By Ryan Hanrahan
Agri-Pulse’s Noah Wicks reported that “a federal judge has ordered the Agriculture Department and four other agencies to release frozen funding for Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law conservation and energy programs.”
“U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island ordered leaders of USDA to resume processing grants already awarded under the IRA and BIL and refrain from further ‘freezing, halting or pausing’ of already appropriated funds,” Wicks reported. “The case involves funding withheld from recipients under President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 ‘Unleashing American Energy’ executive order, including USDA’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program and the Urban and Community Forestry Program, among others.”
Politico’s Alex Guillén reported that “McElroy said she wanted to be ‘crystal clear’ that the president is entitled to enact his agenda. However, ‘agencies do not have unlimited authority to further a President’s agenda, nor do they have unfettered power to hamstring in perpetuity two statutes passed by Congress during the previous administration.'”
“The lawsuit was brought by six conservation and community groups that received grants under the Inflation Reduction Act that was enacted in 2022 and the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted in 2021,” Guillén reported. “The grant recipients demonstrated that the indefinite freeze of their funds was ‘neither reasonable nor reasonably explained,’ McElroy wrote, adding that the agencies did not show ‘that they considered the consequences of their broad, indefinite freezes: projects halted, staff laid off, goodwill tarnished.'”
In addition, “McElroy applied her order to all IRA and IIJA grants nationwide, not just those of the groups that brought this lawsuit,” Guillén reported. “‘It would be anathema to reasonable jurisprudence that only the named Nonprofits should be protected from the irreparable harms of the likely unlawful agency actions,’ she wrote.”
What Grants Have Been Frozen?
Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported that “the Trump administration put a freeze on all federal spending related to the IRA. Other reports have cited that renewable energy grants at EPA and the Department of Energy have been halted to communities around the country.”
“USDA received $19.5 billion for conservation programs in the IRA for ‘climate-smart’ practices that support soil health, reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon in the soil. That funding has been part of the tug-and-pull in the farm bill debate. EQIP under the law was supposed to have $8.45 billion,” Clayton reported. “The law included $4.9 billion for the Regional Conservation Partnership Program — grants for public-private partnership for large-scale conservation projects. Another $3.5 billion went to the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). An easement program got $1.4 billion and NRCS got $1 billion for technical assistance.”
“USDA also received another $13.5 billion for renewable energy under the IRA. USDA had announced in late March the department was releasing funds under those energy programs such as Rural Energy For America Program (REAP), Empowering Rural America (New ERA) and Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) programs,” Clayton reported. “…USDA did not immediately respond to questions about whether the administration will comply with the court order or appeal the decision.”
USDA Has Reportedly Previously Unfrozen Some Funds
At the end of February, Reuters’ P.J. Huffstutter reported that “the U.S. Department of Agriculture will release approximately $20 million in funding for previously approved contracts that had been frozen by the Trump administration’s push to overhaul the federal government, the agency said.”
“The sum represents a tiny sliver of program funding the USDA suspended after the White House’s broad freeze of federal loans and grants last month,” Huffstutter reported. “Although the administration rescinded the memo ordering the freeze and it has been blocked in court, a U.S. judge has said the government was still withholding funds.”
Then, at the end of March, Agri-Pulse’s Philip Brasher, Rebekah Alvey, and Noah Wicks reported Wednesday that “the Agriculture Department is lifting a freeze on clean energy funding programs but giving awardees 30 days to modify their proposals to remove climate and DEI considerations and bring the projects in line with the Trump administration’s policy for increasing U.S. energy production.”
“The action addresses three programs, all of which received funding through the Inflation Reduction Act climate law: the Rural Energy for America (REAP), Empowering Rural America (New ERA) and the Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) programs,” Brasher, Alvey and Wicks reported. “A USDA notice sent to awardees and obtained by Agri-Pulse on Wednesday laid out ways recipients could ‘better address President Trump’s January 20 Executive Order Declaring a National Energy Emergency.’”
Source : illinois.edu