Farming in America can be a tough business, and for some producers, finding more affordable energy can make the difference between profit and loss. But getting federal support to help them do that with renewables has become much more difficult since Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Trump has been hostile to renewable energy, instead promoting fossil fuels that he says are essential to American energy dominance. The Associated Press and Grist collaborated on a project to analyze how federal policy changes on energy are affecting farmers.
They found that two programs critical for renewable energy growth — a rural-focused initiative called REAP and a clean energy tax credit — have been sharply rolled back. In the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, they found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture hasn’t awarded a single dollar in rural energy grants or loan guarantees.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is a collaboration between Grist and The Associated Press.
Some takeaways from their reporting:
Through the Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP, the USDA issues grants and loans to farmers, ranchers, and rural businesses interested in renewable energy — like installing solar to lower utility costs. REAP has backed tens of thousands of renewable energy and efficiency projects, with grants totaling more than $1.8 billion, since it began nearly two decades ago.
The program was supercharged by funding from the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, and had bipartisan support up until then.
But the Grist-AP analysis of USDA data found the program hasn't committed a single dollar in renewable energy development since September. It has never reopened REAP’s grant application cycle though it said it would do so last October. Its loan guarantee program — geared toward larger farm and rural business projects — has remained open, but the analysis found that the agency has awarded no new agreements this fiscal year.
And on March 31, the USDA announced a suspension of all REAP grant awards so it could update regulations to comply with a Trump executive order issued in July.
A USDA spokesperson said the suspension was temporary but didn't say for how long.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed by President George W. Bush, enacted a 30% investment tax credit for large-scale clean energy projects, boosting the solar industry. The tax credit was extended for eight years under President Obama and later extended under Trump in 2020.
When President Joe Biden signed the 2022 landmark climate bill, the tax credit was extended again through 2032 or when specific emissions targets were reached. But under Trump’s tax bill passed by Congress last year, the timeline for getting credits was moved up. Now, commercial solar projects have to be under construction by July 2026 and in service by the end of 2027 to be eligible for the credit.
The Grist-AP analysis found at least 126 solar projects proposed since 2024 — all of them on or near farmland — are awaiting regulatory approval. Together the projects would supply about 20 gigawatts of renewable electricity, enough to power about 4.5 million homes.
Some developers are abandoning projects because they say they can't meet the deadlines.
Daniel Bell, a Kentucky sheep farmer, is earning extra money by running his flock on land owned by a commercial solar operation. The sheep keep the grass down beneath solar arrays. With an expanding flock, now he needs a new barn, and he wanted to power it with rooftop solar — only to find that the Trump administration had effectively stopped the grants that would have made it possible on his own property.
Bell said for him it's an issue of the freedom to do what he wants in a way that lowers his bills.
Robert Bonnie, who was undersecretary for farm production and conservation at the USDA under the Biden administration, said the retreat from funding renewables will be felt throughout rural America. Part of the USDA’s role has been to invest in rural areas while making rural prosperity part of the climate agenda.
“In places like Iowa and Texas, renewables matter, not just for additional power, and lower power bills, and clean energy, but also matters for farmers’ pocketbooks,” said Bonnie. “Anything you do to pull back on that is hugely problematic.”
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Solar panels operate Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, at a farm in Lancaster, Ky. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
Sheep feed near solar panels at a farm Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Lancaster, Ky. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
BEIRUT (AP) — A fragile calm settled over parts of Lebanon on Friday as a 10-day ceasefire brokered by the United States took hold between Israel and Hezbollah, prompting thousands of displaced families to begin the journey home — even as uncertainty, destruction and Israeli warnings against going back to parts of southern Lebanon clouded their return.
By early morning, cars were backed up for kilometers on the route leading south to the damaged Qasmiyeh bridge over the Litani River, a key crossing linking the southern coastal city of Tyre to the north. Vehicles piled high with mattresses, suitcases and salvaged belongings crept forward through a single reopened lane, hastily repaired after an Israeli airstrike just a day earlier.
Drivers heading back to their villages along coastal highways cheered each other, flashed victory signs and exchanged blessings.
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war displaced more than a million people. Despite warnings from Lebanese officials that they should not immediately attempt to return to their homes, many began moving toward southern Lebanon in the hours after the ceasefire was declared. The truce appeared to be largely holding overnight.
Israel and Hezbollah have fought several wars and have been fighting on and off since the day after the start of the Gaza war. Israel and Lebanon reached a deal to end that war in November 2024, but Israel had kept up near-daily strikes in what it says is an effort to prevent the Iran-backed militant group from regrouping. That escalated into another invasion after Hezbollah again began firing missiles at Israel in response to its war on Iran.
In southern villages like Jibsheet, a trickle of residents returned to flattened apartment blocks and streets littered with chunks of concrete, twisted aluminum shutters and dangling electrical wires.
“I feel free being back,” said Zainab Fahas, 23. “But look they destroyed everything — the square, the houses, the shops, everything.”
Many did not believe that their ordeal was really over.
“Israel doesn’t want peace,” said Ali Wahdan, 27, a medic walking on crutches over the rubble of the emergency services’ headquarters in Jibsheet. He was badly wounded in an Israeli airstrike that hit the building without warning during the first week of the war.
“I wish it were different," he said. “But this war will continue.”
In the neighborhood of Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburb, entire buildings had been reduced to rubble after weeks of intense Israeli strikes. Ahmad Lahham, 48, waved the yellow Hezbollah flag standing on a mountain of rubble that used to be his apartment building, which had also housed a branch of Hezbollah’s financial arm, Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
“We are at the service of the fighters," said Lahham, pledging his loyalty to the group.
He praised Iran, saying Tehran's pressure in its talks with the U.S. led to the truce, and condemned Lebanon’s direct talks with Israel.
“Only the Iranians stood with us, no one else,” he said, calling Lebanon’s leaders “the leadership of shame.”
A local government official in Haret Hreik said Israel struck the neighborhood 62 times over the last six weeks.
“We’ve been able to clear up the rubble of the partially damaged buildings, but for those destroyed, we will need special equipment,” Sadek Slim, the neighborhood’s deputy mayor, told a press briefing.
The area was gridlocked with traffic, with people coming back to check on their homes and Hezbollah supporters zooming on scooters, waving the group’s flag.
Meanwhile, in Al-Najda al Shaabiya Hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, officials said Thursday was one of the heaviest days of Israeli strikes since this latest Israel-Hezbollah war began.
Hospital Director Mona Abou Zeid said the wounded continued arriving from nearby Israeli strikes until around an hour after the ceasefire took effect at midnight.
Among those wounded in the bombardment on Nabatiyeh Thursday was 33-year-old Mahmoud Sahmarani, who said he stepped outside his home to buy some charcoal for his shisha water pipe when an Israeli strike hit his five-story building, killing his father and cousin as they were peeling potatoes for lunch. All that remains of his apartment is rubble, leaving him and the rest of his family homeless.
“Israel should have withdrawn from Lebanon,” he said from his hospital bed, his left eye swollen shut and his head swaddled in bandages. “If we don’t get them out, they will continue to kill us.”
In downtown Beirut, tents still line some areas as some families begin to leave, while others wait, weighing the risks of returning south.
A tricycle piled with mattresses weaves through the camp, signaling the first departures after a fragile ceasefire.
“Our homes in the south are gone, destroyed,” said Ali Balhas, from Siddiqeen town in the Tyre province. “Israel is deceptive. You never really know its policies or how it will act toward people."
“I have six children here, and I can’t leave that quickly. Once there is more safety, we will try to take the children and go back" to our village he said.
Amira Ayyash, a woman from Qaaqaiat al-Jisr in the Nabatiyeh province, decided to wait and assess the situation before returning home.
“We do not know at what hour they might strike us, for they are treacherous. So we decided to take it slowly,” she said.
A member of Hezbollah stands guard next to a destroyed building in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A displaced woman holding her dog sits in her tent in Beirut, Lebanon, awaiting an official order from Hezbollah to return to her home in south Lebanon following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese army bulldozers reconstruct part of a destroyed bridge that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Qasmiyeh near Tyre city, south Lebanon, to facilitate the return of displaced people to their villages following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Displaced people returning to their villages following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, cross the destroyed Qasmiyeh bridge near Tyre city, south Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Two girls chant slogans as one holds an image of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
