Over the past four years, President Biden and Vice President Harris have taken action to ensure rural Americans do not have to leave their hometowns to find opportunity. One year ago, President Biden visited a family farm in Northfield, Minnesota to kick off the “Investing in Rural America” event series, spurring over 30 visits by Cabinet members and White House Senior Officials to rural communities across the country. The Biden-Harris Administration is investing in rural America to create opportunity for farmers, small business owners, families, and communities.Investing in Rural American InfrastructureThe President’s Investing in America agenda is investing billions of dollars to revitalize and rebuild rural communities across the country – a generational investment in rural America. This funding also represents the single largest investment in Tribal infrastructure ever.The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $65 billion to ensure every American has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet through a historic investment in infrastructure deployment. That includes a $2 billion program at the Department of Commerce to invest in high-speed internet on Tribal lands. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has invested more than $4 billion in projects that will expand access to high-speed broadband and bring new economic opportunities and a better quality of life for more than 650,000 people across 46 states through its ReConnect Program.The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also provides a historic $8.25 billion investment to reduce wildfire risks for communities, better detect wildfires, and institute workforce reforms and landmark pay increases for federal wildland firefighters. Through the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program, USDA has awarded $467 million to 259 project proposals across 36 states and 18 tribes, which will assist with planning for and mitigating wildfire risks, and has recently made another $200 million available. USDA is also investing $150 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to help underserved and small acreage forest landowners connect to emerging voluntary climate markets, which can provide economic opportunities for landowners and incentivize improved forest health and management. And through the Inflation Reduction Act and other appropriations, the Forest Service invested nearly $544 million in 63 projects in 2024 to conserve more than half a million acres of private forestlands across the U.S., ensuring that these places will remain working forests while protecting water sources and reducing wildfire risk.Additionally, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests billions of dollars to make sure rural families can get where they need to go, including through a $4.1 billion investment in Rural Area Formula Grants at the Department of Transportation (DOT). This program will support 1,300 rural transit systems by enabling them to purchase transit vehicles and infrastructure, plan transit more effectively, and fund operations. DOT is also providing $2 billion over 5 years in dedicated funding to projects in rural areas that improve and expand the surface transportation infrastructure.
Delivering Clean, Reliable Water to Rural AmericaThe Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s transformative investment of over $50 billion in our water and wastewater infrastructure is fundamentally changing the quality of life for millions of people in rural America by replacing lead pipes, providing critical access to sanitation, ensuring access to affordable clean drinking water, and tackling drought. That includes a $3.5 billion investment through the Indian Health Service which has launched over 700 projects to build out a safe supply of drinking water, reliable sewage systems, and waste disposal facilities across Indian Country. And the Inflation Reduction Act’s Tribal Clean Drinking Water program made $320 million available to bring safe, clean drinking water to Tribal communities in the West, with an initial $82 million announced to fund 23 projects.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USDA, in collaboration with states and Tribal Nations, are working together on the Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap initiative. This partnership leverages technical assistance resources to help historically underserved communities identify and pursue federal funding opportunities to address their rural wastewater needs. To date, EPA has announced that 38 more communities across 22 states have joined the initiative.The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is also cleaning up pollution in rural areas by investing $4.7 billion to plug, remediate, and restore dangerous orphaned oil and gas wells across the country; nearly $11.3 billion to create good-paying jobs, including union jobs, and catalyze economic opportunity by reclaiming abandoned mine lands; and $3.5 billion to 95 previously unfunded Superfund site projects, including the longstanding backlog of projects, to clean up contaminated sites and advance environmental justice.In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration is leading a whole-of-government effort to make Western communities more resilient to climate change and the ongoing megadrought by harnessing the full resources of the President’s Investing in America agenda. The Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law together include $15.4 billion to enhance the West’s resilience to drought through water-saving projects and other conservation efforts. In March 2024, the Administration took historic action to protect the stability of the Colorado River Basin including through investments from the Inflation Reduction Act’s $4 billion Colorado River drought mitigation funds, conserving at least 3 million-acre-feet of water by 2026.Lowering Energy Costs and Strengthening the GridSupported by Inflation Reduction Act, the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program is the largest investment in rural America’s electric system since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936. It invests $9.7 billion to help member-owned rural electric cooperatives provide their communities with clean, reliable, and affordable energy. USDA has announced over $8.3 billion in New ERA funding across 24 states so far, with the rural electric cooperatives building or purchasing nearly 12 gigawatts of clean energy. The Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program will fund new clean energy and energy storage projects to make it more affordable for rural Americans to use clean, reliable energy. In 2024, USDA awarded the 34 projects totaling $917 million. Since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA has invested more than $2.7 billion through the Rural Energy for America (REAP) program in 9,901 renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements helping farms and small businesses lower their energy costs, generate new income, and strengthen the resilience of their operations. Almost 7,000 of these projects were funded by over $1 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction ActThe Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests billions of dollars to improve resilience, reliability, safety, and availability of energy in rural America. So far, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced over $457 million for 93 projects to accelerate clean energy deployment in rural and remote areas across the country through the Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas (ERA) Program. DOE announced up to $475 million in March 2024 for 5 projects to accelerate clean energy deployment on current and former mine land. The selected projects cover a range of clean energy technologies, from solar, microgrids, and pumped storage hydropower to geothermal and battery energy storage systems.DOE announced nearly $7.6 billion through the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program to strengthen grid reliability and resilience across all 50 states, including several major rural grid resilience projects. This funding is spurring private investment, bringing public-private investment to over $22 billion to deliver affordable, clean electricity to all Americans and ensure that communities across the nation have a reliable grid that is prepared for extreme weather worsened by the climate crisis. In addition, EPA awarded $27 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) to create a national financing network for clean energy and climate solutions across the country, including rural communities. Together, the GGRF’s $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund, $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, and $7 billion Solar for All program dedicate approximately two-thirds of the funding to low-income and disadvantaged communities, advancing the President’s Justice40 Initiative.This year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Tribal Electrification Program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act provided $143 million in financial and technical assistance to 34 Tribes to connect homes to transmission and distribution that is powered by clean energy, provide electricity to unelectrified Tribal homes through zero-emissions energy systems, transition electrified Tribal homes to zero-emissions energy systems, and support associated home repairs and retrofitting. The program will also support clean energy workforce development opportunities in Indian Country.
And, by expanding the availability of homegrown biofuels, the Biden-Harris Administration is strengthening our energy independence while bringing good-paying jobs and other economic benefits to rural communities. For example, up to $500 million from the Inflation Reduction Act is being made available through the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program to increase the availability of domestic biofuels and give Americans additional, cleaner fuel options at the pump. Through this program, USDA has provided $251 million in grants so far.
Many of the programs aimed at delivering clean, reliable water to rural America, lowering energy costs, and strengthening the grid are covered under the President’s Justice40 Initiative, which sets the goal that 40% of the overall benefits of ...
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