Americans Voted for Energy Affordability in the Midterms, so Why is the Trump Administration Illegally Making Clean, Affordable Energy less available to Farmers?

On Monday, Earthjustice and the Environmental Law and Policy Center filed comments on behalf of farmers, renewable energy developers, and other stakeholders opposing new United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations, which dismantle the decades-old and highly successful Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). The comments aim to ensure that farmers and rural communities across the country who hope to build renewable energy systems amidst an energy affordability crisis receive the federal funding that they are legally entitled to.

A strongly bipartisan Congress enacted REAP in 2002. Lawmakers aimed to financially assist farmers and rural small businesses seeking to build renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. For decades, federal funding and loan guarantees disbursed by USDA pursuant to REAP ensured farmers and rural communities across all 50 states access to affordable, reliable, and clean sources of power. In 2024 alone, the USDA awarded over $1 billion in REAP grants and loan guarantees nationwide, and generated or saved enough energy to power more than 300,000 homes.

Unfortunately, starting in August 2025, Secretary of the USDA, Brooke Rollins, announced that the Department would begin taking a series of steps to gut the REAP program. Acting on the Secretary’s directive, USDA stated that it was “determine[ed] to end taxpayer support” for renewable energy systems, like solar arrays and wind turbines. (Somewhat hypocritically, Secretary Rollins at the same time strongly supported the expansion by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of the Renewable Fuel Standard which uses hundreds of times more farmland for renewable energy such as corn-based ethanol and soy-based diesel.) First, USDA stopped issuing loan guarantees for virtually all solar projects. Then, in March 2026, USDA stopped processing all pending REAP grant applications pending the issuance of new grantmaking rules.

In response, on September 26, Earthjustice and the Environmental Law and Policy Center sued USDA on behalf of farmers, solar developers, and other stakeholders affected by the USDA’s anti-renewable energy REAP policies. A few days later, on September 30, USDA doubled-down by finally issuing its REAP grantmaking regulations.

The new regulations flagrantly flout Congress’s directive to USDA to “promote” the development of renewable energy on farms and in rural America. Indeed, dozens of lawmakers in the House and Senate have signed letters to the Department noting as much. One lawmaker letter states that the new regulations:

“undermine the nature of a grant… program and will further prevent farmers and small businesses from accessing the very projects that can help stabilize their operations, provide an alternative revenue stream, reduce reliance on volatile energy markets, and expand rural economic development opportunities.”

After Tuesday’s midterm election, it is possible that many more lawmakers join these dissenters and use Congress’s power to force the Trump administration to reverse course. But in the meantime, the new regulations will continue to fatally undermine the REAP grant program through a myriad of interlocking and absurd provisions. For example, one new provision adopted by USDA sets strict limits on the size of renewable energy systems. This provision will make it more difficult for a farmer to sell excess electricity generated by a REAP project to consumers. At the same time, another series of provisions would prohibit the same farmer from personally using the electricity his renewable energy system generates. Thus, the new regulations absurdly restrict farmers from both selling and personally using the renewable energy they produce.

And that is not all. USDA has adopted many more absurd provisions that fundamentally undermine the REAP program. For example, the new regulations:

• Prohibit the issuance of grants to farmers and rural small businesses to build virtually all solar and wind energy systems.
• Prohibit many previously eligible applicants, such as non-profit farmers, farmers in non-rural areas, or farmers experiencing financial distress, from accessing REAP.
• Burden applicants with a requirement to build their renewable energy systems at least a year before they apply for REAP benefits.
• Prohibit renewable energy system developers from installing renewable energy systems on behalf of farmers or rural small businesses.
• Eliminate funding opportunities for farmers and rural small businesses if they make minor technical mistakes on applications by no longer permitting application modifications.
• Make grant funds generally more difficult to access by, for example, requiring applicants to satisfy onerous risk evaluation criteria and comply with complicated federal procurement rules.

In short, USDA has taken a sledgehammer to the REAP program, and in doing so has deprived countless Americans access to a popular 24-year-old program designed to help them manage long-term energy costs. The gutting of REAP could not have come at a worse time. At this moment, energy prices are rising to new highs a result of a massive data center build out and the administration’s prolonged war with Iran.  Americans did not vote for government to make their energy even less affordable on Tuesday. Earthjustice will continue to fight with urgency ensure that the USDA restores funding and clean power to the farmers and rural communities the Department is supposed to serve.