Latest news with #Floodlight
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's USDA resurrects one climate grant program, kills another
Farmers who were left in limbo after the U.S. Department of Agriculture froze renewable energy grants are finally starting to get paid. At the same time, however, farmers have been hit with the cancellation of another USDA grant program: the $3 billion Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative, designed to promote farming and forestry practices to improve soil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Dale Westphal is among the farmers who recently got long-awaited grant money for a clean energy project. After learning last year that he'd been approved for a $20,000 grant under the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), he put up about $46,500 to install solar panels on his corn and soybean farm in southern Minnesota last year. He viewed it as a smart way to protect himself from rising electrical rates. Earlier this year, the USDA told him — and thousands of other farmers nationwide — that his grant funding had been put on hold because of an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on the first day of his second term in office. That order froze billions of dollars for renewable energy under President Joe Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). In April, Westphal got his grant money — a welcome development that he says has made his solar investment worthwhile. 'I don't think I would have done it without the grant, because the payback would have been so much longer that it wouldn't have made sense,' he said. In an email to Floodlight, a USDA spokesperson said that between March 25 and May 9, the agency issued nearly $126 million in reimbursements to more than 1,000 grantees under the REAP program. As of May 9, more than $960 million in awards to nearly 5,000 grant recipients had not yet been sent out, the spokesperson said. That money remained undistributed because the grant recipients had not yet completed work on their projects, or had not yet submitted paperwork to show that the projects have been completed and paid for, according to the USDA. The release of funds comes after legal pressure and complaints from farmers who had already put money on the line. A federal lawsuit filed against the USDA in March sought a court order to compel the Trump administration to honor the government's grant commitments to farmers and nonprofits. That complaint, filed by the Earthjustice environmental law group, is still pending. And in April, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the USDA and five other federal agencies to release frozen IRA funds. READ MORE DOWNLOAD FOR REPUBLICATION
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Redlining shaped the power grid. Communities of color are still paying the price.
As an ice storm slicked roads across eastern Michigan on Feb. 6, representatives from four houses of worship arrived at the offices of Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Peters. They wanted Peters to pressure the Trump administration to lift the funding freeze on $20 million in 'community change grants' promised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to houses of worship across Detroit to create community resilience hubs powered by renewable energy — offering shelter during weather emergencies and utility outages. More than three months later, spring has come to Michigan — and yet the expected $2 million in funding for the St. Suzanne Cody Rouge Community Resource Center in Detroit remains on ice. St. Suzanne Executive Director Steve Wasko says his organization — which provides meals, clothing, day care and other programs for residents of this predominantly Black neighborhood — has "received conflicting and sometimes contradictory communication about the grant." Wasko had been promised funding to install heat pumps, solar panels and a generator, among other upgrades. The retrofit would allow St. Suzanne to help more people while cutting an energy bill that can run up to $15,000 a month in the winter. The funding freeze is just the latest setback for poor communities of color across the United States — including in Detroit, Los Angeles and Philadelphia — that are being left behind in the transition to cleaner, cheaper power. Neighborhoods like Cody Rouge suffer from underpowered electrical service, more frequent power outages and high energy bills — a legacy of the once-legal practice of redlining that robbed communities of color of financial and public services, Floodlight found. In formerly redlined neighborhoods like Cody Rouge, shutoffs for non-payment are more likely. And poverty limits access to renewable energy: Aging roofs can't support solar panels, outdated wiring can't handle new heaters, and old electrical infrastructure struggles to accommodate electric vehicle charging and solar arrays. 'It's now very clear that energy services, ranging from quality of service to price of service, are disproportionately poor if you are a minority, a woman or of low income,' said Daniel Kammen, professor of energy at the University of California-Berkeley. High energy costs are a burden across Detroit. A quarter of the metro area's poorest households spend at least 15% of their income to power and heat their homes, according to a Floodlight analysis of data from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Across the United States, a quarter of all low-income households — roughly 23 million people — struggle to pay their energy bills. In most major U.S. cities including Detroit and Philadelphia, these one out-of-four low-income households pay 15% or more of their incomes on average on electricity, cooling and heat. In Los Angeles, this group pays just over 14% of their household income on utility bills. These energy burdens have persisted for decades despite billions of dollars from federal and state governments subsidizing electricity bills in low-income communities. And now, Trump has gutted the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides heating and cooling subsidies for 6 million U.S. households. Other policy solutions face significant challenges. Energy subsidy programs suffer from low enrollment. Collective 'community solar' efforts capable of bringing cheap renewable power to renters and the urban poor are stymied by utilities or not made available to folks with lower incomes. During the Biden administration, tens of billions of dollars were allocated by Congress to help socially vulnerable groups participate in the energy transition. Trump froze much of that funding. Repeated court orders to resume the funding have been ignored or only partially honored. The chaos has only deepened advocates' concern that the disparities in America's electric grid will persist — and perhaps even deepen. 'The current energy system has this imbalance, but if we don't fix that, we'll continue down that path, even as we transition to a cleaner, greener energy system,' said Tony Reames, professor of environmental justice at the University of Michigan. In some states, minority communities are more likely to lose power. And in others, Black and brown residents are more likely to have their power shut off for nonpayment. Because of gaps in data collection, a clear national picture of energy inequality is difficult to see. Across the United States, counties with high minority populations in Arkansas, Louisiana and Michigan are disproportionately prone to having long blackouts, according to a 2023 study in Nature Communications. At least 3 million Americans face disconnection each year because they can't afford utility bills, with Hispanic and Black households being four and three times more likely to be disconnected, respectively, according to the Energy Justice Lab, which tracks disconnections. That number could be much higher, though, since only 28 states require their utilities to disclose disconnections, meaning no data is available for 44% of the country, according to Selah Goodson Bell, an energy justice campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity. And in certain cities, the inequality extends to the very structure of the grid itself. In Detroit and California, advocates and scientists have found that outdated utility infrastructure is concentrated in predominantly minority areas. This barrier may limit those neighborhoods' ability to access renewable energy technologies such as rooftop solar, battery storage and electric-vehicle charging, which can lower energy costs. When the lights flicker or go out in Detroit's poorest neighborhoods, it's often because of the electrical distribution grid. Today in Motor City, many low-income residents get their power through DTE Energy's 4.8-kilovolt (kV) electric system, which struggles to keep up with the changing climate. Whiter, wealthier suburbs of Detroit are serviced by a more modern 13.8-kV grid. In rate cases, activists have accused DTE of prioritizing infrastructure upgrades in wealthier, whiter communities while leaving Black and brown neighborhoods with outdated and unreliable service. Across the city, power lines and transformers are decades past their intended lifespan, leading to frequent outages and prolonged blackouts. Aging infrastructure, beset by summer heat waves and winter storms, led to almost 45% of customers suffering eight or more hours of service disruptions in 2023. A company spokesperson notes it improved reliability by 70% between 2023 and 2024. 'I know after three days without power, the strands of civilization get tested,' said Jeff Jones, Detroit resident and executive director of Hope Village Revitalization, a nonprofit community development corporation. 'It can get really frightening.' DTE says it has committed to improving the grid, citing a $1.2 billion investment in downtown Detroit's infrastructure and a push to prioritize grid upgrades in vulnerable communities. Lauren Sarnacki, a senior communications strategist at DTE, said the company also helped connect customers to nearly $144 million in energy assistance last year. And the utility runs a pilot program for households earning up to 200% of the federal poverty level, capping their energy costs at 6% of their income. One Black church in Metro Detroit did not wait for the grid to improve. Last fall, New Mount Hermon Missionary Baptist Church weatherized, upgraded its heating system and installed solar panels and a battery with the assistance of the nonprofit Michigan Interfaith Power & Light and a state grant. The solar array and battery give community members a chance to warm up or cool down in the building when the power is out in the neighborhood, said the church's deacon, Wilson Moore. 'For the church itself, we've cut costs as far as energy consumption almost 40, 45% — and that's without even solar panels up,' he said. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power also operates a 4.8-kV distribution grid in certain neighborhoods, including in Boyle Heights, a predominantly hispanic East LA enclave that was once redlined and has now begun to gentrify. There, aging transformers and outdated service lines mean that businesses installing EV fast-charging stations or anyone trying to plug in a large solar array may have to pay for grid upgrades, according to an NREL study. 'Grid limitations could limit the success of other clean energy equity programs,' the study concluded. Old roofs also are a major barrier to rooftop solar adoption across Los Angeles, according to Alex Turek, deputy director at GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles, a nonprofit that deploys renewable energy in low-income neighborhoods. 'I think 70% or more of our folks who we build trust with, who are ready to move forward, can't then adopt solar because their roofs are old and can't support the weight,' Turek said. Floodlight spoke to 18 organizations attempting to deploy renewable energy in low-income communities across the country. All of them said that poor housing stock, which is often concentrated in formerly redlined neighborhoods, was a major barrier to their work. For renters and apartment dwellers, community solar may be a solution by allowing low-income residents 'a way of dividing up an array and sharing it among multiple people,' said Alan Drew, a regional organizer with the Climate Witness project, a faith-based climate nonprofit. Programs in 24 states and Washington, D.C., support this form of collective solar energy, which generates enough energy to power more than million homes, according to a yearly survey from the NREL. Most of the locations also offer financial assistance for low-income households to access this form of energy, according to the NREL study. However, in Michigan and Pennsylvania, investor-owned utilities have stymied the adoption of community solar. California has 13 solar projects built on the community solar model, but only one — the Anza community solar project in Santa Rosa — is dedicated to low- and medium income customers. The state does have the Solar on Multifamily Housing (SOMAH) program that has subsidized over 700 solar arrays on multifamily affordable housing units, bringing costs down for some 50,000 apartments. The program makes sure that the cost savings don't just go to the landlord. 'The smart policy design feature of the SOMAH program is that at least 50% of the system has to benefit the tenants,' said Turek, of GRID Alternatives. On sweltering afternoons in Hunting Park, the heat rises in waves from the asphalt, baking the brick rowhouses. The Philadelphia neighborhood's sparse tree cover offers little relief — only 9% of it is shaded, compared to 20% of the city overall. The effect is brutal. With much of its land covered in concrete, brick and blacktop, temperatures in Hunting Park can soar as much as 22 degrees higher than in other parts of Philadelphia. That difference translates directly into higher electricity bills as residents struggle to cool aging homes never built for such extreme heat. Charles Lanier, executive director of the Hunting Park Community Revitalization Corp., said some residents pay as much as 40% of their incomes just to heat and cool their homes. 'I've seen bills as high as $5,000,' Lanier said. 'It's a problem across the board in marginalized communities here in the city of Philadelphia.' In Hunting Park and in low-income neighborhoods across the City of Brotherly Love, the Philadelphia Energy Authority has braided together several grant and funding streams to repair, weatherize, electrify and add solar power to some 200 low-income homes across the city in a state where community solar is not allowed. The agency also runs Solarize Philly, a program that has helped install solar on some 3,300 homes, including low- to moderate income households. 'We think low-income solar is the best way to create long-term affordable housing,' said Emily Shapira, CEO of Philadelphia's Energy Authority. Lanier has seen the value of solar firsthand. 'Here at our office we have installed rooftop solar panels. Our electric bill has gone from $100,' he added, 'to almost zero.' Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. Ethan Bakuli reported from Detroit for Planet Detroit, an independent nonprofit local news organization designed to inform residents about the environment and public health in Detroit and Michigan. This story was supported by a grant from the Fund for Environmental Journalism.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Louisiana kills energy-efficiency program in eleventh hour
This story was originally published by Floodlight. In a move energy advocates say will increase electric bills for Louisiana residents and allow the state's utilities to keep earning money for electricity they don't provide, Louisiana's energy regulators voted 3–2 Wednesday to scrap plans for an independently operated energy-efficiency program more than 14 years in the making. The matter was added two days before the Louisiana Public Service Commission's meeting, held at a remote golf club on the Texas border, 2 ½ hours from where the PSC regularly meets. The vote, along party lines, reversed decisions made last year establishing program standards and hiring an independent administrator. 'We today gave a punch to the face to all Louisianians who are struggling to pay their bills because we said we are not interested, as a commission, in ensuring that we can reduce your energy usage so you can afford your bills,' PSC member Davante Lewis, who opposed Wednesday's motion along with fellow Democrat Foster Campbell, told Floodlight after the meeting. 'I am not aware of any other commission where a decision of this significance could have been made in this way,' said Forest Bradley-Wright, who as the state and utility policy director for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has appeared in front of utility commissions throughout the country. 'Next to no notice. In a remote part of the state. Unwinding years of rulemaking work without any meaningful process.'Louisiana residents consume more electricity in their homes than in any other state. The program would have helped reduce that use, lowering bills for individual customers and reducing the overall demand for power in the state. 'We waste so much energy in the state, and the idea behind this program was to stop throwing money away,' said Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director for the consumer watchdog group The Alliance for Affordable Energy. Last year's adoption of the program occurred in a Baton Rouge meeting room packed with advocates of the measure chanting 'Vote, vote, vote!' as Commissioner Eric Skrmetta spoke for more than two hours against the program. Commissioner Craig Greene, the swing vote on the commission during that 2024 vote, has since left the commission. He was replaced by Jean-Paul Coussan, who voted Wednesday with Skrmetta and Chairman Mike Francis. Francis had requested the commission reconsider the energy-efficiency program because he argued it was confusing and cost too much. Just seven months ago, the commission awarded a $24.5 million contract to engineering firm TetraTech and Baton Rouge–based Aptim to administer it. The companies were just days away from a May 1 deadline to present specifics of how the program would work. 'A lot of work has gone' into that program, Lewis said. 'And what my colleagues did today, they said they didn't even want to see whether that proposal was good.' Mark Kleehammer, Cleco's chief regulatory officer, told the commission the utility found that around the country, the cost for third-party administrators for energy-efficiency programs is 'significantly higher' than utility-run programs. Currently those programs are set to expire at the end of this year. Both Kleehammer and Larry Hand, vice president of regulatory and public affairs at Entergy Louisiana, said the utility-run energy-efficiency programs should remain in place. Under the status quo, if utilities sell less energy because of efficiency measures, they still get paid that lost revenue, which amounts to about $6 million a year, Burke said. Under the rules adopted for a third-party administrator, the utilities wouldn't get paid that lost revenue. 'We were going to save millions with just that,' she said. With the third-party program gone, there is still a pot of energy-efficiency money individual commissioners can give to schools and hospitals. But neither that program, nor the utility program, reached all who needed it, Lewis said. He added that the third-party program would have helped all energy customers in the state, not just customers chosen by the utilities. States with independent efficiency programs, including Hawaii, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Vermont, 'have delivered enormous amounts of savings to their customers. Louisiana was taking a significant step forward in moving to this model,' Bradley-Wright said. In Wisconsin, for example, the state-run and utility-funded Focus on Energy program provides rebates and incentives for homeowners and businesses to install energy-efficient appliances, add renewable energy such as solar and wind, and optimize building energy efficiency. Aptim, which holds the now-canceled Louisiana contract, administers Wisconsin's program, which says it has provided $1 billion in net economic benefit to customers since its inception in 2011. While the commission voted to terminate the contracts, it postponed further decisions on what, if any, energy-efficiency programs would remain in Louisiana. Said Burke after the meeting: 'I'm just infuriated to see people who are elected to do a public service to watch over public goods are making messy decisions that harm directly the people they are elected to serve." Louisiana Illuminator reporter Wesley Muller contributed to this report. Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
As EPA Pulls Back, Louisiana Schoolchildren Could Face the Steepest Risks
This article was originally published in Floodlight. President Donald Trump and his administration have called it the 'Great American Comeback.' But environmental advocates say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's reversing course on enforcing air and water pollution laws is more of a throwback — one that will exacerbate health risks for children who live and study in the shadows of petrochemical facilities. The American Lung Association has found that children face special risks from air pollution because their airways are smaller and still developing and because they breathe more rapidly and inhale more air relative to their size than do adults. Environmental lawyers say Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin's slashing of federal protections against toxic emissions could lead to increased exposure to dangerous pollutants for kids living in fenceline communities. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Community advocates like Kaitlyn Joshua, who was born and raised in the southeast corridor of Louisiana dubbed 'Cancer Alley,' say they are horrified about what EPA's deregulation push will mean for the future generation. 'That is not an exaggeration; we feel like we are suffocating without the cover and the oversight of the EPA,' Joshua said. 'Without that, what can we really do? How can we really save ourselves? How can we really save our communities?' Ashley Gaignard knows how hard it is to keep kids safe when pollution is all around. When Gaignard's son was in elementary school, a doctor restricted him from daily recess, saying the emissions from an ammonia facility located within 2 miles of his playground could be exacerbating a pre-existing lung condition, triggering severe asthma attacks. 'I had asthma as a kid growing up, and my grandfather had asthma, so I just figured it was hereditary; he was going to suffer with asthma,' said Gaignard, who was born and raised in Louisiana's Ascension Parish, also located within Cancer Alley. She's now chief executive officer of the community advocacy group she created, Rural Roots Louisiana. 'I just never knew until the doctor said, 'OK, we have to think about what he is breathing, and what's causing him to flare up the minute he's outside',' she said. Gaignard said the further her son got away from that school, as he moved through the parish's educational system, the less severe his attacks were. She said he's now an adult living in Fresno, California — and no longer suffers from asthma. Zeldin sent shockwaves throughout the environmental justice sector on March 12 when he announced that the EPA was rolling back many of the federal regulations that were put in place under the administration of Joe Biden — many built around environmental justice and mitigating climate change. Those included strengthening the Clean Air Act by implementing more stringent controls on toxic air emissions and increased air quality monitoring in communities near industrial facilities. The new standards were expected to reduce 6,000 tons of air toxins annually and reduce the emissions related to cancer risks in communities in Texas, Louisiana, Delaware, New Jersey, the Ohio River Valley and elsewhere. A new memo from the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, which serves as the law enforcement arm of the EPA — circulated the same day as Zeldin's announcement — states that environmental justice considerations would no longer factor into the federal agency's oversight of facilities in Black and brown communities. Zeldin said the goal was 'driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.' That means the EPA will no longer target, investigate or address noncompliance issues at facilities emitting cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene, ethylene oxide and formaldehyde in the places already overburdened with hazardous pollution. 'While enforcement and compliance assurance can continue to focus on areas with the highest levels of (hazardous air pollutants) affecting human health,' the memo reads, '…to ensure consistency with the President's Executive Orders, they will no longer focus exclusively on communities selected by the regions as being 'already highly burdened with pollution impacts.'' The agency also will not implement any enforcement and compliance actions that could shut down energy production or power generation 'absent an imminent and substantial threat to human health.' In its prepared video statement about the EPA's deregulation measures, Zeldin said, 'The agency is committed to fulfilling President Trump's promise to unleash American energy, lower cost of living for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions. ' Top officials with the nonprofit environmental advocacy group Earthjustice recently said there is no way for the Trump administration to reconcile what it's calling 'the greatest day of deregulation' in EPA's history with protecting public health. Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation for healthy communities for Earthjustice, went a step further pointing out during a press briefing that the reason EPA exists is to protect the public from toxic air pollution. 'The law demands that EPA control these pollutants, and demands that EPA protect families and communities,' Simms said. 'And these impacts on these communities most heavily land on the shoulders of children. Children are more susceptible to the harms from pollutants, and these pollutants are often happening right in the backyards of our schools, of our neighborhoods and our playgrounds.' A 2016 report published by the Center for Effective Government found that nearly one in 10 children in the country attends one of the 12,000 schools located within 1 mile of a chemical facility. These children are disproportionately children of color living in low-income areas, the report found. For the past several years, Joshua has been leading the opposition to a hydrogen and ammonia facility being built within 2,000 feet of an elementary school in Ascension Parish. Air Products plans to start commercial operation in 2028 where an estimated 600,000 metric tons of hydrogen will be produced annually from methane gas. The $7 billion project has been touted as a clean energy solution because the company plans to collect its carbon dioxide emissions and transport them through pipelines to be stored under a recreational lake 37 miles away. Carbon capture technology has been controversial, with skeptics highlighting the possibilities for earthquakes, groundwater contamination and CO2 leaking back into the atmosphere through abandoned and unplugged oil and gas wells or pipeline breaches. Pipeline ruptures in the past have also led to communities having to evacuate their homes. Joshua said these communities need more federal regulation and oversight — not less. 'We had a community meeting … for our Ascension Parish residents, and the sentiment and the theme on that call was very much like 'Kaitlyn, there is nothing we can do.' Like, we just had to literally lie down and take this,' Joshua said. 'We had to kind of challenge people and put them in the space, in time, of a civil rights movement. We have to get creative about how we're going to organize around it and be our own version of EPA.' Sarah Vogel, senior vice president of healthy communities with the Environmental Defense Fund, said the move toward deregulation comes as the U.S. Department of Justice announced on March 7 that it was dropping the federal lawsuit the Biden administration lodged against Denka's Performance Elastomer plant in Louisiana. That plant had been accused of worsening cancer risks for the residents in the surrounding majority-Black community. The DOJ said its decision was tied to Trump's moves to ''end radical DEI programs' — federal programs tied to diversity, equity and inclusion. 'What they're trying to do is just completely deregulate everything for oil and gas and petrochemical facilities, just absolutely take the lid off,' Vogel said. 'We have long known that children are uniquely susceptible to air pollution and toxic chemicals. Like they're huge, huge impacts. It's why what they are doing is so devastating and cruel in my mind.' This story was originally published on Floodlight. Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Farmers in Trump country were counting on clean energy grants. The government moved the goalposts.
Laura Beth Resnick, photographed here collecting flowers at her Maryland farm, spent $36,000 to have solar panels installed at the farm, expecting to get the same amount in grant money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But the grant she was set to receive has been put on hold. Now she has joined a lawsuit to fight the Trump administration's decision to freeze those grants. (LA Birdie Photography) The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced late Tuesday it will release previously authorized grant funds to farmers and small rural business owners to build renewable energy projects — but only if they rewrite applications to comply with President Donald Trump's energy priorities. The move has left some farmers perplexed — and doubtful that they'll ever get the grant money they were promised, given the Trump administration's emphasis on fossil fuels and hostility toward renewable energy. Some of the roughly 6,000 grant applicants have already completed the solar, wind or other energy projects and are awaiting promised repayment from the government. Others say they can't afford to take on the projects they'd been planning unless the grant money comes through. A Floodlight analysis shows the overwhelming majority of the intended recipients of this money reside in Trump country — congressional districts represented by Republicans. After hearing of the USDA's latest announcement Wednesday, Minnesota strawberry farmer Andy Petran said he suspects many previously approved projects won't be funded. He'd been approved for a $39,625 grant to install solar panels on his farm. But like many other farmers nationally, Petran got word from the USDA earlier this year that his grant money had been put on hold. 'It's not like any small farmer who is looking to put solar panels on their farms will be able to put a natural gas refinery or a coal refinery on the farm,' Petran said. 'I don't know what they expect me to switch to.' Petran was counting on the benefits that solar power would bring to his farm. After getting word in September that the USDA had approved his grant application, he expected the solar panels would not only reduce his electricity bill but allow him to sell power back to the grid. He and his wife figured the extra income would help expand their Twin Cities Berry Co. and pay down their debt more quickly. Petran's optimism was soon extinguished. A USDA representative told him earlier this year that the grant had been frozen. His 15-acre farm about 40 miles north of Minneapolis operates on a razor-thin margin, Petran said, so without the grant money, he can't afford to build the $80,000 solar project. 'Winning these grants was a contract between us and the government,' he said. 'There was a level of trust there. That trust has been broken.' In its announcement, issued Tuesday night, the USDA said grant recipients will have 30 days to review and revise their project plans to align with President Trump's Unleashing American Energy Executive Order, which prioritizes fossil fuel production and cuts federal support for renewable energy projects. 'This process gives rural electric providers and small businesses the opportunity to refocus their projects on expanding American energy production while eliminating Biden-era DEIA and climate mandates embedded in previous proposals,' the USDA news release said. '… This updated guidance reflects a broader shift away from the Green New Deal.' USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said in the release that the new directive will give rural energy providers and small businesses a chance to 'realign their projects' with Trump's priorities. It's unclear what this will mean for grant recipients who've already spent money on renewable energy projects — or those whose planned projects have been stalled by the administration's funding freeze. The USDA didn't directly answer those questions. In an email to Floodlight on Wednesday, a department spokesperson said the agency must approve any proposed changes to plans — but offered no specific guidance on what or whether changes should be made. 'Awardees that do not respond via the website will be considered as not wishing to make changes to their proposals, and disbursements and other actions will resume after 30 days,' the email said. 'For awardees who respond via the website to confirm no changes, processing on their projects will resume immediately.' The grant funding was put on hold after an executive order issued by President Trump on his first day in office. It froze hundreds of billions of dollars for renewable energy under President Joe Biden's massive climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The law added more than $1 billion to the USDA's 17-year-old Rural Energy for America (REAP) program. About 6,000 REAP grants funded with IRA money have been paused and are being reviewed for compliance with Trump's executive order, according to a March 5 email from the USDA's rural development office to the office 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 projects. Earthjustice lawyer Hana Vizcarra, one of the attorneys who filed the suit, called the latest USDA announcement a 'disingenuous stunt.' 'President Trump and Secretary Rollins can't change the rules of the game well into the second half,' she said in a statement Wednesday. 'This is the definition of an arbitrary and capricious catch-22.' Under the REAP grant program, farmers pay for renewable and lower carbon energy projects, then submit proof of the completed work to the USDA for reimbursement. The grants were intended to fund solar panels, wind turbines, grain dryers, irrigation upgrades and other projects, USDA data shows. At a press conference in Atlanta on March 12, Rollins said, 'If our farmers and ranchers, especially, have already spent money under a commitment that was made, the goal is to make sure they are made whole.' But some contend the administration is unfairly making farmers jump through more hoops. 'This isn't cutting red tape; it's adding more,' said Andy Olsen, senior policy advocate with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a Midwest-based environmental advocacy group. 'The USDA claims to deliver on commitments, but these new rules could result in awarded grants being permanently frozen.' U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a longtime farmer and Maine Democrat who sits on the House agriculture committee, said she thinks it's illegal and unconstitutional for the administration to withhold grant money allocated by Congress. Beyond that, she said, it has hurt cash-strapped farmers. 'This is about farmers making ends meet,' she told Floodlight. 'It's not some ideological issue for us.' Using USDA data, Floodlight identified the top 10 congressional districts that received the most grants. They're all represented by Republicans who have said little publicly about the funding freezes affecting thousands of their constituents. It's impossible to tell from the USDA data which REAP grants will get paid out. The congressional district that received the most REAP grants was Iowa's 2nd District, in the northeastern part of the state. Farmers and business owners there got more than 300 grants from 2023 through 2025. The district is represented by U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who has previously voiced support for 'alternative energy strategies.' 'More than half of the energy produced in Iowa is from renewable sources, and that is something for Iowans to be very proud of,' she told the House Appropriations Committee in June 2022. Hinson's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on 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, more than 260 farmers and rural businesses were approved for REAP grants. Finstad's office did not return multiple emails and calls requesting comment. His constituents have been complaining about his silence on funding freezes. They've staged at least two demonstrations at his offices in Minnesota. Finstad said he held a Feb. 26 telephone town hall joined by 3,000 people in his district. In a Feb. 28 letter to a constituent, Finstad said Rollins has announced that the USDA will honor contracts already signed with farmers and that he looks forward to working with the administration 'to support the needs of farm country.' Finstad is no stranger to the REAP program. Before becoming a congressman, he was the USDA's state director of rural development for Minnesota. In that role, he was a renewable booster. 'By reducing energy costs, renewable energy helps to create opportunities for improvement elsewhere, like creating jobs,' Finstad said in a 2021 USDA press release. That has since been deleted from the agency's website. Rollins, meanwhile, called herself 'a massive defender of fossil fuels' at her confirmation hearing, and she has expressed skepticism about the findings of climate scientists. 'We know the research of CO2 being a pollutant is just not valid,' Rollins said at the Heartland Institute's 2018 conference on energy. She has also said that she welcomes the efforts of Elon Musk and his cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency team at the USDA. Jake Rabe, a solar installer in Blairstown, Iowa, said he has put up more than 100,000 solar modules in the state since getting into the business in 2015. More than 30 of his customers have completed their installation but are awaiting frozen grant funding, he said. At least 10 more have signed the paperwork but are hesitant to begin construction. Millions of dollars worth of business is frozen, he said. On top of that, Rabe said, the state's net metering policies — in which solar users get credits for any excess power they send back to the grid — are set to expire in 2026. 'I kind of feel like it may be the beginning of the end for the solar industry in Iowa with what's going on,' said Rabe, who owns Rabe Hardware. Despite it all, he remains a Trump supporter. 'Under the current administration, I think we're doing things that are necessary for the betterment of the entire United States,' he said. On March 13, Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law group, filed a federal lawsuit against the USDA on behalf of five farmers and three nonprofits. They're seeking a court order to compel the Trump administration to honor the government's grant commitments, saying it violated the Constitution by refusing to disburse funds allocated by Congress. Vizcarra, the Earthjustice lawyer, said she is disturbed by the lack of concern from Congress, whose powers appear to have been usurped by the administration. She added, 'These are real people, real farmers and real organizations whose projects have impacts on communities who are left with this horrible situation with no idea of when it will end.' One of the plaintiffs, Laura Beth Resnick, grows dahlias, zinnias and other cut flowers on a small farm about 30 miles north of Baltimore. Florists are her customers, and demand for her flowers blooms during cold-weather holidays like Thanksgiving. Each of her three greenhouses is half the length of a football field, and heating them during those months isn't cheap, Resnick said. The power bill for Butterbee Farm often exceeds $500 a month. So a year ago, Resnick applied for a USDA renewable energy grant, hoping to put solar panels on her barn roof — a move that she estimated would save about $5,000 a year. In August, the USDA sent word that her farm had been awarded a grant for $36,450. The cost of installing solar panels was $72,000, she said. So she paid a solar contractor $36,000 upfront, expecting that she'd pay the rest in January when the federal grant money came in. The solar panels were installed in December. But the federal government's check never arrived. A Feb. 4 email from a USDA representative said her request for reimbursement was rejected due to the Trump administration's recent executive orders. Resnick said she sought help from her elected representatives but got 'pretty much nowhere.' After hearing about the USDA's announcement Wednesday, Resnick said that based on the response she's previously gotten from the USDA, she's not confident she will get her grant money. 'I've lost my trust in the USDA at this point,' she said. 'Our project is complete, so we can't change the scope of it.' Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat, said he supports the legal fight against the funding freeze. 'Donald Trump and Elon Musk are scamming our farmers,' Van Hollen said in a statement to Floodlight. 'By illegally withholding these reimbursements for work done under federal grants, they're breaking a promise to farmers and small businesses in Maryland and across the country.' Since 2023, when IRA funding became available, the USDA has given or loaned about $21.3 billion through programs to support renewable energy in rural areas, according to a Floodlight analysis of agency data, including the REAP program. Those grant payments were processed until Jan. 20, when the Trump administration announced its freeze. Trump's decision was in line with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint crafted by the Heritage Foundation aimed at reshaping the U.S. government. That document called for repealing the IRA and rescinding 'all funds not already spent by these programs.' Environmental groups have sharply criticized the administration's move, and several lawsuits are challenging the legality of the freeze of IRA funding. At a recent public roundtable, Maggie Bruns, CEO of the Prairie Rivers Network which supports Illinois communities' transition to clean energy, listed REAP grants that have been held up in Illinois, where her multifaceted environmental nonprofit is based. A $390,000 grant for a solar array at the grocery store in Carlinville; $27,000 for solar panels at an auto body shop in Staunton; $51,000 for a solar array for a golf course in Alton. Since 2023, farmers and businesses in Illinois have been approved for more than 590 REAP grants, making the state the third highest in number of recipients in the United States, Floodlight's analysis shows. In an interview with Barn Raiser, Bruns said the decision to freeze such grants has caused unneeded stress for farmers. Before the executive order, USDA's rural development team had worked hard to bring dollars for renewable energy projects to Illinois farmers, she said. 'That's the thing we should be celebrating right now,' Bruns said, 'and instead we have to fight to make sure that money actually does land into the pockets of the people who have gone ahead, jumped through all these hoops and are attempting to do the right thing for their businesses and their farms.' In January, Dan Batson's nursery in Mississippi was approved for a $400,367 REAP grant — money that he planned to use to install four solar arrays. He intended to use that solar energy to power the pumps that irrigate more than 1 million trees, a move that would have saved the company about $25,000 a year in electricity costs. Seated in a wooded area about 30 miles north of Biloxi, his 42-year-old GreenForest nursery ships potted magnolias, hollies, crepe myrtles and other trees to southern states. Until a couple of months ago, Batson had been excited about what the grant money would mean for the business. But when he saw news about the funding being held up earlier this year, he called a local USDA representative who confirmed the funds had been frozen. Batson had already sent the solar contractor $240,000. Now, his plans are on hold. 'I just can't do the project if I don't get the money,' he said. Tuesday's announcement from the USDA makes him no more confident he'll get the money, he said. Batson said he's a fiscal conservative so he understands the effort to cut costs. 'But,' he said, 'the way they've gone about it has disrupted a lot of business owners' lives.' Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. Barn Raiser is a nonprofit newsroom covering rural and small town America.
