Amplify: Democrats’ Continued Investments in Rural America

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Sep 13

The Biden-Harris Administration’s infrastructure investments are bringing tremendous benefits to rural America, including a recently announced allocation of $7.3 billion for new clean energy investments, marking the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal.

This is a part of The Administration’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program which, coupled with investments from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and over $29 billion in private investments, is aimed at reducing rural energy costs and creating good-paying jobs for rural Americans.

The 16 newly announced projects will:

Provide more than 10 gigawatts of clean energy for communities across the country and include investments in wind, solar, nuclear, and hydropower.
Help deliver cleaner, more affordable, and more resilient electricity to 5 million families across 23 states impacting one in five rural Americans.
Prevent at least 2.9 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the span of the project–the same as removing more than 10 million cars off the road.
Create more than 4,500 new permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs.
Create more than 1,800 megawatt hours of battery storage, to improve the resiliency and reliability of the new power grid.

These recently announced projects build upon investments in rural America made by the Biden-Harris Administration and Democrats throughout the past 4 years. Of the $1.026 trillion combined total appropriated due to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), 45% will benefit rural communities, including:

$2 billion for family farms and small businesses in rural areas to increase energy efficiency and self-reliance (through the Rural Energy for America program).
$19.5 billion to support farmers’ efforts to restore and improve their lands through popular Department of Agriculture conservation programs and grants.

As a result of these and other recent investments, rural employment has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels, with particular strength in the field of clean energy, which also promises to result in reduced energy costs for farmers and other rural businesses.