By Claire Carlson, John Upton and Kaitlyn Trudeau for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Oregon News Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

One of the most iconic landmarks in downtown Grants Pass, Oregon, is a 100-year-old sign that arcs over the main street with the phrase “It’s the Climate” scrawled across it. 

To an outsider, it’s an odd slogan in this rural region, where comments about the climate – or rather, climate change – can be met with apprehension. But for locals, it’s a nod to an era when the “climate” only referred to Grants Pass’ warm, dry summers and mild winters when snow coats the surrounding mountains but rarely touches down in the city streets.

Now, the slogan takes on a different meaning.

In May 2023, the Grants Pass City Council passed a one-of-a-kind sustainability plan that, if implemented, would transition publicly owned buildings and vehicles to renewable energy, diversifying their power sources in case of natural disaster.

While passing the sustainability plan in this largely Republican county was an enormous feat on its own, actually paying for the energy projects proves to be Grants Pass’ biggest challenge yet. 

“There are grants out there, but I don’t think we’re the only community out there looking for grants to help pay for some of these things,” said J.C. Rowley, finance director for the city of Grants Pass. Some project examples outlined in their sustainability plan include installing electric vehicle charging stations downtown and solar panels at two city-owned landfills, and converting park streetlights to LED. 

Rural communities face bigger hurdles when accessing grant funding because they don’t have the staff or budget that cities often do to produce competitive grant applications. This can slow down the implementation of projects like the ones laid out in the Grants Pass sustainability plan.

Global climate models show the planet’s average annual temperature increasing by about 6.3° Fahrenheit by 2100 if “business-as-usual” practices continue. These practices mean no substantive climate change mitigation policy, continued population growth, and unabated greenhouse gas emissions throughout the 21st century – practices driven by the most resource-consumptive countries, namely, the United States. 

In southwest Oregon, this temperature increase means hotter summers and less snow in the winters, affecting the region’s water resources, according to a U.S. Forest Service analysis. This could mean longer and more severe wildfire seasons. 

In Roseburg, Oregon, about 70 miles north of Grants Pass, a 6.3°F increase would mean the city’s yearly average of 36 days of below-freezing temperatures would decrease to few or none, according to the analysis. Grants Pass would suffer a similar fate, drastically changing the climate it’s so famous for. 

Grants Pass has a population of 39,000 and is the hub of one of the smallest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. The metro contains just one county, Josephine, which has a population of under 90,000, nearly half of whom live outside urbanized areas. Over half of the county’s land is owned by the Bureau of Land Management or National Forest, and it contains a section of the federal Rogue River Scenic Waterway.

“In the event of a natural disaster, we are far more likely to get isolated,” said Allegra Starr, an Americorps employee who was the driving force behind the Grants Pass sustainability plan. “I’ve heard stories of communities that were less isolated than us running out of fuel [during power outages].”

Building resilience in the face of disaster is a main priority of the plan, which recommends 14 projects related to green energy, waste disposal, transportation, and tree plantings in city limits. All of the projects focus on improvements to city-owned buildings, vehicles, and operations. 

In partnership with Starr and the Grants Pass public works department, a volunteer task force of community members spent one year researching and writing the sustainability plan. In spring 2023, it was approved by the Grants Pass City Council. 

Now, the public works department is in the grants-seeking stage, and they stand to benefit from the influx of climate cash currently coming from the federal government. 

Money for Sustainability, If You Can Get It

In 2022, the Biden administration passed the single largest bill on clean energy and climate action in U.S. history: the Inflation Reduction Act, which funnels $145 billion to renewable energy and climate action programs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, allocates $57.9 billion to clean energy and power projects. 

“It’s almost like drinking through a fire hose with the grant opportunities, which is a curse and a blessing,” said Vanessa Ogier, Grants Pass city council member. Ogier joined the council in 2021 with environmental and social issues as her top priority and was one of the sustainability plan’s biggest proponents. 

But competing against larger communities for the grants funded through these federal laws is a struggle for smaller communities like Grants Pass. 

And time is not something Grants Pass – or any other community – has to spare.

“I really don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but when a small community only has one grant writer and they have to focus on water systems, fire, dispatch, fleet services, and they’re torn in all these different ways, it can be difficult to wrangle and organize all these opportunities and filter if they’re applicable, if we would even qualify,” Ogier said. 

Having a designated grant-writing team, which is common in larger cities, would be a huge help in Grants Pass, Ogier said. 

A 2023 study by Headwaters Economics found that lower-capacity communities – ones with fewer staff and limited funding – were unable to compete against higher-capacity, typically urban communities with resources devoted to writing competitive grant applications. 

“[There are] rural communities that don’t have community development, that don’t have economic development, that don’t have grant writers, that may only have one or two paid staff,” said Karen Chase, senior manager for community strategy at Energy Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit that helps an Oregon-based nonprofit that helps people transition their homes and businesses to renewable energy. Chase was a member of the volunteer task force that put together the Grants Pass sustainability plan.

When the Inflation Reduction Act money started rolling in, many of the rural communities Chase works with did not have plans that laid out “shovel-ready” energy and climate resiliency projects, which is a requirement of much of the funding. Grants Pass’ sustainability plan should give them a leg-up when applying for grants that require shovel-ready projects, according to Chase.

“Most of my rural communities pretty much lost out,” she said. 

This is despite the approximately $87 billion of Inflation Reduction Act money classified as rural-relevant, rural-stipulated, or rural-exclusive funding, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institute. Rural outreach is part of the Biden administration’s larger goal to put money into rural communities that historically have been left out by state and federal investments.

But this outreach isn’t perfect. Most of the federal grants available to rural communities still have match requirements, which are a set amount of money awardees must contribute to a grant-funded project. 

The Brookings Institute analysis, which also looked at rural funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, found that “over half [of the rural-significant grants programs] require or show a preference for matching funds, and less than one-third offer flexibility or a waiver.” 

Of the rural-exclusive and rural-stipulated programs, less than one-third of the total grants offer match waivers or flexibility to reduce the match requirement. This makes getting those grants a lot harder for rural communities with smaller budgets. 

Help From the Outside

To address limited staffing, in 2021 the Grants Pass public works department applied to be a host site for an Americorps program run out of the University of Oregon. 

The program, coined the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) program, assigns graduate students to rural Oregon communities for 11 months to work on economic development, sustainability planning, and food systems initiatives. An Americorps member was assigned to Grants Pass to work as a sustainability planner from September 2022 to August 2023. 

Without the Americorps member, Grants Pass officials say there’s no way the plan would have been written.

“She came in and learned about the city and the operations and the technical aspects of it and was able to really understand it and talk about that,” said Kyrrha Sevco, business operations supervisor for the public works department. “That’s hard to do.”

Bringing outsiders in can be a tricky undertaking in a rural community, but RARE program director Titus Tomlinson said they collaborate with the host sites to make the transition for their members as smooth as possible. 

“When we place a member, we place them with a trusted entity in a rural community,” Tomlinson said. “[The site supervisor] helps them meet and engage with other leaders in the community so that they’ve got some ground to stand on right out of the gate.” 

Each participating community must provide a $25,000 cash match that goes toward the approximately $50,000 needed to pay, train, and mentor the Americorps member, according to the RARE website. Communities struggling to meet this cash match are eligible for financial assistance. 

Grants Pass paid $18,500 for their portion of the RARE Americorps grant.

Allegra Starr, the Americorps employee, no longer works in Grants Pass since completing her 11-month term. In her stead, a committee of seven has been created to monitor and report to the city council on the progress of the plan’s implementation. 

Much of this implementation work will fall on the director of the public works department, Jason Canady, and the business operations supervisor, Kyrrha Sevco. 

“There has to be that departmental person who’s really carrying that lift and that load,” said Rowley, the Grants Pass finance director. “It’s the Kyrrhas and Jasons of the world who are leading the charge for their own department like public works.”

Now, Canady and Sevco are laying the groundwork for multiple solar projects. Eventually, they hope to bring to life what local high school student, and member of the original volunteer sustainability task force, Kayle Palmore, dreamed of in an essay titled “A Day in 2045,” which envisions bike lanes, wide sidewalks, solar panels, and electric vehicle charging stations on every street corner. 

“A smile spreads across your face as you think of how much you love this beautiful city,” Palmore writes. 


Claire Carlson, John Upton and Kaitlyn Trudeau wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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By Carolyn Beans for Lancaster Farming.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Keystone State News Connection reporting for the Lancaster Farming-MIT Climate Change Engagement Program-Public News Service Collaboration

At Mountain View Holsteins in Bethel, Pennsylvania, owner Jeremy Martin is always working to make his dairy more efficient.

Currently, he has his sights set on a manure solid-liquid separator. He’d like to use the solid portion of his manure as bedding for his 140 cows and the liquid as fertilizer.

But the project is pricey — he expects the equipment alone will run around $100,000. So Martin hopes to defray the cost through grant funding for dairy projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Removing much of the solids from manure reduces the feed for the methane-producing microbes that thrive in the anaerobic conditions of liquid manure.

The approach is just one of many dairy practices now considered “climate-smart” because they could cut production of climate-warming gases.

For Martin, a manure separator wouldn’t be possible without a grant.

“Once it's in place and going, I think some of these practices will pay for themselves, but the upfront cost is more than I can justify,” he says. “If there's money out there to pay that upfront cost to get started, it makes sense to me to do it.”

Across Pennsylvania, dairy farmers are learning more about climate-smart practices and funding opportunities, and weighing whether these changes are really sustainable for their businesses as well as the environment.

The Latest Buzzword

USDA has defined climate-smart agriculture as an approach that reduces or removes greenhouse gas emissions, builds resilience to the changing climate, and sustainably increases incomes and agricultural productivity.

“Before climate-smart was a thing, we called it conservation. We called it stewardship,” says Jackie Klippenstein, a senior vice president at Dairy Farmers of America.

Indeed, long before the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations coined the term “climate-smart agriculture” in 2010, Pennsylvania dairy farmers had adopted many of the practices that now fall under the label.

For dairy, climate-smart practices largely include strategies that reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, manure or fields. Tried and true conservation practices like cover cropping and reduced tillage count.

So do newer practices like using the feed additive Bovaer to reduce methane production in a cow’s rumen, or precision nitrogen management to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fields.

Paying for Climate-Smart

“Margins are very tight on the dairy farm,” says Jayne Sebright, the executive director of the Center for Dairy Excellence, a public-private partnership to strengthen Pennsylvania’s dairy industry. “Some of these (climate-smart practices) are good for the climate, but they don't make good economic sense until they're subsidized.”

In 2022, the center joined a Penn State-run program called "Climate-smart Agriculture that is profitable, Regenerative, Actionable and Trustworthy" to provide dairy farmers with funds for switching to climate-smart practices.

CARAT was launched with a $25 million USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant, but the future of the Pennsylvania project is in doubt. In April, USDA canceled the partnership program, suggesting that recipients reapply to a new USDA initiative called Advancing Markets for Producers.

Over 60 dairy farmers across Pennsylvania, including Martin, had already applied and been accepted into the first phase of CARAT. This initial phase was intended to help farmers identify the best climate-smart practices for their operations. In the second phase, farmers would have applied for funding to implement those practices. One farmer was already paid for his project before the USDA canceled the partnership program.

“There are fewer funding sources for climate-smart projects than in the last administration. However, private organizations and other entities are funding climate-smart projects,” Sebright says. “Depending on what the practice is, (climate-smart) could also be conservation projects. It could be water quality projects.”

Sebright suggests that dairy farmers also look for support through state-level funding, such as Pennsylvania’s Resource Enhancement and Protection program, which offers tax credits for implementing practices that benefit farms and protect water quality.

Pennsylvania dairy farmers can also contact their county conservation districts to ask about funding opportunities for climate-smart projects, says Amy Welker, a project manager and grant writer for Pennsylvania-based Jones Harvesting, which operates Maystone Dairy in Newville and Molly Pitcher Milk in Shippensburg.

In the next year, Jones Harvesting plans to install a methane digester and solid-liquid separator at a site near Maystone Dairy. The digester is funded with an Agricultural Innovation Grant from the state and an Environmental Quality Incentives Program grant from USDA, along with private funds.

There’s money out there for farmers who implement climate-smart practices, says Welker. But “you can't just look at one source.”

Long-Term Payoffs

Ultimately, for climate-smart projects to make economic sense, they must continue paying for themselves long after the initial investment. One major goal of the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program was to develop markets where farmers adopting these practices could earn a premium.

Some dairy farmers might see that return in the carbon market. National checkoff organization Dairy Management Inc. and its partners have pledged to shrink the industry's net greenhouse gas production to zero by 2050. There are growing opportunities for companies working toward that goal in the dairy supply chain to pay farmers for their contributions.

Early last year, Texas dairy farmer Jasper DeVos became the first to earn credits through the livestock carbon insetting marketplace. DeVos earned carbon credits by reducing methane emissions with a feed protocol that included the feed additive Rumensin. Dairy Farmers of America then purchased those credits through Athian, a carbon marketplace for the livestock industry.

Increased Efficiency

Even without direct monetary payoff, many farmers who adopt climate-smart practices reap rewards in improved efficiency and productivity.

“When you look at climate-smart, you also have to look at what's farm smart,” Sebright says. She suggests that farmers choose practices that benefit their farms, not just the climate.

A farmer might decide to put a cover and flare system on a manure pit, not only because it reduces methane emissions but also because it keeps rainwater out of the pit and reduces the number of times each year the pit must be emptied.

Andy Bollinger of Meadow Spring Farm in Lancaster County has been running a manure separator since 2009. The liquid fertilizes his fields, and a portion of the solids becomes bedding for his cows.

He estimates the system saves him at least $20,000 a year in bedding costs.

“We put a fresh coating of it onto the stalls that our cows lay in every day and scrape the old stuff out,” says Bollinger, who is also the vice president of the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania. “It seems to work quite well, and it saves us from buying other bedding products.”

No-till farming is also a cost saver because it reduces field passes with equipment, says James Thiele of Thiele Dairy Farm in Cabot, which has been 100% no-till for at least six years. The practice saves him money on fuel and herbicides.

“You're saving your environment, and you're also saving green,” he says.

But Thiele questions whether some other climate-smart practices like methane digesters would be practical for his farm, which has 75 to 80 cows.

“I don't know if it'd be worth it for somebody as small as I am,” he says.

“I think over the next few years, we'll rapidly see (climate-smart) tools become more available, and we'll see more organizations like DFA talking to our small to mid-sized farmers to make sure they understand they've got a place in this, they can benefit from it, and the practices and tools are affordable to them as well,” Klippenstein says.

Weighing Climate-Smart

Many dairy farmers wonder whether some of the practices championed as climate-smart will really support their businesses.

Donny Bartch of Merrimart Farms in Loysville has adopted environmental practices from cover cropping to a manure management plan.

“I want to protect the environment. I want to keep my nutrients here on the farm and be sustainable for another five generations,” Bartch says. “But we have to make sure that we're making the right decisions to keep the business going. And to do some of these (climate-smart) practices, the only way they pencil out is to have those subsidies.”

There is also frustration with a system that rewards climate-smart improvements made today without acknowledging the contributions of farmers who were climate-smart before anyone put a name on it.

“You come around and want to start rewarding people for doing these things. You really need to start with the ones that have been doing it for a long time, but that's really not what happens,” says Jim Harbach of Schrack Farms in Loganton, whose farm has been no-till for 50 years.

Climate-smart grant money and carbon credits are typically awarded for the implementation of new practices.

“It’s just the unfortunate way that all of the policies and regulations were written,” Sebright says. “What I would say is, if you do a climate-smart plan, maybe there are practices or things you can do to enhance or support or take what you're doing a step further.”

Scientific Measurements on Real Farms

Some dairy farmers also want to know more about how climate-smart practices will affect their farms before jumping in.

Steve Paxton remembers participating in a government program to improve timber over 50 years ago on his family dairy, Irishtown Acres in Grove City. His family members were paid to climb up into their white pines and saw off many of the bottom branches.

The goal was to create a cleaner log. Instead, more sunlight shown through, which caused grape vines to climb up and topple the trees.

“The bottom line is, there was research done, it looked good, but it hadn’t had enough time to follow through and see just really what the end results would be,” Paxton says.

When Paxton sees estimates of how some practices might reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, he wonders how much of that research has been tested on actual dairies.

“I think some of it now is just kind of a textbook estimate of what's happening,” he says.

More meaningful data is needed to show how climate-smart practices reduce greenhouse gases on individual dairies, Sebright says.

As part of the CARAT program, Penn State researchers planned to place greenhouse gas sensors on a dozen dairies and test how much greenhouse gas production falls as farmers experiment with different practices. The researchers intended to then use that data to build models that predict how those practices may affect emissions on other farms. They will still measure emissions this spring on one farm that is experimenting with a new approach for spreading manure in fields of feed crops.

“The real goal of (CARAT) is to have research that says, if you put a cover and flare (manure storage system) on a 500-cow dairy, this is how greenhouse gas emissions will change,” Sebright says. “Or if you use Bovaer on a 90-cow herd, here's how this will affect greenhouse gas emissions.”

Martin of Mountain View Holsteins has his own personal beliefs about where a dairy farmer’s responsibilities to the planet begin and end. But from a business perspective, he feels compelled to adopt climate-smart practices because he expects the industry will eventually require them.

“Climate concerns are coming whether I'd like it or not,” he says. “So my thought is, I might as well get started on it while there's funding to do it.”


Carolyn Beans wrote this article for Lancaster Farming.


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Oregon's new state budget cuts funding for programs intended to protect residents from extreme weather and make renewable energy more accessible.

Climate justice advocates said it is a major setback after years of progressive climate policies.

Ben Brint, senior climate program director for the Oregon Environmental Council, is disappointed to lose funding for the Community Renewable Energy Grant Program, which supports a variety of projects tailored to communities, including microgrids and solar storage.

"We felt legislators didn't fund climate resilience programs while fires are raging, people's houses are burning down and the state has already experienced record heat waves in June," Brint pointed out. "Legislators don't see we are in an actual climate emergency and chose inaction."

Brint said the grant program aimed to help low-income, rural and communities of color, those most impacted by climate disasters. Lawmakers attributed the cuts to budget shortfalls and uncertainty over federal funding.

Joel Iboa, executive director of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, said the Community Resilience Hub program, which creates networks as well as physical places to protect people from extreme cold, heat and smoke also lost funding this session. He argued the hubs are effective because communities design them to meet their unique needs.

"Whether it be a place to plug in your phone or a place to go get diapers or get an air conditioner or whatever your community may need," Iboa outlined. "Depending on what's going on."

A heat pump program for rental housing, aimed at making energy-efficient heating and cooling more affordable, was also cut this session.

Brint added he realizes legislators have to make tough decisions about how to fund health care and housing but emphasized climate change is connected to those issues.

"When we're talking about heat pumps or the C-REP program, we're talking about people's health and livelihoods and saving lives in the face of climate fueled disaster," Brint stressed.

Brint added since climate change is not going away, the movement to push for climate resilience will not either.


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A new Colorado law aims to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires by providing financial protection for trained and certified individuals to safely manage prescribed burns.

Low-intensity prescribed burns can remove hazardous fuel sources such as brush piles, dead or dying vegetation, leaf litter and small trees.

Parker Titus, Colorado fire program manager for The Nature Conservancy, said fire practitioners have been reluctant to take on projects in Colorado, even though fewer than 1% of all burns spread beyond established parameters.

"Liability concerns are a major barrier to the use of prescribed fire," Titus acknowledged. "Lack of attainable insurance dissuades many fire-trained and qualified individuals from using this proven tool."

Senate Bill 7 creates a new prescribed fire liability claims fund to act as a safety net for certified burn managers, which can include private landowners. The bill also creates an easier pathway for burn managers with previous training, experience and certifications in other states to be certified in Colorado.

Paul Cada, wildland battalion chief for Vail Fire and Emergency Services, said in order to truly mitigate catastrophic wildfire risks, efforts must be scaled up on orders of magnitude, and bringing in more people who can do the work safely is a step in the right direction. He estimated Colorado's current capacity to clear excess fuel stores is somewhere around 1% of what's actually needed.

"While this is not the silver bullet that gets us up to 100% capacity," Cada pointed out. "Anything that we can do to add capacity is certainly going to help."

Fire is a natural event on landscapes and Indigenous peoples have used prescribed burns to keep forests and grasslands healthy for centuries.

Rebecca Samulski, executive director of the nonprofit Fire Adapted Colorado, said ecosystems depend on occasional fires to rejuvenate soil and make space for vegetation wildlife depend on.

"Those fires are essential for returning nutrients to the ground and opening up the canopy so that the sun can get through and grasses can grow and flowers can grow," Samulski explained.