Corn is planted with wind turbines in mind on April 2, in Lake Benton, Minn. The United States Department of Agriculture announced an investment of nearly $11 billion on the Three to help bring affordable clean energy to rural communities across the country.
Jessie Wardarski/AP
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Jessie Wardarski/AP
Corn is planted with wind turbines in mind on April 2, in Lake Benton, Minn. The United States Department of Agriculture announced an investment of nearly $11 billion on the Three to help bring affordable clean energy to rural communities across the country.
Jessie Wardarski/AP
The United States Department of Agriculture announced an investment of nearly $11 billion on Tuesday to help bring affordable clean energy to rural communities across the country.
Rural electric cooperatives, renewable energy companies and electric utilities will be able to apply for funding through two programs, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a media briefing. on Monday.
Vilsack said it was the largest single federal investment in rural electrification since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936 as part of the New Deal.
“This is an exciting opportunity for the Rural Utility Service to work collaboratively with our great partners, the Rural Electric Cooperatives, to advance a clean energy future for rural America,” Vilsack said. “So this is an exciting and historic day, and it continues an ongoing effort to ensure that rural America is a full participant in this clean energy economy.”
The Empowering Rural America program will make $9.7 billion available to rural electric cooperatives to create renewable energy, zero emissions and carbon capture systems.
Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, praised the administration for the investment.
“This is an exciting and transformative opportunity for cooperatives and their local communities, particularly as we look to a future that relies on electricity to further power the economy,” said Matheson. “USDA has intelligently structured this program to help electric cooperatives leverage new tools to reduce costs and keep energy affordable while meeting the future energy needs of their rural communities .”
The Powering Affordable Clean Energy program will make available $1 billion in partially forgivable loans to renewable energy companies and electric utilities to help finance renewable energy projects such as large-scale solar, wind and geothermal projects.
The Department of Agriculture said in a press release that the aim of this program is to provide affordable clean energy to vulnerable, disadvantaged and Indigenous communities. But there is a tension between building clean energy infrastructure for all and mining the materials needed for that infrastructure.
For example, conservationists and Native communities in Nevada have called to block the opening of the largest mine planned in the United States for the extraction of lithium used in electric vehicle batteries.
When asked about tribal concerns about mineral extraction at Monday’s briefing, Vilsack said there would be “significant tribal consultation” for mining projects on land his agency controls. But when pressed about what would happen if an Indigenous community said no to a mining project, he declined to answer the question, calling it hypothetical.
Rural electric cooperatives can apply for grants, loans and loan modifications through the Empowering Rural America program between July 31 and August 31. The application period for the Powering Affordable Clean Energy program is June 30 – September 29.
Experts told The Associated Press that these programs could have a significant impact for rural America. “The ERA Program has the potential to help rural electric cooperatives and municipal cooperatives move the needle toward a cleaner, lower-carbon electricity mix,” said Felix Mormann, law professor at -Texas A&M University specializing in energy. law and politics.
The programs will have relatively less impact on the growth of electricity in rural communities than the Rural Electrification Act during the New Deal, said Carl Kitchens, associate professor of economics at the State University of Florida.
“When it was enacted in the 1930s, only 10 percent of farms had electric power; by 1950, it had risen to more than 90 percent,” Kitchens said. “Today, electricity is almost universal except for a few small pockets and portions of reserve land.”
Funding for the new programs comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, which generated hundreds of billions of dollars for the renewable energy transition and environmental cleanup. In February, the Biden administration announced details on how states and nonprofits can apply for $27 billion in “green bank” funding. The next month, officials announced $2 billion to create the Rural Energy Program for America.
And since the beginning of the year, they have announced hundreds of millions of dollars for the renewable energy transition from climate-warming fossil fuels, environmental cleanup and climate mitigation in poor communities and communities of color.
