US-Japan exchange

At UT Knoxville, the government terminated a Department of State grant for the U.S.-Japan Exchange Program for Green Growth Collaboration through Clean Energy Technologies (EXCET).

The grant began Sept. 2023 and will end August this year. Originally the grant was for $70,000 of which $6,466 was defunded as of March 1.

The program involved collaborations between the US and Japan on “renewable energy, green energy, and environmental energy issues,” with the idea of making “concrete policy recommendations,”according to the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment at the Tickle College of Engineering.

Forest sample web apps

The United States Department of Agriculture terminated the FlorestaDB program, which involves mobile and web apps for forest sample collection.

As advertised online, the app allows users to track the origins of paper-based products.

“Much of what we buy contains or is linked to products of land that should have not been deforested — this is largely because the methods we use to verify where a product comes from are paper-based and open to fraudulent activity,” according to the app’s website.

It began January 2024 and the government terminated the grant in March 2025. It started with $53,075 and ended with $34,508 in lost revenue.

Pesticide safety education

The EPA terminated the Tennessee Pesticide Safety Education Program grant for the UT Institute of Agriculture. The grant was for Jan. 2025 and through Dec. 2025. The original grant value was $31,225 and the lost funds were $31,225.

The program website describes it as “a statewide educational program with an overall goal to protect the environment and the public health from improper use of pesticides by providing applicator and public education.”

Climate smart grasslands

The administration terminated the UT Institute of Agriculture’s (UTIA) research and development program Climate Smart Grasslands — the Root of Agricultural Carbon Markets. The USDA grant was to extend from September 2023 through September 2028. It started with $30 million and UTIA lost $26.8 million in funds.

So, on  this aspect alone, DOGE all but annihilated $3.2 million of U.S. taxpayer money already spent. Perhaps even worse, it may have diminished the chance of many family farms in our region to survive and of girding the agricultural sector of the nine states and of our nation.

UTIA has already created The Grasslands Partnership. It includes a multi-institution team and 230 farms in nine states. This region represents the core of grassland agriculture in the eastern U.S. The goal was to equip and empower grassland farmers to enter the carbon economy while enhancing operation resiliency and optimizing profitability, soil health and biodiversity. 

By analyzing best practices in grasslands management, the investigation was expected to be, “the once-in-a-generation study [that] has the potential to secure the future for farmers, the public, and our planet.“

This was one of USDA’s first seventy partnership grants toward Climate-Smart Commodities, for which $2.8 billion had been allocated. It sought to expand markets for US farms, including those of small and underserved producers, who grow commodities that reduce greenhouse gas footprints, increase carbon sequestration and provide meaningful benefits to production.

— Ben Pounds

Here’s the original story:

KNOXVILLE — President Donald Trump’s administration has pulled the plug on roughly $37.7 million in federal funding across 42 grants for the University of Tennessee System.

The majority of the loss — $31.2 million — comes from eight terminated grants at the UT Institute of Agriculture. The institute houses the university’s agriculture research arm as well as its statewide educational organization providing resources to Tennessee farmers and communities in all 95 counties. It also houses the UT College of Veterinary Medicine and the Herbert College of Agriculture.

The UT school system was set to receive more than $59 million across 58 awards from multiple federal departments and agencies, according to records reviewed by Tennessee Lookout. The grant terminations apply to $51.4 million of that total, $37.7 million of which has not yet been spent.

UT’s Knoxville campus saw another 25 awards terminated representing $2.1 million in funding. 

Other campuses impacted include:

• UT Health Science Center: 4 terminated programs ($2.6 million)
• UT Chattanooga: 4 terminated programs ($1.4 million)
• UT Institute for Public Service: 1 terminated program ($419,107)

“The most immediate impact has been the need to transition students and staff supported by these affected projects to alternative funding sources,” spokesperson Melissa Tindell wrote in an email to Tennessee Lookout Friday. “Essential work such as reporting, compliance and other research operations continue with adjusted support.”

A total of 23 stop work orders have been rescinded systemwide, Tindell wrote. Nine partial stop work orders are in effect, “meaning that portions of the projects cannot be completed, though the total award amount hasn’t been impacted at this time.”

Ten grants remain active, and six are “pending.” 

Campuses with active grants include:

• UT Knoxville: 4 active awards ($1.5 million)
• UT Chattanooga: 2 active awards ($237,650)
• UT Institute of Agriculture: 4 active awards ($1.5 million)

Awards pending further review include:

• UT Knoxville: 3 awards ($1.2 million)
• UT Health Science Center: 1 award ($82,000)
• UT Martin: 1 award ($62,245)
• UT Institute of Agriculture: 1 award (value unknown)

Of the several federal agencies that terminated funding to UT grants, the USDA reclaimed by far the most funds at $26.9 million. Federal records show one of the grants affected was a $30 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture aiming to expand markets for climate-smart beef, dairy and small grazing animals across multiple states. The University of Tennessee sub-awarded $10.24 million to other universities for their roles in research meant to “support farmers’ and ranchers’ implementation and monitoring of climate-smart practices,” according to the grant summary on usaspending.gov.

Records maintained by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) indicate $30 million in “savings” from terminating the grant, but other federal records show $2.1 million already outlaid since the project started in September 2023. It’s not clear if the money spent was part of the project’s additional $6.2 million in non-federal funding. The project was supposed to conclude in September 2028.

The university’s Agricultural Leaders of Tomorrow (ALOFT) program, which sent volunteers to Southeast Asia to support agriculture education in developing countries, is another spending cut casualty. 

The program was awarded five years of funding under the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2023, but was put under a stop work order in February. The university’s webpage explaining the program now — now written in the past tense — shows its achievements from 2023 through 2025. University records show one terminated USAID program worth around $4.1 million.