KY fertilizer is not woke, apparently. Therefore, let’s spread federal dollars on it | Opinion
It’s funny how some politicians are convinced the federal government is full of waste, fraud and abuse until it helps one of their constituents.
That’s why we got a news release earlier this week from Rep. Andy Barr — who has happily supported all the DOGE cuts, plus the Big Beautiful Bill, crowing about a $2.4 million grant for Alltech, an international feed and fertilizer company based in Jessamine County.
The grant is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service Fertilizer Production Expansion Program to support Alltech’s planned Science Expansion Project in Nicholasville, Kentucky. The grant allows the feed and fertilizer company to build new 15,000-square-foot facility that will produce more than 66,000 gallons of biological fertilizer products per month.
This is all good news, and Barr is correct to celebrate both Alltech and his role in writing a letter to support the grant. Since 2018, Alltech employees have donated about $17,300 to Barr and his affiliated committees, according to the national data base Open Secrets.
But it’s a tad hypocritical to support the axing of all the other projects going in the wood chipper. I take it that fertilizer is not woke, so it’s OK to support. But this grant will produce just six jobs, and a lot more jobs are going to be lost by cutting sustainable energy projects that would have received tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The Solar Energy Industries Association estimates about 3,300 existing and potential jobs could be lost in Kentucky under the new rules.
It’s fine to say government is too big, but at least be consistent about it.
Threats and cuts to public media
That brings me to the back-and-forth on the rescissions bill, which clawed back more than $1 billion from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
The group funds 13% of KET’s programming and about 25% of KET’s workforce. The entire Kentucky delegation voted for it, except for Rep. Morgan McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat.
After that announcement, KET said its employees would not make the long trek to Western Kentucky to cover the Fancy Farm political picnic. State Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, made a not so veiled threat to KET for this decision (you could tell it was serious by how many exclamation points he used!!!).
Luckily, the Chamber of Commerce jumped in with a donation to make it happen after all.
Our new political reporter, Amancai Biraben, asked if this little hubbub would affect KET’s larger source of funding from the state —$16.8 million from the general fund for the 2024 fiscal year — 59% of its total budget. The message from lawmakers was that KET should tread carefully.
They already do, of course. They do excellent programming from all over the state, and most of all, give us non-stop coverage of the General Assembly, especially when the public can’t be there. KET is a Kentucky treasure, and to intimate it has to stay in line with with power-mad GOP legislators takes a page from President Trump’s playbook on CBS News and Paramount.
It shows just how far down the road to authoritarianism we have come.
DeBraun Thomas leaves WUKY in part due to funding cuts
Speaking of public media cuts, one of its casualties is WUKY radio personality and musician DeBraun Thomas, who announced he is stepping down, partly due to funding issues.
As Matt Wickstrom wrote: “During his more than a dozen years there, Thomas not only became WUKY’s first-ever Black on-air radio personality, but he also hosted a weekly “Local Music Mondays” segment, as well as “The Crunkadelic Funk Show,” a program he first launched as a student on UK’s student-run station WRFL in 2009 and will continue operating on WUKY beyond him stepping down next week.”
But Thomas is also known for his community activism, such as being one of the leaders of the Take Back Cheapside Movement that resulted in the removal of Confederate statues.
Thomas is a shining light in Lexington for music and social justice, and let’s hope both of those will continue.
This story was originally published July 25, 2025 at 11:45 AM.
