From Viral Video to Washington: How One Farmer's Fight Against Solar Development Reached the White House

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:45:29 GMT

Alexandra Fasulo didn’t set out to take on the solar industry. As a first-generation farmers, all she wanted to raise pollinators and grow cut flowers on a few acres in upstate New York. Instead, a neighbor’s warning, a cornered conversation with a solar salesman, and thousands of hours of research into how New York classifies its farmland turned her into one of the most-watched voices in a fight now playing out in Washington, one that recently landed a phone call from President Trump’s newly appointed Special Envoy for American Landowners.

Fasulo, who farms in Schuylerville, New York, never intended to build a following on social media or even take on New York state. She says her life has always centered on doing a little bit of everything.

“I do a lot of things. People always laugh. I’m a crazy entrepreneur. It runs in my family,” Fasulo says. “We do a lot of everything here, including painting endangered species, like you can see behind me. I’m outside right now teaching myself how to create a pollinator farm and a cut flower farm.”

A Neighbor’s Warning Sparks a Movement

That changed two years ago, when a neighbor pulled up to her fence line with a warning: solar developers had approached him five times about leasing his hayfield, land he was actively using to feed his horses. Each time, he said no.

“Anytime he had said, no, I don’t want to lease, that didn’t mean anything to these people,” Fasulo says. “The second I hear about predatory corporate behavior like that, I half get mad and I half perk up and go, what’s going on here? Why are they pursuing this gentleman so aggressively for his hayfield that he’s actively using?”

Curious whether the pressure her neighbor faced was isolated, Fasulo posted a video about the encounter online.

“I didn’t know if this was isolated to upstate New York. I didn’t know if it was isolated to Saratoga County,” she says. “I posted this video and it blew up. And I did not realize this was a country-wide problem, even a global problem.”

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A post shared by Alex Fasulo (@alexandrafasulo)

The post led another local farmer to invite Fasulo to a hearing near her home , where she says she encountered a solar company representative who had traveled a long way for a small, sparsely attended meeting.

“There was barely anyone there, but who was there was a solar salesman from Santa Monica, California,” Fasulo says. “We’re in the middle of nowhere in New York up here. There’s no way he just accidentally came here.”

Fasulo says the salesman cornered her in the parking lot afterward to defend the industry’s approach, telling her plainly why cleared farmland was the target.

“He looked at me and he said, cleared farmland is the best land for us to put these solar panels on. It’s quick, it’s developed, it’s cheap. And then he looked at me and he said, and it’s easier to shove it through,” remembers Fasulo.

That lit her fire, prompting her to post another social media video after that.

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A post shared by Alex Fasulo (@alexandrafasulo)

A State Hearing That Changed Everything

That frustration eventually carried Fasulo to a hearing held by New York’s Office of Renewable Energy Siting, known as ORES. What she witnessed there, she says, reshaped how she saw the fight entirely.

“That was the moment the ship left the harbor, because that was the most unbelievable display of bureaucratic domination over a small town I’ve ever seen in my life,” Fasulo says. “I sat there in disbelief at the bureaucratic arrogance that I was witnessing — these people who aren’t from our town show up to our town to court, and it truly felt like a situation where it’s serfs coming before a king.”

From there, Fasulo shifted her focus to how New York classifies farmland itself, arguing regulators quietly moved away from USDA soil standards in a way that made more land eligible for solar development.

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A post shared by Alex Fasulo (@alexandrafasulo)

“What they did in 2020 is they took a system the state had been using since the ‘70s called mineral soil groups, or MSGs,” Fasulo says. “It was never used for siting.”

She says the classification system carries real financial consequences for developers.

“If a soil is MSG 1 through 4, it’s considered prime. If it’s considered prime, the solar developers have to pay to mitigate the loss of that prime farmland,” Fasulo says. “If that soil group goes from MSG 2 to MSG 5 suddenly, the solar developer no longer has to pay to mitigate the offsetting of the prime farmland.”

Asked how much time she has put into digging through the research, Fasulo doesn’t hesitate.

“Thousands, thousands of hours,” she says.

Why was Dean Sommer, managing partner at Young/Sommer, suddenly voted in as the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) chair for New Scotland, New York last month?

Mr. Sommer was very purposely installed as the ZBA chair because the Town of New Scotland is reviewing two separate BESS… pic.twitter.com/N8YKz70gNm
— Alex Fasulo (@alex_fasulo) August 3, 2026

To formalize that fight, Fasulo founded the American Land Rescue Fund , a nonprofit she describes as using the power of law to defend America’s farmland, wildlife, and open spaces from industrial development. The organization funds environmental attorneys who take on industrial and governmental projects threatening rural communities and agricultural land.

Fasulo, who serves as the nonprofit’s president, has used it to commission independent ecological assessments and legal challenges, including opposition to the proposed Fort Edward Solar project, a 530-acre development planned on state conservation land set aside for bird habitat.

The Fight Reaches Washington

That research, and the following it built online, eventually caught the attention of John Rich, who in July was sworn in as Special Envoy for American Landowners at USDA , tapped by President Trump to lead federal efforts to protect farmland.

“I’m a high school graduate, but I’ve got the Constitution in my back pocket and a really bad attitude,” Rich said in a recent episode of ‘Unscripted. ‘ “Powerful people who think they can shove around the average American citizen.”

Let’s get to work🇺🇸 https://t.co/UFPJ4qAWEe
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) July 10, 2026

Rich says his office is already involved in disputes across multiple states that previously had no federal attention.

“We’re already engaged in multiple states on very big projects that, prior to my position coming on board, these things were completely off the radar,” Rich says. “It’s a new day for the American landowner. You now have an advocate and a guy that can get right to the federal government, and write to the president if necessary, to put up a defense around you and your land.”

Rich says the landowners he’s worked with often share a common thread: exhaustion, but not surrender.

“They felt defeated, but they were fighting anyway. The American spirit was alive and well, but they knew this is a losing battle, and they were going to give it everything they had,” Rich says. “There were people taking out second mortgages on their land to afford attorneys. Really bad stuff that should never be happening in the United States of America.”

Those stories, he says, fueled something close to outrage.

“It enraged me to see some powerful company showing up on people’s property and shoving them around, especially old men and old women who are sitting on farms that have been in their families for well over a century, and they’ve got no way to fight. They’re telling me, John, if they knock us out, we’re going to spend the rest of our days in an old folks’ home instead of right here on the farm that we have been stewards over for the past 50 or 60 years. When you hear something like that, if that doesn’t make you want to put your dukes up and do everything you can, then nothing will,” Rich says.

USDA Demands Answers from New York’s Governor

Rollins, along with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Special Envoy John Rich, sent a letter to Gov. Hochul demanding answers in what she called “the state’s decision to fast-track industrial solar projects on some of America’s most productive farmland.”

🚨 Prime farmland should grow food—not disappear.

Today, alongside @epaleezeldin and @johnrich , I sent a formal letter to @GovKathyHochul demanding answers about New York’s decision to fast-track industrial solar projects on some of America’s most productive farmland.

When… pic.twitter.com/XuyzOIlENW
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) June 28, 2026

The letter laid out two chief concerns:

The way New York classifies agricultural soils when siting these projects.
What the state planned to do with solar panels at end-of-life.

Rollins referenced the dispute publicly at a Senate Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. But Rich says USDA’s concerns are rooted in New York’s “reimagined” definition of New York price farmland.

“Kathy Hochul is now using that to say, basically, there is no prime farmland,” Rich says. “Amish farms, Mennonite farms, family farms are now being overrun by Canada and Spain, primarily using Chinese solar panels. And I’m not talking about hundreds of acres. I’m talking about thousands of acres, hundreds of square miles, sections of counties in upstate New York.”

New York Governor’s Pushback

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office maintains that no farmland has been taken illegally or unwillingly, insisting all farmland sold for solar development was sold voluntarily by willing landowners.

In a formal reply to the letter from Rollins, Zeldin and Rich, state officials, including the Department of Public Service, Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of Agriculture and Markets, and NYSERDA, pushed back point by point on claims that farmland is being improperly targeted for solar development.

The letter states that “ORES-permitted solar facilities overlap with only 0.13% of the State’s prime farmland,” and that all land used for permitted projects “is owned by interested and willing private landowners who choose to participate through voluntary agreements.”

On the soil classification question Fasulo pointed out, the state defends its use of Mineral Soil Groups, saying the system “extends protections to significantly more agricultural land than would be protected under the generic USDA classification system.”

According to the letter, New York’s classification identifies 5,714,770 acres as MSG 1-4, more than 1 million acres above the state’s total of USDA-designated Prime Farmland. The state also disputes the idea that regulators shifted the classification system to open more land to development, saying the methodology “has not been changed... for the purpose of renewable energy development” since it was created in 1980, and that any changes to ORES regulations went through public comment.

On the financial pressure landowners describe, the state points to a 2026 Cornell study it says found that “the overwhelming majority of farmers who received solar lease payments used that income to continue or even expand farming on their land, not to exit farming or scale back operations.”

Fasulo Pushes Back on New York State

Fasulo has active lawsuits against the state. And when Aasked directly whether that characterization is accurate, Fasulo disagrees.

“That’s not the case. And there’s a lot of layers to this,” Fasulo says. “There are so many people being held hostage by these contracts that would give anything to get out of them. I got my hands on one of the contracts from Flat Creek Solar. Somebody didn’t sign and saved it, sent me the contract. It is the most one-sided, predatory 30-page document you have ever seen in your entire life.”

She points to the ownership structure of the developers as part of the concern.

“The biggest kicker of all of this is these companies are foreign. These people are being preyed on, and they count on the farmers not having an attorney at their side. I find all of this disgusting,” says Fasulo.

First Step: Take to Social Media

Rich says the first step for any landowner looking for help is visibility.

“First of all, put it on social media. I don’t care if you don’t like social media, put it there,” Rich says.

That’s exactly how he first came across Fasulo’s story, and how he learned the scale of what’s happening in upstate New York.

Finally got to meet Upstate NY farmer, @alex_fasulo in DC today! She’s a real fighter🇺🇸 Thanks to @SecRollins for standing and fighting for American farmers and ranchers! Check this out…Volume UP👇👇 pic.twitter.com/5njLZufOMp
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) July 2, 2026

For Fasulo, the first call from Rich’s office brought a wave of emotion after what had felt like a solitary battle.

“Honestly, after the first call with John Rich, I almost started crying. My mom too, because my mom’s been by my side with this,” Fasulo says. “This has felt so hopeless and bleak because we have no options to defend ourselves here in New York state. We have one-party rule in our legislature. Forget it. So this has been very heavy to carry.”

The Push for Home Rule, and What’s Left Behind

For Fasulo, the fight has become about more than any single contract or hearing. She says it’s ultimately about preserving local control.

“I think I’m fighting for two things here. I’m fighting for our home rule to be given back to New Yorkers, which is granted to us in our New York State Constitution,” Fasulo says. “What home rule means is if the majority of a town decides it wants something or doesn’t want something, they get the final say. As a young person, I don’t want to live in a state where our home rule is gone, because it’s a very slippery slope.”

On a smaller scale, she says, it’s also personal.

“I’m a crazy animal person. I love nature, I love wildlife. The wildlife is paying the price here along with our farmland, future food autonomy crises and all that. What’s happening to the wildlife at the wind and solar complexes is demonic,” Fasulo says.

A New Federal Portal, and a Fight Rich Says Is Just Beginning

USDA this year launched a new online portal, USDA.gov/lawfare , where landowners can submit reports of abuse tied to development pressure on their land. Rich says his office reviews the submissions regularly.

“We review those every single week, and we have regular meetings going through these reports, deciding what are the next ones we’re going to move on,” Rich says. “What my job is, is to be the connective tissue between those landowners and the right people in federal government.”

Arizona State University @ASU is in court fighting 89 year old Robert Young to take the home he's owned since 1975 for their "green space." I'm calling on ASU's President, @michaelcrow to reach out to me ASAP. This is not ok. We must defend this man.
(Pls Watch/Repost/Comment) pic.twitter.com/FVFgOVUNiI
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) June 29, 2026

Rich says the effort is only getting started.

“We are not gonna move, we are not going to back up,” Rich says. “If you’re an American landowner and something bad is happening to you and you can’t fight for yourself, you got the cavalry coming to your back.”

Property Rights

From Viral Video to Washington: How One Farmer's Fight Against Solar Development Reached the White House

A Neighbor’s Warning Sparks a Movement

A State Hearing That Changed Everything

The Fight Reaches Washington

USDA Demands Answers from New York’s Governor

New York Governor’s Pushback

Fasulo Pushes Back on New York State

First Step: Take to Social Media

The Push for Home Rule, and What’s Left Behind

A New Federal Portal, and a Fight Rich Says Is Just Beginning