CAL DOGE has made a bold claim that close to $1 billion intended for a California solar panel initiative was diverted to support Democratic voter registration and activism efforts.
In a report released on Thursday, the organization suggests that $928 million, originally allocated from gas taxes and electric bills to fund solar panels for apartment complexes, was instead redirected to left-leaning groups.
The program in question, known as SOMAH, or Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing, was established in 2015 through AB 693. It is funded with as much as $100 million annually through the proceeds of “cap and trade” auctions.
According to CAL DOGE, the latest figures from SOMAH reveal that only 269 projects have been completed, using a total of $72 million.
Steve Hilton, a Republican candidate for governor who currently leads in the latest polling, has expressed a desire to uncover the fate of the remaining funds.
“Your money, amounting to $928 million, has been misappropriated,” Hilton stated. “Do you know where it ended up? It was funneled into voter registration initiatives by left-wing groups backing the Democratic Party.”
“It is an absolute scandal. Just the latest in the amount of money that’s been stolen from you.”
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The report lists what CAL DOGE called the partner organizations of SOMAH, who were “double dipping on public funds to provide solar panels on apartment buildings.”
It continues: “But actually are building a left-wing activist machine in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods across the state.”
CAL DOGE Director Jenny Rae Le Roux said that when the program began Californians were promised it would lower their utility bills. But what has happened is the opposite.
Meanwhile everyone except who was in the program has seen their utility bills more than double what they were paying in 2015, she claimed.
Under SOMAH’s structure, GRID Alternatives is a non-profit that serves as a key program administrator on the team, while the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) is promoted as a long-standing partner and community-based coordinating entity for outreach that gets paid by GRID’s team as a subcontractor, CAL DOGE claimed.
CEJA’s related entity, CEJA Action, is a 501(c)(4) political organization that explicitly seeks to build political power and operates as a project of Tides Advocacy, according to CAL DOGE.
CAL DOGE said the political organization published voter guides, and mobilized voters of color in 2024, along with endorsing 24 progressive candidates for the CA legislature.
It claimed the “fiscal sponsorship structure and overlapping ecosystem is how public funds meant to inform tenants about solar benefits are indirectly supporting partisan campaign activity.”
Le Roux said the Trump administration pulled funding from GRID in August 2025, but claimed the money is still flowing in from California with no accountability as to what happened with those federal funds before.
CAL DOGE is calling on a full audit of the solar panel program outreach and education spending, including subcontractors and pass-through payments.
Calls to SOMAH were not immediately returned to The Post.
