USDA retires its 1968 loan systems
On June 4, USDA announced that it’s consolidating more than 130 loan and grant systems, some dating to 1968, into a single modern platform. The new system is meant to carry roughly 1.2 million active files with one customer record, online intake and eligibility tools, and online payments. Officials from Farm Production and Conservation and Rural Development described the shift from paper-based applications toward a single digital file that borrowers and lending partners can reach from any device.
In a press release announcing the move, USDA Chief Information Officer Sam Berry is quoted as saying, “[W]e are leveraging innovative technology to deliver faster, more secure services in alignment with the Secretary’s vision for a modern and customer-focused USDA…we’re excited to transform our loan and grant systems to reduce processing time, advance our commitment to efficiency, and overall provide an outstanding experience to the citizens we serve.”
Student loan changes on the immediate horizon
The OBBBA student loan provisions take effect July 1. Grad PLUS ends for new borrowers, graduate and Parent PLUS borrowing gets capped, several income-driven plans are replaced, and the new Repayment Assistance Plan begins. In April the Department of Education confirmed that old Grad PLUS balances count toward the new $257,500 lifetime limit. It’s a tidy example of the operational strain agencies absorb when statutes and regulations move faster than systems can adapt.
In a related story, the Department’s proposed eligibility rule under OBBBA would tie a program’s access to Direct Loans and Pell Grants to graduate earnings, so programs whose graduates earn less than the relevant pre-graduate labor market could lose eligibility. As we pointed out in this LinkedIn post, this revives an important question about which outcomes federal higher education credit should be pursuing in the first place.
What rural housing owes to federal credit
CBO’s April report on rural housing finance put a number on something the rural lending community has long understood. CBO estimates the federal government will provide $293 billion in credit assistance to rural households in 2026, with USDA’s Rural Housing Service as the primary vehicle and FHA, VA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac each directing a meaningful share of their activity to rural markets. Counties with more rural residents tend to have lower median incomes and higher homeownership rates, a combination that rests heavily on federal credit support. When those programs change in eligibility, structure, or funding, rural housing access changes with them.
FY27 appropriations and the credit programs
The House has moved its FY27 Financial Services and Agriculture bills through committee. The Administration’s request sought to trim several federal credit programs, and House appropriators have so far declined to follow suit, at least to the full extent.
The CDFI Fund is the clearest case. The President’s request proposed $119.5 million and a restructuring into a new Rural Financial Assistance Program, down from $324 million in FY26. The House FSGG bill recommends $276.6 million and keeps the core programs the request would have consolidated (H. Rept. 119-623). On the Agriculture side, the request proposed $983 million for Section 502 direct loans, a reversal from the prior year’s attempt to zero out the program, and the House bill holds most rural housing programs near FY26 levels while pushing back on recent Section 502 direct changes (H. Rept. 119-632). SBA’s 7(a) request asks for a $40 billion authorization cap and a new fee on lenders to cover about $158 million in administrative costs, though it is not clear on how the fee would be collected.
The FY27 budget process is just getting started. We’ll keep you posted!
An OSC critical minerals loan is under review
The Department of Defense is reconsidering an $80 million conditional loan from the Office of Strategic Capital to ReElement Technologies, a rare earths refiner. OSC announced the loan on November 21, 2025, as part of a larger $1.4 billion critical minerals package that also included Vulcan Elements. As of late May 2026, no funds had been disbursed. According to reporting by Bloomberg, Pentagon officials reviewing the company raised questions about whether its chromatography-based refining process can scale to defense-grade volumes and about its longer-term revenue projections. When the agreement was announced, the Pentagon stated that ReElement still needed to clear financial, legal, and technical due diligence before any funding. Officials say the loan has not been canceled and may still proceed.
The review has produced a disagreement between the Defense Department and the White House over timing. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro described OSC’s review process as too burdensome for emerging companies. A Pentagon spokesman said the office balances speed with disciplined dealmaking.
On a related matter, Doug Criscitello recently posted a Substack, Critical Minerals, Meet Critical Medicines (coauthored with Monique Mansoura) about the importance of shoring up U.S. supply chains – not only for critical minerals but critical medicines as well.
EDF updates its Title 17 program guidance
On May 13, 2026, the Office of Energy Dominance Financing released updated guidance for the Title 17 energy financing program, implementing the financing provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. EDF is the renamed DOE Loan Programs Office, and the Energy Dominance Financing Program, Section 1706, replaced the earlier Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program. Title 17 carries roughly $250 billion in loan guarantee authority through September 30, 2028.
The updated guidance covers four project categories and gives the most emphasis to the Energy Dominance Financing Program. Following the statutory changes in the OBBBA, eligible projects now include a range of conventional energy infrastructure such as coal and gas repowering, pipeline replacements, refinery retrofits, nuclear plant expansions, and transmission reconductoring, alongside critical materials and minerals projects.
Lender of Last Opportunity: Federal Credit, Nuclear Energy, and the Infrastructure Gap
In this episode of The Lending Brief, sponsored by Allocore, we’re joined by Owen Barwell, five-time CFO of multiple federal agencies including the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for a wide-ranging conversation on the role of federal lending in financing what private capital won’t touch. Drawing on his experience deploying $30 billion in renewable energy loans during the Recovery Act, Owen makes the case for why government lending is essential to de-risking emerging technologies like small modular reactors until private markets are ready to step in.
He also pulls no punches on the state of federal lending infrastructure, drawing a direct parallel to where federal financial management was before the CFO Act of 1990, and arguing that data standardization, systems consolidation, and a common language across agencies are prerequisites before any real modernization can take hold.