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Monday, April 28, 2025

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Trump officials deny U.S. citizen children were 'deported' to Honduras; Arkansas League of Women Voters sues over ballot initiative restriction; Florida PTA fights charter school expansion, cuts to mental health funding; U. of Northern Iowa launches international student exchange.

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A judge blocks use of a wartime law for deportations, ICE is criticized for deporting U.S. citizen children, Arkansas faces a federal lawsuit over ballot initiative restrictions, schools nationwide prepare for possible Medicaid cuts, and President Trump's approval rating is down at the 100-day mark.

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Migration to rural America increased for the fourth year, technological gaps handicap rural hospitals and erode patient care, and doctors are needed to keep the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians healthy and align with spiritual principles.

Possible funding freeze sparks uncertainty in TX energy projects

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Monday, February 3, 2025   

The back and forth over President Donald Trump's federal funding freeze raises questions about Biden-era investments in energy infrastructure in 23 states, including Texas.

The Inflation Reduction Act committed $9.7 billion to fund upgrades for distributed energy resources, such as solar generation and battery storage at the nation's rural electric cooperatives. North Texas' Rayburn Electric Cooperative was awarded a 25% matching grant to build a 160 megawatt battery storage system.

David Naylor, president and CEO of the cooperative, said the state's growth makes building new infrastructure critical.

"We've got to get more resources in place, whether it's building additional resources, like the larger power plants, or whether it's tackling the distributed energy resources, which allow us to reduce the load," Naylor explained. "You're going to have to have both. You've got to have a diverse mix of resources."

If built, the utility scale battery would collect excess solar energy at low cost and distribute it during peak demand, reducing electric costs and improving grid reliability during extreme weather. The cooperative serves more than 500,000 Texans in 16 counties, including fast-growing suburban areas north and east of Dallas.

More than 3 million Texans are served by rural electric cooperatives, which are nonprofit member-owned utilities. Distributed energy resources are technologies installed at neighborhood scale or at individual homes and can include a variety of green tech, like wind and solar, as well as small generators. Naylor stressed the approach brings improved load management.

"We've rolled out a distributed energy program, which allows us to reduce the load that we have, through utilizing standby generators that people have put on their homes," Naylor pointed out. "We kick those to where they're running, and then that reduces our load, or there may be some localized batteries that some of our members are putting in at homes as well."

The grant is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's new Empowering Rural America program, which was on the initial list of projects subject to the Trump administration's spending freeze.

The Rayburn battery project is anticipated to create more than 300 jobs, some of them long-term.


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