programs have not been approved and states whose programs have already launched. In other words, it will require any state that allows for replacement of nonelectric appliances to rework their programs over the next three months. DOE has informally advised states with existing programs that they can continue to take reservations under the existing program guidelines through August 31, 2026. With the new guidance in place, DOE can begin to process state and tribal rebate applications again, although staff capacity in reviewing these complex applications will be a challenge.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program (EECBG) Program was originally authorized through the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The $3 billion in funding for this program over these years has transformed many communities who used it to author first-ever community energy plans, install solar panels, or create green financing programs. Angie Fyfe, the former Associate Director of the Colorado Governor’s Energy Office who served as the Principal Investigator for state’s EECBG award (2009-2012), told the DOE Alumni Network that “EECBG is a completely apolitical program built on fiscal conservative principles. Created by the nonpartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors, 83% of its grants went toward cutting municipal energy waste and saving taxpayer dollars. Today, some of those original awards live on through community revolving loan funds — continuously investing in local economic resilience and strengthening American main streets.”
Under the IIJA, Congress appropriated $550 million to revive the EECBG program, once again offering flexible formula funding to all states and territories, over 1,800 local governments, and all federally recognized Tribes and Native Alaskan Villages and Corporations. In addition to formula funds, a competitive round of $8.8 million supported around a dozen communities ineligible for formula funds. EECBG Program funds are used on a wide variety of projects including energy efficiency retrofits, energy auditing and planning, clean energy workforce development, investment in solar and battery storage, EVs and EV charging, and residential programs for technology like heat pumps.
Many of the EECBG Program’s eligible entities submitted applications which were approved before January 2025. Those projects are moving forward relatively unaffected. Since then, however, new commitments of funds (obligations) have effectively ceased.
However, of the 2,708 state, local, and Tribal governments eligible for formula funds the vast majority have not received funds and currently remain in limbo. Most notably, the 774 federally recognized Tribes and Native Alaskan Villages and Corporations are eligible for modest sums through this program, but their application deadline had not yet passed when the current administration shut down new awards. As such, less than 1%, or only seven Tribes, received any funding from this program while the rest remain in limbo and are effectively denied the opportunity to receive funding that is allocated to them by statute.
Thousands of communities across the country have yet to receive funds they were allocated by Congress nearly five years ago as part of the IIJA (See the complete list of eligible local governments and Tribes and associated formula allocations). Adding to the confusion, the EECBG Program website has been offline for nearly a year and a half — providing little information or resources to communities looking to locate their funding. In addition, the EECBG Program’s technical assistance opportunities — which supported communities across the country by guiding them through key steps of new projects, funding fellows focused on supporting EECBG projects, and providing no-cost support from the National Lab of the Rockies (formerly NREL) — have been discontinued.
Even if the program received authorization to make new awards and “pay its bills,” SCEP likely does not have the staff capacity to run the program at full scale. The EECBG program operated with over 100 DOE staff in the ARRA days, and is currently running with under 15 people.
The State-Based Home Energy Efficiency Contractor Training Grants, also known as Training for Residential Energy Contractors (TREC) program, provides grant funding to state energy offices to reduce the cost of training, testing, and certifying residential energy efficiency and electrification contractors. Congress allocated $150M in formula grants, and $40M in competitive grants under this program, and later rescinded all of the competitive grant funding. Even so, funding remains for the state-based formula allocated funding, of which DOE has outlayed less than 1% of the total.
The Path Forward
These programs are only some of the ways SCEP interacted directly with states, public schools, nonprofits, local governments, Tribes, and community groups — yet the fates of these programs remain largely unknown. SCEP programs were designed to deliver results directly to people at the community level, helping consumers, homes, communities, and local businesses save money and energy. To fulfill this promise, DOE would need to pay out promised funds and restore SCEP programs to their intended staff capacity to deliver high-quality service to the American people.
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This piece was drafted by trusted and vetted alumni of the U.S. Department of Energy. Any views and opinions expressed are that of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the DOE Alumni Network. Alumni who contributed to this article have done so in their own personal capacity and not on behalf of their current employers.