This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist, BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina, WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station, WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan region, and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
The Trump administration’s freeze on funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate law from the Biden era, has left farmers and rural businesses across the country on the hook for costly energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy installations.
The grants are part of the Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP, originally created in the 2008 farm bill and supercharged by funding from the IRA. It provides farmers and other businesses in rural areas with relatively small grants and loans to help lower their energy bills by investing, say, in more energy-efficient farming equipment or installing small solar arrays.
By November 2024, the IRA had awarded more than $1 billion for nearly 7,000 REAP projects, which help ru... Read more
