USDA Extends Pause on Loans for Controversial Digesters That Turn Manure Into Biogas
Key takeaways
- Department of Agriculture explained the move in financial terms, saying digester projects had “significant delinquency rates and realized losses.”
- Digesters are intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
- We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else.
Why this matters: environmental and climate reporting with long-term consequences.
Republish. A view of a methane digester at Straus Dairy Farm in Marshall, Calif. Credit: Scott Strazzante/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images Related California Pays Farms to Make Biogas from Hog Waste in North Carolina, Where Locals Say It’s Fueling Pollution A Troubled Hog Farm in Wayne County, North Carolina, Is Hit With a New String of Violations Are Incentives for Fuel Made from Livestock Manure Leaving Small Farmers Behind? Share This Article Republish Most Popular Wildfire Crews Race to Keep Fierce California Blaze From Former Nuclear Reactor Site Malnourished Gray Whales of the Eastern North Pacific Are in ‘Serious Trouble’ Top Climate Scientists Accuse the Livestock Industry of Pushing Fuzzy Math to Downplay Its Climate Warming Emissions The federal government’s pause on new loans for anaerobic digesters, the controversial method of converting animal manure from large-scale feeding operations into biogas, will now extend through the end of the year.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture explained the move in financial terms, saying digester projects had “significant delinquency rates and realized losses.”
Digesters are intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Trump administration has targeted climate efforts across the federal government—but unlike many initiatives pitched as climate-friendly, digesters are popular with the agricultural industry and viewed with concern by environmentalists.