Coal news and updates

The Biden administration, rural advocacy and environmental groups, and one of the largest cooperative power suppliers in the country are discussing proposals that could help electric cooperatives transition from coal to clean energy and avoid rate increases in rural America.

 

But the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), the national trade association for electric cooperatives, has tried to stop its member utilities from working with environmental groups on the proposal, instead criticizing President Biden’s goal of decarbonizing the power sector by 2035. And although the coal debt relief proposal is directly targeted to benefit NRECA’s member utilities, the trade association made no mention of it in its response to the American Jobs Plan, nor in an article on its website titled “Biden’s Infrastructure Plan: What Co-ops Need to Know.”

 

A spokesperson for NRECA said: “There are not yet any details from the administration on this proposal so we have taken no position on it.” But according to the CEO of Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the White House is developing those details right now, with major implications for generation and transmission associations, electric cooperatives, and electric ratepayers across the country.

 

 

Source : https://www.energyandpolicy.org