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DOJ Tables Controversial Kentucky Prison  to Claw Back $500 Million Budget

Loaded on Aug. 1, 2025 published in Prison Legal News August, 2025, page 36

Filed under: Environmental Law, Rural Prisons. Location: Kentucky.

Since 2006, U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers has worked to bring a new prison to a former strip-mining site in Eastern Kentucky. Although previous budget proposals turned down the project, Rogers was able to secure $500 million in federal funding for the medium-security prison in 2022. Around this time, the proposed prison faced both federal scrutiny and pushback from activists.

As PLN reported, an environmental impact statement published by the BOP in 2024 revealed the 500-acre plot in Letcher County would disrupt streams and wildlife habitat while also threatening to pollute drinking water and increase flood risk [See: PLN, Sept. 2024, p. 13]. Not long after the report appeared, the Appalachian Rekindling Project, an Indigenous-led local activist group, purchased 63 acres of land within the area earmarked for the prison’s construction. The group sought to reclaim the degraded tract by reintroducing native species like Bison.

The federal Department of Justice moved to rescind the prison’s funding in the 2026 budget request it released on June 13, 2025. While the minimum-security facility, which would have locked up more than 1,100 prisoners, may be off the table for now, Rogers continued to defend the project, despite the fact there are already four federal prisons in Eastern Kentucky.

Sources: The Lexington Herald-Leader, Kentucky Lantern, Louisville Public Media

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DOJ Tables Controversial Kentucky Prison to Claw Back $500 Million Budget

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DOJ Tables Controversial Kentucky Prison  to Claw Back $500 Million Budget