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.” 

IRA funding targeted

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.”

GOP lawmakers silent

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.

Losing trust in government

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.”

Renewable projects on hold

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.

Farmers in Trump country were counting on clean energy grants. Then the government moved the goalposts. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The ongoing tariff battle between the U.S. and its three largest agricultural trading partners is worrying Midwestern farmers.

President Donald Trump imposed an additional 10% tariffs on all imports from China. Soon after, China retaliated with tariffs on U.S. products. Trump also proposed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico — which have been paused for 30 days.

The president said he’s using the tariffs to force Canada and Mexico to increase border security. In a statement from the White House, the Trump administration said previous presidents “failed to fully leverage America’s economic position as a tool to secure our borders against illegal migration and combat the scourge of fentanyl.”

Bryant Kagay grows corn and soybeans and raises cattle in northwest Missouri. He believes tariffs should be narrowly targeted and used sparingly. He said he fears the recent tariffs could hurt farmers.

“It just seems like a very heavy-handed approach towards negotiation, and I just fear it will impact our ability to have future trade negotiations with some of these countries,” Kagay said.

Kagay said ideally, tariffs would be used as a tool to enforce best trade practices, not as a tactic in immigration negotiations.

“The idea that we can use tariffs as a bargaining chip or leverage to get concessions that are really unrelated to the products and industries most affected by the tariffs, I can’t say I’m really comfortable using them that way,” he said.

According to the Missouri Department of Agriculture, the top agricultural exports from the state are soybeans, corn, pork and soybean meal. The state’s top agriculture export partners include China, Mexico and Canada — as well as some countries in Europe and Southeast Asia.

Approximately 16.2% of U.S. corn is exported, much of that going to Mexico. A larger share of the country’s corn crop is used domestically for livestock feed and ethanol production.

Ben Brown is an agriculture economist with MU Extension and specializes in row crop policy and farm finance. He said about 86% of U.S. cotton is exported, as well as 50-60% of grain sorghum and approximately 45% of U.S. soybeans — with about half of that going to the Chinese market.

“It wasn’t that long ago that one out of every three rows of soybeans grown here in the United States was going to China,” he said. “Today, it’s probably more like one out of every four rows goes to China … still relatively large.”

American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall was alarmed when Trump announced tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

“Farm Bureau members support the goals of security and ensuring fair trade with our North American neighbors and China, but, unfortunately, we know from experience that farmers and rural communities will bear the brunt of retaliation,” Duvall said in a news release.

Duvall said the announced and proposed tariffs put farmers in a “tough spot.”
“More than 20% of U.S. farm income comes from exports, which are dominated by these three markets,” he said. “Just last year, the U.S. exported over $30 billion in agricultural products to Mexico, $29 billion to Canada and $26 billion to China — our top three markets and nearly half of all exports by value combined.”

In a letter to the White House, the American Farm Bureau urged caution.

“We ask that you carefully consider the impact on American farmers and ranchers, associated businesses and rural communities when determining potential trade actions,” the letter stated.

The National Farmers Union, another group representing agriculture producers across the country, similarly asked the president to reconsider tariffs due to the economic impacts on farmers.

“The position that the Farmers Union has is pretty much identical to the position that the Farm Bureau has on tariffs,” said Richard Oswald, vice president of the Missouri Farmers Union. “It’s just not a good idea.”

Oswald farms in northwest Missouri with his family, growing corn and soybeans while his children raise livestock. He’s especially concerned about what retaliatory tariffs could mean for corn and soybean markets.

“We just don’t utilize those soybeans at home,” he said. “If we don’t sell them, we have nothing to do with them.”

Oswald said his farm is trying to reign in spending as much as possible given the unknown impacts tariffs may have on farm budgets this crop year, but, he said, there’s only so much that can be done.

“If we’re going to produce a crop, we still got to buy fertilizer, and we still got to buy seed, we still got to buy fuel, and that’s pretty hard to pare that back,” Oswald said.

Brown said tariffs can “play both ways” — meaning tariffs on U.S. products have the ability to disrupt the marketplace and it can take time for farmers to find new buyers. Tariffs on imports can make international goods more expensive for domestic consumers, potentially making a domestic version of the product more attractive, if it’s available.

“I will say that it’s more complex than just saying that tariffs are bad for U.S. agriculture,” said Brown. “They’re bad for products that we export to other destinations around the world.”

Tariffs increase the unknowns in an already somewhat volatile industry. Brown said commodity prices have been up and down throughout the month of January.

While yields for Midwestern staples like corn and soybeans have increased over the past two decades, so have the costs of the fertilizers, pesticides, fuel and equipment required to cultivate the crops. Brown said the 2023 crop was the most expensive ever in Missouri.

Fertilizer, ethanol spared for now

After the Trump administration announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico, each country retaliated with tariffs on U.S. products. The Canadian government is proposing 25% tariffs on $30 billion in goods the country imports from the United States. The implementation of those tariffs has been delayed while the countries’ leaders negotiate.

Brown said the agriculture industry was spared when Canada chose not to tax U.S.-produced ethanol.

“I think the U.S. corn industry breathed a little sigh of relief because they are our largest international buyer of ethanol, and ethanol was not included in that list,” he said.

Similarly, Canadian exports of potash — a fertilizer used in soybean production — was spared from the United States tariff list.

“There was a lot of concern from U.S. producers leading up to a potential implementation (of tariffs), that potash and fertilizer prices could increase drastically, just based on how much fertilizer and potash we get from Canada,” Brown said.

Tariff déjà vu

Tariffs implemented during the first Trump administration caused soybean prices to drop, affecting Midwestern farmers specifically.

Kagay is a Missouri Farm Bureau member and a fourth generation farmer who came back to the family business around six years ago. He experienced the impact of tariffs in the previous Trump administration and has watched the markets he sells to jump around the last few weeks as tariffs are proposed and implemented.

“It’s just frustrating to see the value of your product drop so substantially … mostly due to government policy,” he said.

On his farm, they are doing whatever they can to prepare and brace for potential impact this time around. Kagay said he filters every decision “through a lens of potential volatility and uncertainty in the market.”

Kagay purchased seed and fertilizer for this year’s crop prior to Trump taking office, “to be ahead of the game, ahead of any potential tariffs, and make sure we had those secured before the uncertainty came into office,” he said.

At the time, the federal government offered a “Market Facilitation Program,” or payments to farmers negatively affected by the trade war.

“It’s unclear what type of assistance would even be available this go around,” said Brown, the MU Extension agriculture economist.

“If those payments are made available to everyone, I probably won’t turn them away,” Kagay said. “But I really do not like receiving direct payments from the government when free trade would just increase the value of my product.”

Tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico could affect Midwestern agriculture is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Offshore wind supply chain faces systemic pressure as 2030 clean energy targets loom – Shoreline Wind report  Governments should provide clearer policies and integrate new tender criteria, while developers can empower smaller firms through standardized contracts, improved payment terms, and collaboration with specialist service providers    Smaller firms are particularly vulnerable, struggling to compete and …

The post Offshore wind supply chain appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

 $1.2 Trillion+ opportunity for Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) developers globally says UK report 1  FOW developers urged to learn lessons from European deployment Seoul, South Korea, 27 November 2024 — As the global wind industry prepares for GWEC’s Wind Energy Summit in South Korea later this week, Principle Power and Shoreline Wind demonstrate how Floating …

The post Shoreline Wind and Principle Power Collaborate to Unlock Floating Offshore Wind Opportunity Globally appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

The sale of raw or unpasteurized milk generally is illegal in Wisconsin, although “incidental sales” are legal.

An incidental sale is when a dairy farm sells raw milk directly to a consumer at the farm.

But those sales are illegal “if done as a regular business, or if they involve advertising of any kind.”

Robert Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, has indicated he would promote raw milk.

Public health authorities consider raw milk a health danger because it hasn’t been pasteurized — heated enough to kill illness-causing bacteria such as E. coli. But 13 states allow raw milk sales in stores. Advocates say it’s more nutritious, though experts say there isn’t enough evidence to prove that.

A Wisconsin Senate bill introduced in December 2023 would have created licensing for farms that want to sell raw milk. It failed to pass the Senate.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin State Legislature: 2023 Senate Bill 781
• Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection: Raw Milk
• The Hill: Five of RFK Jr.’s most controversial views
• X: Robert Kennedy Jr. post
• U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Raw Milk
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Food Safety and Raw Milk
• World Population Review: Raw Milk Legal States 2024
• WebMD: Raw Milk: Are There Health Benefits?
• Harvard Medical School: Why drinking raw milk can be dangerous
• Wisconsin State Legislature: Senate Bill 781 history

Is there a legal way to get raw milk in Wisconsin? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.