09/05/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/05/2024 03:07
Today, President Biden will travel to Westby, Wisconsin to announce $7.3 billion for clean, affordable, reliable electricity for rural America, funded by his Inflation Reduction Act - this is part of his series designed to demonstrate how the Biden-Harris Administration's Investing in America agenda is improving the lives of Americans across the country and planting the seeds of a better future for decades to come. The investment announced today is the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal and is part of the President's Investing in America agenda, which is lowering costs, creating jobs and bringing new opportunity to communities and families across the country.
The President will announce the first round of rural electric cooperatives selected and the first award for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program, funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. This program helps rural electric cooperatives transition to clean, affordable, and reliable energy and distribute that power to communities, businesses, farms, and families across Rural America. These investments will lower energy costs by up to hundreds of dollars per year for millions of homes and businesses, tackle the climate crisis by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and create thousands of jobs and new economic opportunities in rural America.
President Biden to Announce $7.3 Billion from the New ERA Program
Today, USDA announced that 16 rural electric cooperatives are being selected to receive up to $7.3 billion in clean energy financing that will deliver clean, more affordable and more resilient electricity to approximately 5 million rural co-op members representing 20 percent of rural households, farms, businesses and schools. These 16 cooperatives will benefit rural residents across 23 states, serving farmers, small businesses, and rural communities in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
These first 16 co-ops will leverage $7.3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act into a total investment of more than $29 billion in rural communities across the nation. Thanks to the New ERA program, co-ops will build or purchase over 10 gigawatts of clean energy and make enabling investments in areas including transmission, substation upgrades, and distributed energy resource management software that will lower energy costs for rural Americans and enhance grid performance, resiliency, and reliability.
This financing will reduce electricity bills for rural families and businesses, who for too long have faced higher energy costs than the rest of the country due to the challenges of providing electricity in rural and remote areas. The New ERA program is helping rural cooperatives overcome barriers to upgrading infrastructure and investing in newer, lower cost electricity projects.
These New ERA investments will support more than 4,500 permanent jobs and over 16,000 construction jobs. They will also prevent at least 43.7 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution annually, equivalent to removing pollution from more than 10 million gas-powered cars every year.
In Wisconsin, Dairyland Power Cooperative is receiving the first New ERA award of nearly $573 million, which they will leverage for a total project investment of $2.1 billion. Dairyland plans to procure 1,080 megawatts of renewable energy through eight wind and solar power purchase agreements, four solar installations, and four wind power installations across rural portions of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. Dairyland estimates that electric rates for their members will be 42% lower over 10 years than they would have been without New ERA funding.
President Biden's Investing in America Agenda is Lowering Costs, Making the Largest Investment in Rural Electrification Since the New Deal
The Inflation Reduction Act invests nearly $13 billion in rural electrification across multiple programs-the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal. In addition to today's New ERA announcement:
These investments in rural electrification will help build new electricity generation projects and meet growing demand, which will help power the manufacturing renaissance driven by the Investing in America agenda.
President Biden's Investing in America Agenda is Ensuring a Brighter Future for Wisconsin Communities and Families
Today's announcement builds on historic progress all around Wisconsin thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration's Investing in America agenda. Since the President and Vice President took office, the Administration has announced $7.2 billion in federal funding, which has catalyzed an additional $5.1 billion in private sector commitments to invest in manufacturing and clean energy across the state. The Investing in America agenda is rebuilding roads and bridges using Made in America materials and American workers. It is bringing back jobs in industries that spent decades outsourcing. And it's reaching communities in every corner of the state, including those that have too often been left behind.
At the beginning of his term, President Biden traveled to La Crosse, Wisconsin - just down the road from Westby - to sell Americans on his plans for a better future. Now, three years later, the President has delivered on the vision he outlined laying the groundwork for a better future for all Wisconsinites for decades into the future:
The progress in Wisconsin is just one example of the progress being made across every state in the nation. For more information about the progress of the President's Investing in America Agenda, please visit invest.gov.
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