By Claire Carlson for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Deborah Van Fleet for Nebraska News Connection reporting for The Daily Yonder-Public News Service Collaboration

A federal grant of $62 million to the nonprofit Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, will help build residential solar-power installations for Nebraska families who usually can’t afford the cost-saving systems, the center’s director said.

The Center for Rural Affairs is one of 60 grantees across the country that will participate in the Solar for All program, a Biden administration initiative that is part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The program will provide a one-time injection of $7 billion nationally to help people who would normally have a hard time paying for residential solar production capacity.

“The people that have built solar have tended to be middle income and higher individuals or institutions that have the discretionary resources to do the upfront costs or do the financing,” said Brian Depew, executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs.

The center has advocated for economic justice and environmental stewardship in Nebraska’s rural communities for more than 50 years. The Solar for All project will serve all of Nebraska, not just rural areas.

“People with less fiscal capacity have not yet been able to participate fully in the benefits of solar energy,” Depew said. “That’s what we’re trying to change.”

The Center for Rural Affairs received word of the grant in April (2024). Depew said learning about the large grant was a “surreal” moment for his organization. 

“It’s a major award for the Center for Rural Affairs,” Depew said in a Daily Yonder interview. “Just the magnitude of the award and the size of the project that we’ll be able to do.”

The Solar for All program comes out of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency estimates that 900,000 households across the country will benefit from the solar projects funded by the program. Recipients range from state governmental agencies to nonprofit organizations like the Center for Rural Affairs. 

Once the awards are allocated to the organizations such as the Center for Rural Affairs that will distribute the funds to recipients, eligible households in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. territories, and tribal nations will be able to apply for grants, technical assistance, and loans to pay for solar panels. 

In Nebraska, this opportunity will most likely open to residents in the next two years. “There will be an up to one-year planning period where we will further design…the application period [for grants],” Depew said. “We hope to start piloting some actual solar installations during the planning period, but it could be a full year before we are really up and ready to take applications from a broader array of people.” 

Depew credits the Center for Rural Affairs’ success in getting this award to the number of stakeholders they conferred with during the application process. The center met with more than 50 stakeholders from rural, suburban, urban, and tribal communities in Nebraska to get their input for a program proposal that made sense for their communities. What made it into the final application was a three-part strategy for implementing residential solar in Nebraska. 

The first strategy is community solar, in which public utilities manage the solar arrays and eligible residences could benefit from the solar through a subscription service or by owning some of the panels. The second is multifamily affordable housing solar, in which the center would work with utilities, developers, or low-income housing financing partners to deploy solar at multifamily residences. And the third strategy would be directly providing grants or loans for rooftop solar to individual residences. 

The center’s Solar for All application proposed allocating each of the three strategies one-third of the total project funds. This could change as they work on the details in the planning process that will take place in collaboration with the EPA over the next year.

“All of the projects are required to be residential-serving solar, and they’re required to serve low to moderate income individuals and individuals living in historically disadvantaged census tracts,” Depew said. 

The EPA identified these census tracts using the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which is part of the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative to ensure 40% of federal environmental investments go to communities that are “marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution,” according to a press release. Some of these census tracts will include rural communities, but people can also qualify at the individual household level regardless of the census tract they live in. 

The Solar for All money will be disbursed over a five year period. The Center for Rural Affairs plans to put some of the money into a revolving loan fund so they can extend the funding beyond the five years. A complete list of Solar for All awardees may be found here.


Claire Carlson wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


get more stories like this via email

Iowa lawmakers are considering reducing fines companies pay for breaking child labor laws. The state has said it's trying to find safe and creative ways to add more people to the workforce.

The proposal to rewrite Section 32 of the state's child labor laws would reduce fines for companies that violate them from $10,000 per instance to $2,500.

Iowa AFL-CIO President Charlie Wishman said Iowa has the infamous distinction of leading the nation in rolling back labor laws designed to protect minors.

"You've seen a lot of child labor law reform all across the country and it doesn't really seem to necessarily be based in partisanship," said Wishman. "You can see a place like Alabama that's strengthening it. You can see a place like Iowa that's loosening it."

The state has said it's looking at creative ways to add more people to the workforce, with shortages especially critical in rural areas.

Wishman said he worries reducing the fines would create even greater safety risks for minors in those places. The proposal is in the Legislature's joint Administrative Rules Review Committee.

Iowa is one of the only states that reports losing population, and with that out-migration goes a much-needed employee base.

As a labor advocate, Wishman said he isn't opposed to giving kids a chance to earn money and learn responsibility by working.

"But that doesn't mean that has to come at the expense of their schoolwork, their extracurricular activities or other things like that, or other responsibilities they have," said Wishman. "And when you lower the penalties that businesses would have for violating the law, you're just going to encourage more violations."

Recent changes to Iowa law allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work up to six hours on a school day, extends working hours for kids to 9 p.m. during the school year, and until 11 p.m. during the summer.

Just nine months into her tenure, Michigan state Rep. Mai Xiong, D-Warren, is ringing in the new year with new legislation. Now on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's desk, Xiong's bill allows public employers to increase contributions to workers' health plans.

A former Macomb County commissioner and the first Hmong American woman to serve in the Michigan House of Representatives, Xiong said she's passionate about helping people live better lives.

"With inflation and rising prices at the grocery store and the gas pump, it's just really hard," she said. "The cost of living has gone up - and so, whatever we can do as a government to help Michiganders, that's something that I want to contribute to doing."

Her bill also requires public employers to cover at least 80% of the total annual costs of the medical benefit plans they offer or contribute to, for their employees and elected public officials.

Xiong also has sponsored and supported legislation related to reproductive health data privacy, maternal care expansion and a resolution honoring Hmong soldiers who fought for the United States in the Vietnam War. Speaking on the House Floor in the Michigan Capitol last summer, she shared how her heritage and education have influenced her.

"My parents fought hard to bring me to this country because they knew how important education was," she said. "It is because of the teachers that I am here today - Miss Nolan, Miss Merriman and so many others - who shaped me into being who I am today."

Xiong started Mai&Co., a clothing business inspired by Hmong traditions, in 2017. She ran it from home while raising four young children, and said that experience helped shape her views on supporting small businesses and economic growth.


get more stories like this via email

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, economists are weighing in on how his promised policies might shape what is ahead in 2025.

The economy topped the 2024 election, with gas and food prices a priority for many voters. Now, economists point to tariffs, the stock market, electric vehicles, agriculture and education as key issues for the new year.

Jason Miller, professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, predicted the tariffs Trump has promised will take center stage in 2025. However, he pointed to signs of a positive tailwind.

"Retailers have entered the holidays with inventory sort of in line with demand conditions," Miller pointed out. "November sales for motor vehicles were phenomenally strong for light trucks and SUVs; it was, on a seasonably adjusted basis, the third-highest month of all time."

Miller believes importers will stockpile Chinese goods to avoid tariffs but past tariffs failed to create jobs and instead drove up costs, raising prices for consumers.

Miller projected the first major supply-chain story of 2025 could unfold as early as Jan. 15, involving the International Longshoremen's Association. He noted the East Coast and Gulf port contracts are set to expire, raising the threat of a second round of port strikes.

"We may see port strike, Round 2," Miller observed. "No one is clear yet on how the incoming Trump administration would respond to that. Would they invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to end that strike, or would they let that play out?"

He added they are monitoring the potential for extreme weather events in early 2025, such as the polar vortex back in 2018, which could have a substantial impact on the economy.


get more stories like this via email