Biden To Dish Out $7.3 Billion For Clean Rural Power

The administration called it the “largest investment in rural electrification” since the New Deal.

President Joe Biden will travel to Wisconsin on Thursday to announce $7.3 billion in federal clean energy spending in rural communities across the country.

The Biden administration is calling it the “largest investment in rural electrification” since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s.

The funds, which will be divvied out to 16 electric cooperatives serving millions of customers across 23 states, 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.

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