"One of the fixes can be for the utility company that provides service to these is to get resources from the federal government to invest in clean, cheap energy, to help lower the bills for Magnitude 7 Metals." - James Owen, Renew MO.

The letter urges Congress to preserve funding for farm bill energy title programs provided in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.

As rural communities watch wind and solar farms begin to dot their landscape, many want to ensure rural America can own, not just host, the clean energy transition.

New OpEd by Duane Highley, CEO of Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Ramón Cruz, president of the Sierra Club, and Erik Hatlestad, a member of the Rural Power Coalition Steering Committee.

Electric-cooperative members are often still paying off debts incurred decades ago during the construction of old power plants and infrastructure. [Philip Fracica, director of programs for Renew Missouri] pointed out the new grant and loan program allows co-ops to retire debt and offers forgivable loans to help build new generation capacity. He sees the approach as being better over the long term.

Experts say the money set aside for transition towards renewable sources of energy in the Inflation Reduction Act could kick start the switch for rural electric co-ops.

The Inflation Reduction Act has made a historic investment of $370 billion dollars to fight climate change over the next decade.

Among its benefits, the act will provide tax credits for Rural Electric Cooperatives to move toward clean energy.

A provision in the federal bill would allow co-ops, which operate as nonprofits, to take advantage of federal tax credits for developing green energy

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Congress in August, sets aside hundreds of billions in funding for clean energy projects. Some of the money will go toward Missouri’s rural electric cooperatives to help them transition from coal to renewables.

Rural electric co-operatives will soon be able to take advantage of a new $9.7 billion program included in the Inflation Reduction Act that will help them finance a clean energy transition, escaping onerous debts that have kept many co-ops from getting off coal.

When President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act last week, he authorized two measures that will affect the country's rural electric cooperatives: $9.7 billion in grants for renewable energy projects and direct pay credits for those projects.

Leaders from southeast Minnesota's co-ops say that funding will have a significant impact.

"Many co-op leaders have been very interested in moving this way," Erik Hatlestad, energy democracy program director at Montevideo, Minnesota-based CURE – Clean Up the River Environment. "And we think we've given them the tools to do so now."

Rural co-ops once revolutionized American energy, bringing electricity to the communities too small or isolated for the big utilities to bother with. Decades since that effort, they've become saddled with the most expensive coal-fired power plants in the country, costing families an extra billion dollars a year while imposing enormous health costs from the pollution.

A coalition is growing around the idea for the federal government to offer forgivable loans for cooperatives to pay off all or some of their debt, which Hatlestad estimates to be near $100 billion if the cooperatives shed their investments in coal and other fossil fuels, and to help pay for an equitable economic transition in fossil fuel communities.