Environmental Law and Policy Center

Every REAP grant dollar is generating about $8.75 in total project spending.

Jessica O'Donnell is a senior attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

You know, that is boosting the economy in these rural farming communities.

The whole

That money that we had to pay for the rest of that system could have been used to update equipment or, you know, just your regular expenses that are on a dairy farm, which are constant.

It's always something that you need to spend money on.

The Environmental Law and Policy Center, where Jessica O'Donnell works, is co-plaintiff in a lawsuit that aims to reverse the changes.

The suit claims the department can't rescind grants that it already awarded and that the rules aren't even its to change.

A new satellite-based tool developed by environmental researchers is using publicly available images and can track illegal or unpermitted winter manure spreading on frozen ground.

Developed by the nonprofit Environmental Law and Policy Center in partnership with the University of Wisconsin, the new tools can be used to reveal a normally difficult to monitor source of water pollution.

Manure spread on frozen ground from industrial-scale livestock operations.

In the past, enforcement relied on spot checks or area complaints.

But an environmental nonprofit organization has developed a tool to spot improper winter waste spreading from a different perspective, outer space.

The Environmental Law and Policy Center tool, developed with researchers from the University of Wisconsin, analyzes publicly available satellite imagery to look for signs of manure spreading on snow-covered fields.

A computer model scans for the waste spreading and can provide alerts to users, prioritizing enforcement activities and potentially improving protection of water quality.

Find more from the Detroit Free Press on freep.com. That's F-R-E-E-P dot com.

After the Iowa Department of Natural Resources challenged the EPA's seven additions to the list, the federal agency removed these waterways from the 2024 list.

This decision was challenged in a May lawsuit brought by Food and Water Watch, the Iowa Environmental Council, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center, which called for the court to order the EPA to relist these segments as impaired waterways.

While this lawsuit is ongoing, the EPA finalized its decision to delist the waterways in late September.

A Thursday news release from the Environmental Law and Policy Center criticized this move for not taking action to address high nitrate levels in the state.

Iowans know that we have a water quality crisis.

We deserve more than the Trump EPA putting their head in the sand and refusing to act on water quality.

This breaking of this commitment is really damaging.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed by Earth Justice and Environmental Law and Policy Center, solar projects account for more than two-thirds of projects that were awarded REAP funding between 2011 and early 2025.

Iowa rural communities have used the funding to install rooftop solar on small businesses and to put solar panels and wind turbines on hog operations.

The funding has also gone to ethanol facilities and grain dryers to make energy efficient upgrades.

The announcement specifically noted that REAP funding could not be used for solar projects of a certain size.

It also stipulated that USDA funding could not be used to fund solar projects that had solar panels built by foreign adversaries, including China, which dominates the solar manufacturing industry.

Chad Hughes of Environmental Law and Policy Center spoke with Iowa Farmers Union members Thursday during a Lunch and Learn webinar and said that the changes essentially put the program on pause.

Then a USDA announcement in March 2026 showed the agency was adding new regulations to the program and applications could be resubmitted once the new regulations were in place.

They also say the USDA has applied those changes retroactively, which has left program participants on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars or more.

Chad Hughes is an attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, which is representing the Iowa Farmers Union and other groups in the lawsuit.

They followed the rules, and they built these systems, and then suddenly they're being told by USDA, "Oh, sorry, just kidding.

Um, you're gonna, you're gonna be denied because, you know, you didn't follow rules that did not exist when you applied."

They say new eligibility requirements illegally cut solar projects from the program, and that the USDA has left people on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars by applying those changes retroactively.

Chad Hughes is an attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

It's representing the Iowa Farmers Union and other groups in the lawsuit.

This program's been running successfully for 20 years.

Members of the Iowa Farmers Union are part of a lawsuit against the USDA.

The Environmental Law and Policy Center and Earth Justice claims they broke the law by eliminating solar energy supports from the Renewable Energy for America program.

The lawsuit asked the courts to invalidate the USDA's new solar policy in order to process those REAP applications under the rules that were in place when it received them.

And finally, Pope Leo's special humanitarian envoy is on a three-day mission to Moscow focused on issues stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war.