$900M taken from solar panel system and thrown to Dem. voting activism, CAL DOGE claims
CAL DOGE said nearly $1 billion was taken from California’s solar panel plan and funneled into Democratic voter registration and activism.
The report, released Thursday, says $928 million in gas tax and electricity bills intended for residential solar panels went to leftist groups.
SOMAH, which stands for Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing, was established by AB 693 in 2015. Since then it has been funded to the tune of $100 million annually using “cap money and trade auctions.”
CAL DOGE said according to SOMAH’s latest report they have completed only 269 projects with a total of $72 million.
Steve Hilton, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, who has continued to lead the race in recent elections, said he wants to know where the rest of the money went.
“$928 million was stolen. It’s your money,” Hilton said. “Do you know where it went?
“It’s an absolute disgrace. It’s just the latest in a string of stolen money from you.”
The report lists what CAL DOGE called SOMAH’s partner organizations, “double dipping in public funds to provide solar panels to apartment buildings.”
It continues: “But they are actually building a left-wing activist machine in the most economically disadvantaged areas of the state.”
CAL DOGE Director Jenny Rae Le Roux said that when the program started, Californians were promised that they would lower their debts. But what happened is the opposite.
Meanwhile, everyone except those on the program has seen their utility bills more than double what they were paying in 2015, she said.
Under the framework of SOMAH, GRID Alternatives is a non-profit organization that serves as the main program administrator for the team, while the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) promotes as a long-term partner organization and a community-based coordinating organization with paid access to the GRID team as a subcontractor, CAL DOGE was sought.
CEJA’s affiliate, CEJA Action, is a 501(c)(4) political organization that expressly seeks to build political power and serves as a Tides Advocacy project, according to CAL DOGE.
CAL DOGE said the political organization published voter guides, and included voters of color in 2024, as well as endorsing 24 candidates for the CA Legislature.
It says that “the funding structure and the fragmented ecosystem are how public funds intended to inform employers about the benefits of solar indirectly support partisan campaign activity.”
Le Roux said the Trump administration cut funding to GRID in August 2025, but said money is still coming in from California without accountability for what happened to those state funds in the past.
CAL DOGE is calling for a full audit of the solar panel system and education spending, including subcontractors and pass-through payments.
Calls to SOMAH were not immediately returned by The Post.
