National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
Jim Matheson is CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
The United States Energy Association's Annual State of the Energy Industry Forum brought together the heads of twenty energy industry associations in January. Herein are excerpts from the presentation by Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
In a town that's described with gridlock and nothing getting done, we've had some, what we like to call generational opportunities created for our members based on what happened in Congress. Particularly in the Inflation Reduction Act. What we like about it is, now we get access to those tax credits.
We've always been on the outside looking in along with the municipals. Because we're tax exempt. But Congress made the decision that if you're going to incent investment in new energy technologies, and tax credit is the vehicle to do that incentive, then maybe we ought to have all the electric sector have those incentives...
Also, included in that Inflation Reduction Act was a specific fund, 9.7 billion for rural America in terms of transitioning to a cleaner future. U.S. Department of Agriculture is the entity that's going to administer that. They're currently in the process of developing the rules to implement that. As you might imagine, that's attracted all kinds of groups who are telling USDA exactly how the rules should be set up.