By: Joshua Haiar,
South Dakota Searchlight
South Dakota is one of six states that hasn’t applied for a federal grant program to support solar energy projects around the nation.
The Solar for All initiative aims to lower utility costs and promote renewable energy. The state governments that have not applied for grants are all led by Republican governors: Florida, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Nevada and South Dakota.
Gov. Kristi Noem’s spokesperson, Amelia Joy, noted that 84% of South Dakota’s energy comes from renewable resources and that the federal funding could come with strings attached.
“Governor Noem absolutely believes that the federal government’s wasteful spending, much of it at the behest of President Biden, is the single largest cause of the inflation crisis that our nation finds itself in,” Joy said in an email.
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in 2022, earmarks $7 billion for about 60 solar projects in the U.S.
While states such as North Carolina and Texas are pursuing the grants, South Dakota’s inaction has frustrated environmental advocates.
Arlene Brandt-Jenson is with SoDak 350, a sustainability and climate change advocacy group. She said the organization is “disappointed in that news, but not surprised,” given that Noem’s administration has already passed up other federal funding aimed at mitigating heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, called the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program.
That program offered $3 million to create a plan to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and access to a $4.6 billion fund for implementation.
“In the end, it’s the homeowners and residents that are hurt by the state passing up this money,” Brandt-Jenson said of the solar grants. “It’s just going to go to other states.”
Cities could also apply for solar grants, but none in South Dakota did. Two out-of-state nonprofits have submitted applications to advance projects in South Dakota: the American Solar Energy Society and the Coalition for Green Capital.
The federal government funds nearly half of South Dakota’s state budget of about $7 billion. Nevertheless, passing on extra federal funding has become a hallmark of the Noem administration.
In 2020, the administration rejected extra unemployment benefits, provided by an executive measure of then-President Trump during the pandemic. The measure provided an additional $300 in unemployment benefits per week, but it required states to kick in another $100.
South Dakota also passed on a share of $1 billion in nationwide cybersecurity grants for county and city governments, and a federal effort that would have provided $7.5 million to feed low-income kids last summer in South Dakota through the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer program.
The Solar for All grants range from $25 million to $400 million, promising to bring rooftop residential panels, off-site solar projects, and solar installation jobs to areas largely left out of the renewable energy transition thus far. The Environmental Protection Agency expects to award the grants in March, 2024.
The deadline for the state to apply closed on October 12.
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence.
