REAP

Hurry, hurry... get your plan together for big savings while at the same time, possibly helping out the planet. REAP and that doesn't mean bring in your crops. There's a totally different implication, even though they're spelled the same way. Usda's Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP has 400 million dollars left this fiscal year.

The program is specifically designed to: "assist agricultural producers primarily and also rural businesses with energy efficient improvements such as improving their lighting or their refrigerator system or solar panels to help with their energy costs.

That was Betty Brand, Rural Business Cooperative Service Administrator. "The applications come in through our local state offices and the sooner the better. Because in order to have money obligated for this fiscal year and to have access to this 400 million would be to get the applications in so we can get our guarantees approved before the end of their fiscal year, which is September 30th."

One Reap Project example involves the rural store in Maine that covered all of its energy needs by installing solar panels. "So it was a complete tradeoff. And immediately once those things were installed, they saw those savings."