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The U.S. Division of Agriculture introduced late Tuesday it is going to launch beforehand licensed grant funds to farmers and small rural enterprise house owners to construct renewable power tasks — however provided that they rewrite functions to adjust to President Donald Trump’s power priorities.
The transfer has left some farmers perplexed — and uncertain that they’ll ever get the grant cash they had been promised, given the Trump administration’s emphasis on fossil fuels and hostility towards renewable power.
A few of the roughly 6,000 grant candidates have already accomplished the photo voltaic, wind or different power tasks and are awaiting promised compensation from the federal government. Others say they’ll’t afford to tackle the tasks they’d been planning except the grant cash comes by way of.
A Floodlight evaluation reveals the overwhelming majority of the supposed recipients of this cash reside in Trump nation — congressional districts represented by Republicans.
After listening to of the USDA’s newest announcement Wednesday, Minnesota strawberry farmer Andy Petran mentioned he suspects many beforehand accepted tasks gained’t be funded. He’d been accepted for a $39,625 grant to put in photo voltaic panels on his farm. However like many different farmers nationally, Petran obtained phrase from the USDA earlier this 12 months that his grant cash had been placed on maintain.
“It’s not like several small farmer who’s seeking to put photo voltaic panels on their farms will be capable of put a pure gasoline refinery or a coal refinery on the farm,” Petran mentioned. “I don’t know what they count on me to modify to.”
Petran was relying on the advantages that solar energy would carry to his farm.
After getting phrase in September that the USDA had accepted his grant utility, he anticipated the photo voltaic panels wouldn’t solely cut back his electrical energy invoice however permit him to promote energy again to the grid. He and his spouse figured the additional revenue would assist develop their Twin Cities Berry Co. and pay down their debt extra shortly.
Petran’s optimism was quickly extinguished. A USDA consultant advised him earlier this 12 months that the grant had been frozen.
His 15-acre farm about 40 miles north of Minneapolis operates on a razor-thin margin, Petran mentioned, so with out the grant cash, he can’t afford to construct the $80,000 photo voltaic undertaking.
“Profitable these grants was a contract between us and the federal government,” he mentioned. “There was a stage of belief there. That belief has been damaged.”
In its announcement, issued Tuesday evening, the USDA mentioned grant recipients can have 30 days to overview and revise their undertaking plans to align with President Trump’s Unleashing American Vitality Government Order, which prioritizes fossil gasoline manufacturing and cuts federal assist for renewable power tasks.
“This course of offers rural electrical suppliers and small companies the chance to refocus their tasks on increasing American power manufacturing whereas eliminating Biden-era DEIA and local weather mandates embedded in earlier proposals,” the USDA information launch mentioned. “… This up to date steerage displays a broader shift away from the Inexperienced New Deal.”
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins mentioned within the launch that the brand new directive will give rural power suppliers and small companies an opportunity to “realign their tasks” with Trump’s priorities.
It’s unclear what it will imply for grant recipients who’ve already spent cash on renewable power tasks — or these whose deliberate tasks have been stalled by the administration’s funding freeze.
The USDA didn’t straight reply these questions. In an e mail to Floodlight on Wednesday, a division spokesperson mentioned the company should approve any proposed modifications to plans — however provided no particular steerage on what or whether or not modifications must be made.
“Awardees that don’t reply through the web site shall be thought of as not wishing to make modifications to their proposals, and disbursements and different actions will resume after 30 days,” the e-mail mentioned. “For awardees who reply through the web site to substantiate no modifications, processing on their tasks will resume instantly.”
IRA funding focused
The grant funding was placed on maintain after an government order issued by President Trump on his first day in workplace. It froze a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} for renewable power beneath President Joe Biden’s huge local weather regulation, the Inflation Discount Act (IRA).
The regulation added greater than $1 billion to the USDA’s 17-year-old Rural Vitality for America (REAP) program.
About 6,000 REAP grants funded with IRA cash have been paused and are being reviewed for compliance with Trump’s government order, in keeping with a March 5 e mail from the USDA’s rural growth workplace to the workplace of U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland.
A lawsuit filed earlier this month challenges the legality of the freeze on IRA funding for REAP tasks.
Earthjustice lawyer Hana Vizcarra, one of many attorneys who filed the swimsuit, referred to as the newest USDA announcement a “disingenuous stunt.”
“President Trump and Secretary Rollins can’t change the foundations of the sport effectively into the second half,” she mentioned in a press release Wednesday. “That is the definition of an arbitrary and capricious catch-22.”
Beneath the REAP grant program, farmers pay for renewable and decrease carbon power tasks, then submit proof of the finished work to the USDA for reimbursement. The grants had been supposed to fund photo voltaic panels, wind generators, grain dryers, irrigation upgrades and different tasks, USDA knowledge reveals.
At a press convention in Atlanta on March 12, Rollins mentioned, “If our farmers and ranchers, particularly, have already spent cash beneath a dedication that was made, the aim is to ensure they’re made complete.”
However some contend the administration is unfairly making farmers bounce by way of extra hoops.
“This isn’t chopping pink tape; it’s including extra,” mentioned Andy Olsen, senior coverage advocate with the Environmental Regulation and Coverage Heart, a Midwest-based environmental advocacy group. “The USDA claims to ship on commitments, however these new guidelines may lead to awarded grants being completely frozen.”
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a longtime farmer and Maine Democrat who sits on the Home agriculture committee, mentioned she thinks it’s unlawful and unconstitutional for the administration to withhold grant cash allotted by Congress. Past that, she mentioned, it has harm cash-strapped farmers.
“That is about farmers making ends meet,” she advised Floodlight. “It’s not some ideological challenge for us.”
GOP lawmakers silent
Utilizing USDA knowledge, Floodlight recognized the highest 10 congressional districts that obtained essentially the most grants. They’re all represented by Republicans who’ve mentioned little publicly concerning the funding freezes affecting 1000’s of their constituents. It’s unattainable to inform from the USDA knowledge which REAP grants will receives a commission out.
The congressional district that obtained essentially the most REAP grants was Iowa’s 2nd District, within the northeastern a part of the state. Farmers and enterprise house owners there obtained greater than 300 grants from 2023 by way of 2025. The district is represented by U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who has beforehand voiced assist for “different power methods.”
“Greater than half of the power produced in Iowa is from renewable sources, and that’s one thing for Iowans to be very happy with,” she advised the Home Appropriations Committee in June 2022.
Hinson’s workplace didn’t reply to a number of requests for touch upon the matter.
The No. 2 spot for REAP grants: Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad. In that district, which spans southern Minnesota, greater than 260 farmers and rural companies had been accepted for REAP grants.
Finstad’s workplace didn’t return a number of emails and calls requesting remark. His constituents have been complaining about his silence on funding freezes. They’ve staged no less than two demonstrations at his workplaces in Minnesota. Finstad mentioned he held a Feb. 26 phone city corridor joined by 3,000 folks in his district.
In a Feb. 28 letter to a constituent, Finstad mentioned Rollins has introduced that the USDA will honor contracts already signed with farmers and that he seems ahead to working with the administration “to assist the wants of farm nation.”
Finstad is not any stranger to the REAP program. Earlier than changing into a congressman, he was the USDA’s state director of rural growth for Minnesota. In that function, he was a renewable booster.
“By lowering power prices, renewable power helps to create alternatives for enchancment elsewhere, like creating jobs,” Finstad mentioned in a 2021 USDA press launch. That has since been deleted from the company’s web site.
Rollins, in the meantime, referred to as herself “an enormous defender of fossil fuels” at her affirmation listening to, and he or she has expressed skepticism concerning the findings of local weather scientists. “We all know the analysis of CO2 being a pollutant is simply not legitimate,” Rollins mentioned on the Heartland Institute’s 2018 convention on power.
She has additionally mentioned that she welcomes the efforts of Elon Musk and his cost-cutting Division of Authorities Effectivity staff on the USDA.
Shedding belief in authorities
Jake Rabe, a photo voltaic installer in Blairstown, Iowa, mentioned he has put up greater than 100,000 photo voltaic modules within the state since moving into the enterprise in 2015. Greater than 30 of his prospects have accomplished their set up however are awaiting frozen grant funding, he mentioned. A minimum of 10 extra have signed the paperwork however are hesitant to start building. Tens of millions of {dollars} value of enterprise is frozen, he mentioned.
On prime of that, Rabe mentioned, the state’s internet metering insurance policies — by which photo voltaic customers get credit for any extra energy they ship again to the grid — are set to run out in 2026.
“I sort of really feel like it might be the start of the tip for the photo voltaic trade in Iowa with what’s occurring,” mentioned Rabe, who owns Rabe {Hardware}.
Regardless of all of it, he stays a Trump supporter.
“Beneath the present administration, I feel we’re doing issues which might be obligatory for the betterment of your entire United States,” he mentioned.
On March 13, Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental regulation group, filed a federal lawsuit towards the USDA on behalf of 5 farmers and three nonprofits. They’re searching for a courtroom order to compel the Trump administration to honor the federal government’s grant commitments, saying it violated the Structure by refusing to disburse funds allotted by Congress.
Vizcarra, the Earthjustice lawyer, mentioned she is disturbed by the shortage of concern from Congress, whose powers seem to have been usurped by the administration.
She added, “These are actual folks, actual farmers and actual organizations whose tasks have impacts on communities who’re left with this horrible scenario with no concept of when it is going to finish.”
One of many plaintiffs, Laura Beth Resnick, grows dahlias, zinnias and different reduce flowers on a small farm about 30 miles north of Baltimore.
Florists are her prospects, and demand for her flowers blooms throughout cold-weather holidays like Thanksgiving. Every of her three greenhouses is half the size of a soccer discipline, and heating them throughout these months isn’t low cost, Resnick mentioned. The ability invoice for Butterbee Farm usually exceeds $500 a month.
So a 12 months in the past, Resnick utilized for a USDA renewable power grant, hoping to place photo voltaic panels on her barn roof — a transfer that she estimated would save about $5,000 a 12 months. In August, the USDA despatched phrase that her farm had been awarded a grant for $36,450.
The price of putting in photo voltaic panels was $72,000, she mentioned. So she paid a photo voltaic contractor $36,000 upfront, anticipating that she’d pay the remainder in January when the federal grant cash got here in. The photo voltaic panels had been put in in December.
However the federal authorities’s examine by no means arrived. A Feb. 4 e mail from a USDA consultant mentioned her request for reimbursement was rejected because of the Trump administration’s latest government orders.
Resnick mentioned she sought assist from her elected representatives however obtained “just about nowhere.”
After listening to concerning the USDA’s announcement Wednesday, Resnick mentioned that based mostly on the response she’s beforehand gotten from the USDA, she’s not assured she is going to get her grant cash.
“I’ve misplaced my belief within the USDA at this level,” she mentioned. “Our undertaking is full, so we are able to’t change the scope of it.”
Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat, mentioned he helps the authorized battle towards the funding freeze.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk are scamming our farmers,” Van Hollen mentioned in a press release to Floodlight. “By illegally withholding these reimbursements for work carried out beneath federal grants, they’re breaking a promise to farmers and small companies in Maryland and throughout the nation.”
Renewable tasks on maintain
Since 2023, when IRA funding turned accessible, the USDA has given or loaned about $21.3 billion by way of applications to assist renewable power in rural areas, in keeping with a Floodlight evaluation of company knowledge, together with the REAP program.
These grant funds had been processed till Jan. 20, when the Trump administration introduced its freeze.
Trump’s choice was in step with Mission 2025, a conservative blueprint crafted by the Heritage Basis geared toward reshaping the U.S. authorities. That doc referred to as for repealing the IRA and rescinding “all funds not already spent by these applications.”
Environmental teams have sharply criticized the administration’s transfer, and a number of other lawsuits are difficult the legality of the freeze of IRA funding.
At a latest public roundtable, Maggie Bruns, CEO of the Prairie Rivers Community, which helps Illinois communities’ transition to scrub power, listed REAP grants which have been held up in Illinois, the place her multifaceted environmental nonprofit relies. A $390,000 grant for a photo voltaic array on the grocery retailer in Carlinville; $27,000 for photo voltaic panels at an auto physique store in Staunton; $51,000 for a photo voltaic array for a golf course in Alton.
Since 2023, farmers and companies in Illinois have been accepted for greater than 590 REAP grants, making the state the third highest in variety of recipients in the USA, Floodlight’s evaluation reveals. In an interview with Barn Raiser, Bruns mentioned the choice to freeze such grants has induced unneeded stress for farmers. Earlier than the manager order, USDA’s rural growth staff had labored arduous to carry {dollars} for renewable power tasks to Illinois farmers, she mentioned.
“That’s the factor we must be celebrating proper now,” Bruns mentioned, “and as a substitute now we have to battle to make it possible for cash really does land into the pockets of the individuals who have gone forward, jumped by way of all these hoops and are trying to do the fitting factor for his or her companies and their farms.”
In January, Dan Batson’s nursery in Mississippi was accepted for a $400,367 REAP grant — cash that he deliberate to make use of to put in 4 photo voltaic arrays. He supposed to make use of that photo voltaic power to energy the pumps that irrigate greater than 1 million timber, a transfer that might have saved the corporate about $25,000 a 12 months in electrical energy prices.
Seated in a wooded space about 30 miles north of Biloxi, his 42-year-old GreenForest nursery ships potted magnolias, hollies, crepe myrtles and different timber to southern states. Till a few months in the past, Batson had been enthusiastic about what the grant cash would imply for the enterprise.
However when he noticed information concerning the funding being held up earlier this 12 months, he referred to as a neighborhood USDA consultant who confirmed the funds had been frozen. Batson had already despatched the photo voltaic contractor $240,000. Now, his plans are on maintain.
“I simply can’t do the undertaking if I don’t get the cash,” he mentioned.
Tuesday’s announcement from the USDA makes him no extra assured he’ll get the cash, he mentioned.
Batson mentioned he’s a fiscal conservative so he understands the trouble to chop prices. “However,” he mentioned, “the way in which they’ve gone about it has disrupted plenty of enterprise house owners’ lives.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling local weather motion.
Barn Raiser is a nonprofit newsroom masking rural and small city America.
