Launched in 2022, the program was set up to provide grants and other funding for sustainable farming practices that keep carbon in the soil, prevent deforestation, and other measures. The price tag, just over $3 billion, was unusually high for a “pilot program,” surpassing the annual budgets of other long-standing conservation programs that, at least theoretically, were supposed to support many of the same farming practices.

“Our goal is to … make sure that small and underserved producers reap the benefits of these market opportunities,” Vilsack said at COP27.

But nearly a year later, the top grants have instead been awarded to large corporate interests, including Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and other organizations underwritten by Big Ag. The program is under renewed scrutiny from watchdog groups, which claim the department has provided limited public information about the selection process for applications, the contracts being negotiated with grant recipients, and the criteria for what exactly constitutes “climate smart.”

“We don’t need USDA facilitating a pay-to-pollute carbon scheme that only goes to benefit big operations,” said Rebecca Wolf, senior policy director at Food & Water Watch.

Nakedly corrupt trash like this is exactly why it’s so infuriating when Biden supporters try to back up their bullshit claims about him being so progressive by pointing to the Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan. Ten years from now we’re not going to have made anywhere near the progress we should have on climate change, the rich will be even richer, and moderate Dems will just say “Nobody could have known those Fortune 500 companies were all ripping off taxpayers so badly back then, but this new subsidy is different.”