With a broad pause on grant funding still in place across many USDA programs and grant cancellations beginning to roll out, the agency is now facing a lawsuit and pushback from Congress.
Today, the environmental group Earthjustice sued the USDA on behalf of five farms and three nonprofit organizations over the freezing of funds allocated through former President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). (A previous lawsuit over frozen IRA funds targeted the Trump administration more broadly.) Researchers at the University of Illinois recently estimated farmers stand to lose $12.5 billion if those funds are not delivered as promised.
“The Trump administration’s unlawful actions are hurting communities across the country. This is not government efficiency. It is thoughtless waste that inflicts unwarranted financial pain on small farmers and organizations trying to improve their communities,” Hana Vizcarra, senior attorney at Earthjustice, said in a statement.
At the same time, a group of Democrats in the Senate are sending a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins asking her to reinstate the two local food programs USDA canceled earlier this week, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, shared with Civil Eats a legislative amendment he’s prepared that would order the USDA to honor its signed contracts with farmers. The amendment directs the USDA to immediately “unfreeze funding for and implement all contracts entered into by the Secretary prior to the date of enactment of this Act” and to pay past-due amounts on contracts as rapidly as possible. It also prohibits the cancellation of “any signed contract with a farmer or an entity providing assistance to farmers, unless the farmer or entity has failed to comply with the terms and conditions of the contract.”
Booker has been vocal in recent Senate hearings about calls and emails he’s been getting from farmers across his home state. “For some of these farmers, they’re saying if they’re not able to move forward with their spring planting, they’re ultimately at risk of losing their farms,” he said.
At this moment, there is no clear path for Booker to introduce the amendment. The Senate is currently debating a Republican-backed bill to keep the government funded beyond Friday night; Booker, like most Senate Democrats, is committed to opposing the bill, so won’t introduce the amendment until the current crisis is resolved. (Link to this post.)
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