It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Or, just follow the money. Either way, media watchers have noticed that right wing pundits Katie Miller and KellyAnne Conway are suddenly saying nice things about solar power. Coincidentally or not, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also eyeballing a big solar spend. Really? How special! Maybe they can collectively get US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to change her mind and relax the new restrictions on federal funding for solar projects on farmland. Hold please….
The US Department of Agriculture looms large in the solar picture because it administers grants and loan guarantees that help farmers save money on their energy costs, either through fuel switching, efficiency upgrades, or both.
A focus on wind and solar power began to emerge in 2002 through the newly formed Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements Program. Yes, that’s right, during the presidency of Republican George W. Bush.
Bush and his Republican Agriculture Secretary, former North Dakota Governor Edward Schafer, also oversaw the transition of that program into the present-day REAP (Rural Energy for America Program) initiative in 2008, just in time for Barack Obama to take office in January of 2009 and provide more wind and solar opportunities for farmers.
By the time President Donald Trump first took office in 2017, REAP was in full solar mode. The agency continued to provide funds for solar-powered grain dryers and other solar projects, among other programs. The work continued well into Trump’s first term, and of course it accelerated during President Biden’s four years in office. With the cost of solar hardware falling, the case for solar power just kept getting stronger.
That all came to a screeching halt last February after US President Donald Trump froze REAP disbursements shortly after taking office as part of his rampage against wind and solar power. The loss of funds added up to more than $1 billion, including more than $600 million in signed commitments to farmers and other small businesses in rural communities.
The case went to court, of course, and in April a federal judge ordered the REAP funds to be released. Not to be deterred in the rampage against wind and solar power, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins staged a widely reported press event in August during which she announced new restrictions on REAP that applied only to wind and solar power. Some types of small-scale projects were still eligible, but Rollins placed new documentation burdens on farmers, prevented them from expanding their business with wind or solar power, and cut them off entirely from revenue-producing opportunities through the sale of electricity off-site.
By staging the press conference in Tennessee, Rollins also reinforced the old canard about solar panels taking all your farmland. “Within the last 30 years, Tennessee alone has lost over 1.2 million acres of farmland and is expected to lose 2 million acres by 2027,” USDA brayed in a press release describing the new restrictions.
That figure is certainly alarming, but it has nothing to do with the loss of farmland in Tennessee over the past 30 years.
Researchers at the University of Tennessee who study these things note that the state already lost about 9% of its farmland within a 20-year period from 1997 to 2017, when the solar industry had yet to emerge in any substantial way.
That 9% drop represents a loss of 1.11 million acres acres, from 11.99 million in 1997 down to 10.87 million in 2017. As of 2018, Tennessee had just 247 megawatts worth of installed solar capacity under its belt, literally a drop in the bucket of farmland loss.
The state’s solar profile has ramped up a bit since 2018, but it still ranks a lowly #37 in a state-by-state ranking of installed solar capacity with just 1,206 megawatts. That’s hardly enough to account for the loss of more than 1.2 million acres of farmland over the past 30 years, let alone another 0.8 million by next year.
Facts are not a point of strength over at the USDA, or, for that matter, anywhere else in the Trump administration. Still, it’s worth asking why Tennessee lost so much farmland without having much of a solar industry to speak of, at least not on the solar power generating side. The state has been growing its solar manufacturing profile, though not to the extent that solar factories are replacing farms to any significant degree.
The answer, of course, is good old fashioned real estate development. In particular, farmland conservationists who are actually serious about conserving farmland have identified low-density housing as an especially insidious factor. Those pricey, peaceful rural getaways do double duty as a direct replacement of farmland, and they can also make it more difficult for farmers to reach their parcels.
To help stem the bleeding, last June the deep red, fiscally conservative government of Tennessee established a new, $25 million fund to buy conservation easements from farmers, taking the land out of production while preserving for agriculture at some future date. “In the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of farmland loss in Tennessee, where open agricultural acreage has transformed into subdivisions, strip malls, and low-density housing,” explains Brooks Lamb, a Land Protection and Access Specialist for the leading farm conservation organization American Farmland Trust, which supported the measure.
“That loss has been most acutely felt in communities within an hour’s drive or so of the state’s major cities—Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Memphis—but it has also been occurring in much more rural places,” Lamb emphasizes.
As for why MAGA supporters Katie Miller and KellyAnne Conway are suddenly BFFs with the US solar industry, they are not the only ones. Heather Souvaine Horn of The New Republic traces the timeline back to Trump himself, who penned a supportive social media post about rooftop solar in January. It’s also worth noting that Trump has quietly greenlit several massive solar projects in Nevada, which had been held up by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last fall.
Citing a report by Politico, Horn also drew attention to a MAGA-friendly poll commissioned by the American Clean Power Association. The organization is also “working with conservative influencers to secure opinion media placements authored by conservative columnists, former Republican lawmakers, and other credible Republican voices in conservative outlets,” as described in a confidential memo obtained by Politico.
If you think all this sudden support for solar power might ripple over to soften up Rollins’s new restrictions on REAP funding, drop a note in the discussion thread. Farmers who are struggling with Trump’s tariffs and rising fossil fuel and fertilizer costs could certainly use some relief.
Before you drop that note, consider that stakeholders in the powerful AI industry have been clamoring for more solar, and take note of Katie Miller’s former role as helpmate to Elon Musk in the government wrecking ball known as “DOGE.”
Coincidentally or not, earlier this year, Musk began dropping hints that he plans to add 100 gigawatts worth of solar to the US grid.
The domestic solar manufacturing profile has already been revving up to speed, including thin film solar technology as well as the more familiar silicon solar panels. Apparently, Musk plans to leapfrog over the competition by hauling in equipment from China for his latest venture, so stay tuned for more on that.
Photo: MAGA is suddenly falling in love with solar power, but that won’t necessarily loosen new USDA restriction on funding  for solar projects on farms (courtesy of US Department of Energy).
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Tina has been covering advanced energy technology, military sustainability, emerging materials, biofuels, ESG and related policy and political matters for CleanTechnica since 2009. Follow her @tinamcasey on LinkedIn, Mastodon or Bluesky.
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