Support working families, small businesses, and farmers to utilize clean energy to reduce prices, create rural jobs, and benefit our communities.1
Establish a Rural Energy Plan
- Help local governments establish community benefits agreements to shape projects and improve potential projects. One place of particular concern is the rapid rise of data centers, which will mean increased energy costs, straining the electrical grid, and massive use of water.
- Support farmers to generate revenue and protect farmland with responsible renewable energy projects.
- The Trump administration changed rules to prevent small businesses and farmers from accessing federal programs to build cost-cutting solar and wind projects. These funds will instead benefit big business and giant agricultural operations.
- Reinstate renewable energy tax credits and unlock investment in clean energy production.
- Invest in rural electric cooperatives (RECs), and ensure all future renewable energy tax credits treat RECs fairly. Ensure tax-exempt organizations can elect direct payment of the same credit benefits afforded to other to for-profit utilities.2
- The Biden Administration made the largest direct investments in rural electrification in history, strengthening rural electric cooperatives to accelerate the clean energy transition that will save rural people money, create rural jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Improve energy affordability for families and small businesses by preserving ENERGY STAR, restoring incentives for energy efficient upgrades and supporting adoption of inclusive utility investment for all money-saving energy upgrades.3
Notes
- See “Yakutat school fixes failing heat system and saves on energy costs.”
- See the GREEN Act. Expand on the historic support for Empowering Rural America Program (New ERA), the Powering Affordable Clean Energy Program (PACE), and Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), and the historic funding in the Inflation Reduction Act.
- Support inclusive utility investments, such as PAYS.