Joe Biden Keeps Doing Clean Energy To Rural America As If It Had Abundant Wind, Sun.
Oh, by golly, it does!
Joe Biden may have dropped out of the 2024 presidential election but he’s still presidenting like anything. Today, he travels to Westby, Wisconsin, to announce yet another tranche of funding for clean energy, this time a $7.3 billion in spending to help rural electric cooperatives transition from dirty old coal and fossil gas plants to affordable, reliable wind and solar (yes, battery backup is a must; the government really does know that the sun sets and the wind sometimes doesn’t blow).
The administration says this package of funding, the first from the Energy Department’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program, represents the “largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal,” and it won’t even drown that old farm where the Soggy Bottom Boys maybe had a cache of gold stashed. The funding comes from Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, yet another of the many good projects being funded by the 10-year program. Sucker really is a 10-year program, as we like to remind you.
If you don’t mind our recycling HuffPost’s summary, this first block of New ERA funding will
be divvied out to 16 electric cooperatives serving millions of customers across 23 states, [and] will go toward building and purchasing more than 10 gigawatts of wind, solar, nuclear and hydropower.
In a call with reporters on Wednesday, a senior administration official said the “impact of this investment cannot be overstated,” noting that the money is forecast to support more than 20,000 permanent or temporary jobs, eliminate more than 43.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually — equivalent to 10 million gas-powered vehicles — and lower electricity costs for approximately 20% of all rural households, around 5 million.
If you’re really hot to find out which 23 states will be getting some of this new clean power, they’re listed in the Agriculture Department’s press release on the funding. And yes, they include red states like Florida and Texas, and coal states like Pennsylvania and Wyoming, because you aren’t going to get an energy transition without helping places that have depended upon/been ruined by fossil fuels. As we’ve noted before, the IRA includes separate funding streams for helping those frontline energy areas clean up and develop green industries too.
And because federal investments help rural power co-ops leverage private investments too, Wisconsin’s Dairyland Power Cooperative, based in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, will use its New ERA award of $573 million to advance a total of $2.1 billion in clean energy projects, the White House announced:
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.
Cleaner energy, better health, cheaper power bills, and a solid basis for future clean development? Just goes to show why socialism can never work, or something like that.
On the other hand, Republican nominee Donald Trump offers America only dirtier energy, huge giveaways to fossil fuel companies, and a second abandonment of America’s commitment to fighting climate change.
We think we’ll stick with Biden’s energy outlook, which is literally sunnier, and which Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will continue and probably surpass.
PREVIOUSLY!
[White House / Volts / HuffPost / Image via PickPic.com]
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[And yes, they include red states like Florida and Texas, and coal states like Pennsylvania and Wyoming]
I'm not against helping my neighbors. It's the right thing to do.
And I don't expect gratitude, I'd settle for just a begrudging acceptance that I, too, am a real American and they'll leave me alone.
This will absolutely decimate the whale population in those states.