The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) is a longstanding program contained within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and was boosted by more than $1.7 billion by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). At its core, the program guarantees loan and grant financing for agricultural producers and other rural small businesses to deploy energy efficiency upgrades. These upgrades include retrofits in physical buildings, deployment of distributed energy, and the purchasing of more energy efficient systems.
Though the program is focused on energy, it supports many projects that pertain to water — for instance, the installation of more efficient irrigation systems or the deployment of renewable energy systems for water and wastewater treatment facilities, as detailed on the Climate Program Portal’s (CPP) Outcomes Dashboard. In total, IRA dollars through fiscal years 2022-2025 have funded about $18 million for irrigation-related projects, and over $6 million has been awarded to water and wastewater facilities.
REAP has faced several recent stumbling blocks due to the program’s historic popularity and changes in agency leadership under the Trump administration. The program typically offers applicants frequent application windows, but in December 2024, USDA communicated that the March 2025 application window would be canceled due to overwhelming program popularity. At that point, the agency indicated they would resume accepting applications during the next window, beginning July 1.
Further, due to President Trump’s first set of executive orders upon entering office, dissemination of the program’s funding was paused. In late March, the program was unpaused with an invitation from USDA to strike any climate and equity initiatives embedded within proposals. Regardless, the timelines for the future dispersal of funding remained unclear. And more importantly, the program was expecting several more project submittal periods — six subsequent application windows were anticipated through March 2027.
Instead, USDA canceled the next application window, which was set to open on July 1 and close September 30. USDA’s Office of Rural Development announced on June 30, the day before the window was to open, that the submittal period would shut, again citing the “overwhelming response and continued popularity of the program resulting in a backlog of applicants” as the cause. The office indicated that it would open REAP again to applicants on October 1, where submitted projects would qualify for fiscal year 2026 funding.
To date, REAP has awarded about $1.2 billion in grant funding and $164 million in loan funding to almost 7,000 projects nationwide — the majority of which has been awarded to Republican congressional districts according to the CPP’s Outcomes Dashboard. Altogether, there will be a high demand for the approximately $395 million in remaining appropriated IRA funding.
The USDA’s halting of the program’s submittal periods has created uncertainty for potential applicants. Farmers and small businesses interested in the program will now have to wait and see if REAP reopens in October as promised. If and when application periods are reopened, they will be tracked on both CPP and the Water Program Portal.
