One year ago, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which makes the largest investment in climate action in history. As a core pillar of Bidenomics and the President’s Investing in America agenda, the law is lowering energy costs, bringing opportunity to communities across America and tackling the climate crisis through investments in agriculture, forest restoration, and rural communities.
The law increases access to lower cost clean energy and improves energy efficiency, expands climate-smart agriculture and conservation while creating good paying jobs. The legislation also protects communities from the increasing risks of wildfires and extreme heat. Combined with President Biden’s historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, American Rescue Plan, and other investments already underway, the Inflation Reduction Act makes a once-in-a-generation investment that supports rural communities and their infrastructure needs, while adapting to the climate crisis and creating better health outcomes for rural communities.
“The Inflation Reduction Act is creating a future that is equitable, sustainable, and full of opportunity for the farmers, ranchers and rural Americans who provide the food and fuel that power our nation,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “With the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-Harris Administration provided historic resources that allow USDA to deliver for the American people by expanding clean energy and supporting American energy independence, investing in popular conservation programs and climate-smart agriculture, and fostering economic opportunities in rural communities.”
Since President Biden signed the law one year ago, the Inflation Reduction Act has given the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) resources to better serve every American.
Building a Clean Energy Future
USDA is making the largest single investment in rural electrification since the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, with nearly $11 billion available to build electrification infrastructure in rural America with clean, affordable, reliable energy and enhance the quality of life in rural communities. The Inflation Reduction Act also invests in America’s clean energy future.
With Inflation Reduction Act funding, USDA:
- Made $9.7 billion available to support rural electric cooperatives through the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program to update and transform their energy systems to support the purchase or ownership of renewable energy, renewable energy systems, zero-emission systems, and carbon capture systems to help rural America achieve economic development, better health outcomes and reduce climate pollution.
- Announced the availability of $1 billion to fund dozens of new clean energy projects and energy storage to serve rural Americans across the U.S. through partially forgivable loans through the Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program.
- Made $1.3 billion available in grants to help agricultural producers and rural small businesses invest in renewable energy systems and make energy-efficiency improvements through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP).
- Announced the availability of $500 million from the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program (HBIIP) to increase the availability of domestic biofuels and give Americans additional cleaner fuel options at the pump. USDA also awarded 59 domestic biofuel projects totaling $25 million.
Investing in Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry
The Inflation Reduction Act takes aggressive action to address the climate crisis by making unprecedented funding available for USDA conservation, forestry and climate-smart agriculture programs.
The Inflation Reduction Act made nearly $20 billion available over five years for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to address oversubscription in popular conservation programs. For Fiscal Year 2023, NRCS made $850 million available for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP). In addition, NRCS launched an improved RCPP to advance partner-driven solutions to conservation on agricultural land thanks to funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Reliable science is key to understanding the impact of climate change and addressing its impacts. The Inflation Reduction Act dedicated $300 million to allow USDA to quantify and track carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions and gathering field-based data to evaluate the effectiveness of climate-smart mitigation practices in reducing these emissions.
Building on the investments made in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act made $5 billion in additional funding available to the Forest Service for forest health treatments to protect communities from wildfire and other investments. This money also goes toward the creation of competitive grants to non-Federal forest landowners and state and private Forestry programs. With funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Forest Service:
Creating an Equitable Agricultural Future
The Inflation Reduction Act continues to invest in the future of producers by creating a diverse and equitable workforce, improving access to land and capital, and helping farmers stay farming. Recognizing producers have faced historic challenges as they work to feed and fuel our nation and world, USDA:
- Provided $1.15 billion to date to over 20,000 distressed direct and guaranteed Farm Service Agency (FSA) loan borrowers, helping them reach long-term stability and operate successful, thriving agricultural businesses.
- Launched the Increasing Land Access Program and selected 50 innovative projects totaling $300 million to help improve access to land, capital, and markets for underserved farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners.
- Opened the financial assistance application process for eligible farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners who experienced discrimination in USDA farm lending programs prior to January 2021.
- Launched the NextGen program to build and sustain the next generation of food, agriculture, natural resources and human sciences workforce by investing $262.5 million in training and support for more than 20,000 food and agricultural leaders through 33 project partners.
Source : usda.gov