Biden Administration Earmarks Funds For Coal Communities

The Biden Administration is committing $300 million to invest in the economic development of coal and coal power plant-affected communities as part of a $3-billion funding for investment in America’s communities, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said.

“We believe that this $300 million investment in coal communities is the largest economic development that EDA has ever made in coal communities.  And we know that it will enable these communities to recover, diversify their economies, and grow,” Secretary Raimondo said at a White House briefing on Thursday.

The applications for funding went live late on Thursday on the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) website.

Investing in America’s Communities is a funding opportunity to invest the $3 billion that EDA received from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act to help communities across the country build back better.

The investment in coal communities “will ensure that they have the resources to recover from the pandemic and will help create new jobs and opportunities, including through the development or expansion of a new industry sector,” EDA said.

“Coal and power plant communities have been hard hit by the energy transition – and these pandemic relief funds are just the beginning of the Biden Administration’s efforts to support economic and community revitalization efforts in these parts of the country,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said.

Secretary Granholm and the Biden Administration target the U.S. to get to 100 percent clean electricity by 2035.

Coal communities have suffered in recent years due to a wave of

coal-fired capacity retirements, at the expense of natural gas and renewables.

Natural gas accounted for the largest share of U.S. utility-scale electricity generation in 2020, at 40.3 percent, with fossil fuels at 60.3 percent share, also due to coal’s 19.3-percent share of the power mix.   

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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