Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn introduced legislation Thursday that would protect American farmland from government-subsidized solar panel development.
The Protecting American Farmland Act — also sponsored by Republican Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis — would codify Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins’ Aug. 19 executive order prohibiting “taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland.” The legislation would block federal agencies from using tax dollars to support solar projects on “prime farmland,” as defined in the Farmland Protection Policy Act, and would also exclude those projects from certain federal green energy tax credits.
“Tennessee’s farmland is critical to America’s food supply, and the federal government should not be endorsing Green New Scam projects that subsidize ruining fertile American farmland by building solar panels,” Blackburn said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Protecting American Farmland Act would ensure not one more federal dollar funds the destruction of productive farmland.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Legacy Ranchers Fear Solar Industry Razing Farmland Into ‘Dust Bowl’)
“The head of a Federal agency may not use Federal funds, including by providing funds, a loan, or a loan guarantee to any person, to carry out a covered solar energy project that would result in the conversion of prime farmland,” the bill text states. “The term ‘qualified facility’ shall not include any facility using solar energy to produce electricity which is located on prime farmland.”
Several Arizona ranchers previously told the DCNF that they saw an increase in energy companies moving in on their leased land after former President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, opened a flood of federal incentives that made their leased land more attractive to green energy developers. The ranchers told the DCNF that the farmland would be leveled and effectively ruined to make way for new solar farms.
While Biden pushed to expand green energy resources like solar and wind through billions in subsidies, loans and grants, President Donald Trump has sharply criticized those efforts, branding Biden’s energy policies as the “green new scam.” The Trump administration has prioritized traditional energy resources, including coal, while advancing policies intended to help other reliable sources, such as nuclear power, thrive in the private sector.
“Locking up prime farming and ranching land for solar panels threatens America’s long-term food supply and wastes millions in taxpayer dollars on Green New Scam projects that do nothing to advance American prosperity,” Lummis said in a statement Thursday. “The federal government should not bankroll failed climate-alarmist schemes, and I’m proud to codify President Trump and Secretary Rollins’ ban on funding them.”
Republican Ohio Rep. Dave Taylor introduced the House version of the bill in May.
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