The federal funding freeze, despite being temporarily stayed by courts, has blocked promised grant money from reaching small business owners in Arizona.
Affected programs include Inflation Reduction Act funds aimed at helping farmers switch to more drought-tolerant crops and others that enable business owners to install solar panels. That’s according to Kimber Lanning, CEO of the nonprofit Local First Arizona, who says these grants come as reimbursements after the money is already spent.
"There’s a lot of panic…. So many of them are really trying to figure out what their losses will be and whether or not this may put them into some sort of bankruptcy situation," Lanning says.
Cory Bruening is the owner of a family-run hotel in Cottonwood and was expecting about 30 thousand dollars from the Rural Energy for America program to reimburse the cost of solar panels. He learned last week that the funds are frozen while the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviews the program under new executive orders.
"It was a big chunk of our budget and what we saved up to do it… And so the fact that things have been delayed or it’s in limbo and just sort of sitting there, it creates uncertainty," Bruening says.
In a statement, a USDA spokesperson said the agency "has a solemn responsibility to be good stewards" of taxpayer dollars and that updates on the review of the Inflation Reduction Act funds are coming soon. The spokesperson pointed to Monday's announcement of the release of funds for several agriculture programs.
