The Trump administration’s decision this week to ax a Biden-era rooftop solar program will cost Maryland more than $60 million intended to build the local workforce and lower electricity costs for thousands of households.

Of the $62 million committed to Maryland through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All program, officials have drawn down less than $1 million, according to I. Katherine Magruder, executive director of the Maryland Clean Energy Center.

The rest may be one more casualty of President Donald Trump’s war on clean energy.

The New York Times first reported the EPA’s intent to end the $7 billion Solar for All program this week. Administrator Lee Zeldin confirmed the step on social media Thursday.

In recent days, officials with the Maryland Clean Energy Center, the state green bank, have appealed to the Trump administration to reconsider while also notifying nonprofits and other groups that their money likely isn’t coming.

“As the SFA Grant recipient for the State of Maryland the aftermath of this news is certain to result in economic shock waves which will cause irreversible harm to the labor force and consumers within our state and across the country,” Magruder wrote in a letter to Zeldin after initial reports on Tuesday.

In her letter, the green bank executive emphasized that Solar for All is about more than climate change and clean energy — both anathema causes to the Trump administration — but also boosting local economies, helping low-income families and fortifying an electricity grid strained by increasing demand.

EPA leadership, though, moved forward with cancellation plans this week, arguing that it had no choice but to end the multibillion-dollar program.

In a post on X on Thursday, Zeldin criticized Solar for All as ineffective while arguing that the president’s new tax bill stripped the EPA of its authority to administer the program. Among the provisions in Trump’s tax bill attacking clean energy, the legislation eliminated a $27 billion program established through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which included Solar for All.

“The bottom line is this: EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive,” said Zeldin, a former New York congressman.

Magruder said in an interview Thursday evening that the Clean Energy Center had yet to receive direct word from the EPA about the cancellation. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the agency aimed to send letters to states and tribal governments by the end of the week.

An EPA spokesperson said Friday that the agency is reviewing Magruder’s letter.

Maryland officials had high hopes for the program.

Designed to help low-income families and underserved communities access solar energy, Maryland’s $62 million in Solar for All funding would have provided a mix of small grants, credit lines and low-interest loans to groups for solar installation and workforce training.

The Clean Energy Center aimed to lower electricity costs from as many as 10,000 Maryland households. The green bank had entered into contracts with nonprofits and other groups across the state to install rooftop solar, expand access to energy from community solar farms and train hundreds of workers as electricians and solar installers.

Training for many of these workers was scheduled to begin next month.

The EPA’s termination of Solar for All is sure to face court challenges from states and environmental groups.

The program was expected to mitigate electricity costs for around 900,000 households across the country, but states have spent a slim fraction of the $7 billion in the program.

“Terminating this grant is a another [sic] step in eroding the public trust and calls into question the bankability of agreements with the Federal government,” Magruder said in her letter to Zeldin. “The US economy will suffer as even more jobs will be lost because contracts for services, which MCEC among other state awardees had carefully competed and thoughtfully awarded to vendors, will not go forward.”