First appeared on FOX: Energy groups slammed the $7.3 billion in “rural electrification” funds the Biden-Harris Administration is drawing from the Inflation Control Act (IRA) ahead of President Biden's announcement in the battleground state of Wisconsin on Thursday.
“This is all about politics and nothing to do with science. What he's promoting is not a scientifically superior source of energy,” John Dros Jr., founder of the Wise Energy Decisions Alliance, told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
“An adequate energy source needs three things,” he said. “One is reliability, two is economics, and three is environmental impact. The answer is that essentially no one is thinking about those things. Instead, President Biden and others are making decisions based on what they deem politically correct.”
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President Joe Biden speaks with virtual participants at the start of the Investing in America event, at the South Court Auditorium in the White House complex, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The $1 billion, funded by Democrats' signature inflation-fighting legislation, is Biden's largest investment in “rural electrification” efforts, which typically consist of building wind turbines, since the Green New Deal.
According to a White House fact sheet, the plan will support 16 rural electric cooperatives across 23 states and provide affordable electricity to about 5 million rural homes. The Biden-Harris Administration claims the plan will improve grid reliability, lower energy costs, create thousands of jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Daniel Turner, founder of the environmental group Power the Future, said the timing of Biden's announcement of the plan was “no coincidence.”
“We're only 61 days away from the election and now we're announcing $7.5 billion in investments in critical battleground states,” Turner told Fox News Digital. “I'm tired of hearing that these investments are going to lower costs. Utility rates have gone up 30% since Biden took office and all we've done is continue to invest in so-called wind and solar and prices haven't gone down. The evidence is all around the world.”
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Wind Turbine Wall (Iriva)
“It doesn't have to cost anything. The interesting thing is that the energy industry doesn't need government funding to operate. It needs government cooperation.”
The Biden-Harris administration has long implemented environmental policies that prioritize natural resources over fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources, and in June, the White House enacted new rules to help companies involved in environmental issues. Clean EnergyThe White House argued the investment would help communities with ties to the energy sector that predate the environmental movement.
“Instead of forcing energy sources that rural Americans don't want, the government should be removing obstacles to the energy sources that they do want,” Ben Lieberman, an environmental policy researcher at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital. “I don't feel that rural Americans really want wind, solar, geothermal. All they want is affordable energy — affordable fossil fuels first and foremost. So I think the government should do more, not just hand out taxes, but just remove obstacles to energy sources that don't require federal funding, that are less burdensome in terms of regulations and permitting.”
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Contractors install solar panels at the Phillips 66 Rodeo Renewable Energy Complex in Rodeo, California, USA, Wednesday, July 31, 2024. After years of making gasoline, jet fuel and other products, Phillips 66's San Francisco refinery now produces only renewable fuels and runs partially on solar energy. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On the first anniversary of the IRA last year, more than 40 energy groups and think tanks called for Congress to repeal what they called a “Green New Deal-style” package of legislation that favors China over the United States.
“This bill passed with no Republican support, Joe Manchin lost his career over it, and the administration only admitted after the fact that this was environmental spending, not inflation spending,” said Turner, who wrote a letter to Congress last year. “Everybody was worried about inflation, so they simply called this bill the Inflation Reduction Act. This is a perfect example of that.”
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“This is the largest rural electrification investment since the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt and will spur economic development and lower the cost of living for millions of Americans,” a White House official said at a press conference before Biden's announcement.
“This will create 4,500 full-time jobs and 16,000 construction jobs. The President will hear from people on the ground how these investments and others from his policies are changing people's lives for the better,” the official said.
Fox News Digital's Jessica Chasmer and Charles Kreitz contributed to this report.
