A tribe in Arizona planned to connect 600 homes to electricity. Then the funding was cut

For as long as 55-year-old Hopi Chairman Tim Nuvangyaoma has been alive, high-voltage power lines have cut across Hopi lands in northeast Arizona, carrying vast amounts of power long distances throughout the Southwest.

But residents of the Hopi Reservation have never been connected to that grid. Instead, tribal members have relied on a single power line that runs roughly 30 miles east and west across high desert punctuated by three distinctive mesas, home to 12 distinct villages, including some of the oldest inhabited communities in the United States.

Those who live more than a mile away from that line — nearly 3,000 people — have no access to electricity. Families need to rely on generators to power everything from refrigerators to medical devices.

Under then-President Joe Biden, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, providing nearly $2 billion to tribes to invest in renewable energy.

The Hopi were approved for a $25 million grant to install solar panels and battery storage for around 600 homes through a program called Solar for All.

But in August, the Trump administration terminated the Solar for All program, calling it wasteful.

Now, the tribe will be lucky to power around 100 homes from a much smaller pot of funding through a federal grant from the Tribal Electrification Program. Hopi officials say they will now have to decide who gets power and who doesn't.

The situation on the Hopi Reservation isn't unique. An estimated 54,000 tribal members across Indian Country don't have access to electricity, according to a 2023 report from the Department of Energy's Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs.