Farmers sue Trump administration to unfreeze USDA grants
Ryan Knappenberger
WASHINGTON (CN) — A coalition of farmers sued the Trump administration Thursday to lift an indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in funding for programs created under the Inflation Reduction Act.
In the suit, brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the farmers challenge President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order “Unleashing American Energy,” which placed an immediate pause on all funds appropriated under the 2022 statute.
The farmers — Butterbee Farm, One Acre Farm, Two Boots Farm, Red Fire Farm and Hendrix Farm — operate in Maryland, Massachusetts and Mississippi. They were joined in the suit by nonprofits Cultivate KC, Faith in Place and GreenLatinos.
“This is no mere inconvenience,” Faith in Place president Reverend Brian Sauder said in a press call on Thursday. “It is a complete betrayal of trust that will have lasting consequences for working families and already struggling communities. Our communities cannot afford continued delays and broken promises.”
On Jan. 29, White House Office of Management and Budget head Russell Vought issued a memo directing all federal agencies to pause disbursement of all funds to bring the government’s spending in line with the president’s agenda.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture promptly cut off IRA recipients’ access to payment portals, refused to process invoices, canceled meetings, and failed to respond to clarification requests from grantees.
The OMB order was quickly challenged and halted, with a federal judge in Washington ruling on Feb. 25 that the blanket freeze, which impacted up to $3 trillion in federal funding, was “ill-conceived” and well outside the executive office’s constitutional authority.
According to the farmers, the USDA has continued to withhold funds, citing Trump’s executive order as justification in emails requesting clarification or notices that reimbursement requests were rejected.
In response to a March 5 inquiry from Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office, the USDA said approximately 6,000 grants under the Rural Energy for America Program were still under review per the president’s executive order.
When the farmers themselves tried to gain clarification, they had meetings with USDA representatives canceled, and in one instance, a farmer was told their USDA grant officer was not allowed to speak with grantees.
Sauder described how his organization received a $1.9 million grant for an urban forestry project in 2024 meant to address urban heat throughout Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Sauder said he spent months planning the project, hiring staff, building infrastructure, and following federal requirements, “expecting the government to uphold its commitment, as we did ours.”
“Instead, this administration is turning its back on our most vulnerable communities and putting the very organizations that make federal programs work in jeopardy,” Sauder said. “Our project was set to provide living-wage jobs, plant trees to reduct deadly urban heat and to increase green spaces and neighborhoods historically left behind. Now these efforts are stalled.”
Laura Resnick, owner of Butterbee Farm, said on Thursday that she applied for a Rural Energy for America Program grant to install solar panels at the flower farm to power their greenhouses.
“For over a decade, we have helped our communities both celebrate and grieve losses with flowers,” Resnick said.
She signed a contract for the program in August 2024 and paid her half — $36,000 — upfront and would request funding for the second half from the government after the project was complete.
Resnick said she requested the government funding a month after the solar panels were installed, which happened to be the same week the funding freeze was announced.
“We need our contract honored by the government so that we’re not deeply in debt,” Resnick said. “Farming has such slim profit margins as it is, and USDA assistance, like loans and grants, have been crucial to our business.”
The farmers asked a federal judge to declare Section 7 of Trump’s “Terminating the Green New Deal” executive order unlawful, enjoin the administration from implementing the freeze under another name, and order the release of all frozen funds.