Biden promotes administration’s rural electrification funding in Wisconsin

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden returns to southwest Wisconsin on Thursday to make good on his promise to provide new investments in rural electrification and other infrastructure improvements.

Biden will be in Westby to announce $7.3 billion in investments for 16 cooperatives that will provide electricity for rural areas across 23 states. The intent is to bring down the cost of badly needed internet connections in hard-to-reach areas.

Funding for the project comes from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August 2022 and passed in Congress along party lines. The law invests roughly $13 billion in rural electrification across multiple programs and will create 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs, according to the White House.

The administration calls it the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal in the 1930s.

Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win states in November’s presidential election between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden won the state in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, flipping Wisconsin to the Democratic column after Trump narrowly won it in 2016.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«RELATED COVERAGE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-parsely-url=«https%3A%2F%2Fapi.parsely.com%2Fv2%2Frelated%3Fapikey%3Dapnews.com%26url%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fapnews.com%2Farticle%2Fwisconsin-biden-harris-elections-ira-rural-electrification-5f44d307bd774ecf47297e1d0f80114e%26limit%3D9%26respect_empty_results%3D1%26sort%3D_score%26pub_date_start%3D2024-07-22%26exclude%3Dsection%3APress%20Releases%26exclude%3Dtags%3ACelebrity%20Birthdays»