Rep. Tom Tiffany, a U.S. House member from the state, said on American Family Radio Thursday that it doesn’t make sense to lose that land to renewable energy projects.
Those projects are heavily incentivized through government subsidies. Tiffany told show host Jenna Ellis that’s something he hopes to eliminate through his proposed Future Agriculture Retention and Management (FARM) Act.
He first proposed the legislation in 2022 and continues to work for its passage.
The FARM Act is necessary to protect farmland and ensure long-term food security, and taxpayers should not be forced to finance preferred government projects at the expense of farmland, he said.
“What we see in our state of Wisconsin are thousands of acres that are being converted to wind and solar. I think that’s a terrible tradeoff," he argued. "The only way these wind and solar developers can do this is with enormous subsidies from the federal government, i.e. you, the American taxpayer.”
Not only is valuable farmland lost, the cost of electricity has increased in Wisconsin due to dependency on “intermittent sources of power,” Tiffany said. “It’s a lose, lose, lose for the American people.”
Tiffany is hopeful the FARM Act gets more attention this House session, the third time he’s introduced it.
Tax dollars subsidized 'green'
Joe Biden’s administration put great emphasis on renewable or “green” energy.
From 2016-2022, a window that includes Donald Trump’s first term as president, half of federal money used to subsidize energy went to renewables, according to The Energy Information Administration, via a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report. Less than 15% went to oil, gas and coal during that time.
In addition, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 included tens of billions of dollars each year in clean energy tax credits.
There have been mixed results with the renewables, the report says. In some cases even more government subsidies are necessary.
“For solar panels and onshore wind farms, heavy subsidies are accomplishing their goals," the report states. "Those two renewables are now competitive with fossil fuels in most places, giving people a way to produce and use clean energy without paying higher energy bills. Not so for other renewable technologies such as geothermal and offshore wind, which still need more government support to compete.”
Back in November, days after Trump won the White House, a story published at Reason urged the then-new Department of Government Efficiency to "repeal energy subsidies and tax credits that distort markets and reward politically favored companies at the expense of taxpayers."
Now, three months later, the EPA and DOGE announced they discovered the Biden administration had handed out $20 billion to eight environmental and climate groups, with little to no oversight.
Tiffany says food production should be society’s No. 1 priority.
“Producing energy is really important," he allowed, "but I think food is one step higher.”
Solar energy, though abundant, is not constant due to the positioning of the sun in any given area. Wind farms are typically located in remote areas which creates an issue when the energy is transmitted to communities, according to Universal Technical Institute.
The U.S. is recognized for having one of the safest food supplies in the world. Currently, food capacity is in good shape too.
Good news on food, but …
“The US agricultural system can produce enough food to feed 146% of the population by 2030,” according to The National Institutes of Health.
However, to accommodate increased diet quality, “substantial” increases in cropland acreage would be needed for fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts, the report says.
The NIH warns that more farmland is necessary to help Americans eat healthy.
“The U.S. can produce more than enough food to accommodate a shift toward a healthier diet pattern, but even moderate shifts in diet quality would require major transitions in cropland use. The success of this transition is dependent on several factors, like individuals’ ease of entry into the agricultural sector, producers’ ability to shift production to other crops, and modifications to the food supply chain.”
Whether it’s eating for health, survival or pleasure, the U.S. cannot afford to keep trading farmland for green energy projects, Tiffany said.
“I just want to see this conversion of farmland stopping with wind and solar," the lawmaker concluded, "because we are losing thousands and thousands of acres in the Midwest of very productive farmland to these wind and solar developments.”
