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JD, Usha Vance visit Greenland as Trump administration eyes territory; Maine nurses, medical workers call for improved staffing ratios; Court orders WA to rewrite CAFO dairy operation permit regulations; MS aims to expand Fresh Start Act to cut recidivism.

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The Dept. of Health and Human Services prepares to cut 10,000 more jobs. Election officials are unsure if a Trump executive order will be enacted, and Republicans in Congress say they aim to cut NPR and PBS funding.

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Rural folks face significant clean air and water risks due to EPA cutbacks, a group of policymakers is working to expand rural health care via mobile clinics, and a new study maps Montana's news landscape.

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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