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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP) awarded 10 zero-interest loans worth $201 million in Fiscal Year 2023—the highest total ever in a single year. EESI provided technical assistance to borrowers in support of $161 million of those loans. Since RESP was launched in 2016, it has provided loans worth about $500 million to 43 rural electric cooperatives, green banks, municipal utilities, and other borrowers to develop or expand on-bill financing programs for clean energy improvements. EESI has supported about 60% of all RESP loans made to date.
EESI also helped draft and promote the bipartisan Rural Energy Savings Act, which was introduced by Reps. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.) and Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Based on our extensive experience with RESP, we worked closely with rural electric cooperatives, USDA, and our allies in Congress to identify and suggest ways to make the program more accessible to households and small businesses. The Rural Energy Savings Act would provide grant funding to eligible borrowers, extend loan repayment terms to 20 years, expand eligibility to more households in rural utility service territories, codify the eligibility of “green banks” to apply to RESP, and add manufactured home replacement as an eligible measure.
We organized a coalition letter of support for the bill, drafted summaries and explanatory documents, fielded questions from Congressional staff and stakeholders, circulated and marked up draft text, and met with potential cosponsors. (We even came up with the name of the bill.)
Separately from our advocacy for the Rural Energy Savings Act, we also featured RESP in our Congressional education. We organized a briefing, Unlocking Rural Economies: Farm Bill Investments in Rural America, as part of our Farm Bill series to highlight how USDA programs deliver benefits to rural communities. During the 2023 Congressional Clean Energy EXPO and Policy Forum, EESI hosted a panel, “Clean Energy Opportunities in Rural Communities,” which featured speakers from USDA, the National Cooperative Business Association, Beneficial Electrification League, and Biomass Power Association.
In anticipation of Congress turning its attention to the Farm Bill, EESI devoted a large share of our policymaker education to agriculture and rural topics in 2023. Our six-part Farm Bill in Focus briefing series was very successful, with an average audience of 185 (in person and online), and featured introductions by Reps. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), and Kim Schrier (D-Wash.).
Given the scale and scope of the Farm Bill, plus the potential for agricultural climate solutions to deliver mitigation and adaptation benefits, we developed a new set of resources: side-by-side charts to show how House and Senate proposals differ from current law. These 19 charts—posted online early in the reauthorization process—were designed to be invaluable resources to Congressional staff who need to understand the effects competing proposals would have on the Farm Bill.
We also published a five-part tracker of Congressional Farm Bill hearings that covered climate change, a fact sheet about mass timber, and eight Farm Bill-related articles—including three about Indigenous sustainable agriculture practices. To ensure these resources made it to staff on Capitol Hill, EESI discussed agriculture and rural topics in more than 60 meetings with House and Senate offices across the entire political spectrum.
EESI grew its already significant Congressional engagement in 2023 to a new high. A record 386 Congressional offices (71% of all offices) engaged at some level with EESI’s resources over the course of the 118th Congress. Eleven members of Congress introduced EESI briefings during the year: Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Reps. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.), Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), and Kim Schrier (D-Wash.).
Ten members of Congress—a high-water mark—spoke at the annual Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency EXPO and Policy Forum on July 18, 2023: Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Crapo, co-chairs of the Senate Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus; Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), deputy co-chair of the Caucus; Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Wyden; and Reps. Clyburn, Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.), Scott Peters (D-Calif.), and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.).
EESI also welcomed the first-ever member of Congress as a guest on our podcast, The Climate Conversation. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who played a vital role in the passage of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act, discussed how the act contributes to climate policy.
EESI sent a team to attend the 2023 U.N. climate summit (the 28th Conference of the Parties, or COP28), which took place in Dubai. EESI continued to expand our coverage of these international climate negotiations, which bring together almost every country in the world to discuss climate action. Our work helps keep Congress informed of the discussions taking place and their implications for U.S. policy. At least 450 Congressional staff engaged with EESI's resources, before, during, and after COP28.
EESI’s extensive coverage of the Dubai summit (COP28) resulted in 11 issues of our dedicated daily newsletter, COP28 Dispatch: What Congress Needs to Know from Dubai, which reached more than 7,400 subscribers (an increase of 36% compared to 2022). We held a COP28 briefing series covering the role of Congress in international climate finance, the process and expectations for the negotiations, and the first global stocktake of efforts to address climate change. We published a series of three COP28 articles as well as three trackers following key announcements from the summit, report releases, and the attendance of U.S. federal and elected officials. EESI organized three conference calls connecting Congressional staff to experts at the summit, two press conferences webcast by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and one official UNFCCC side event about the science of carbon markets moderated by EESI President Daniel Bresette. EESI also hosted an exhibit booth at the conference, in partnership with the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and the U.S. Green Building Council.
EESI partnered with the House and Senate Electrification Caucuses, the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, and clean transportation industry group CALSTART on “Driving the Future: An Electric Vehicle Event” on Capitol Hill. It featured three medium- and heavy-duty all-electric vehicles and an all-electric ice cream cart. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Tom Carper (D-Del) and Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) spoke at the event, which was also attended by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). EESI President Daniel Bresette gave remarks and our team helped Congressional staff meet manufacturer representatives to learn about the opportunities and challenges presented by heavy-duty truck electrification. We timed the release of our all-new fact sheet, The Future of the Trucking Industry: Electric Semi-Trucks, with the event.
EESI also made major updates to our Beneficial Electrification Toolkit, which was launched in 2022. The Toolkit is a first-of-its kind online compendium of resources to guide utilities through the creation of successful, accessible, and equitable electrification programs. In 2023, we published sections about agriculture electrification and commercial space conditioning and water heating, as well as a FAQ.
EESI funded three $4,000 college scholarships for outstanding Future Climate Leaders in 2023.
Future Climate Leader Thurston Brown (left) has a passion for research with a view to “creating and maintaining a sustainable, resilient, and more equitable world.” A sophomore student at Virginia State University double majoring in Animal Science and Biology, his goal is to become a veterinarian or research scientist focusing on the agricultural sciences.
Future Climate Leader Leonni Burton (center) wants to work at the intersection of law and psychology to advocate for environmental policy. During her psychology studies at Hampton University in Virginia, she realized that “whether encouraging sustainable consumption, promoting renewable energy adoption, or addressing climate anxiety, psychology plays a pivotal role in shaping effective policy strategies.”
Future Climate Leader Kaila White (right) plans to “dedicate [her] knowledge and research to the continued development of green technologies, allowing for the widespread adoption of affordable and accessible clean energy to make a significant global impact.” She is majoring in Chemical Engineering, with a concentration in environmental studies and a minor in history, at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
As part of its commitment to promote and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, EESI launched a scholarship for Future Climate Leaders in November 2021. Every year, EESI awards $4,000 each to three undergraduate students pursuing studies relevant to environmental, clean energy, and climate policy at a historically Black college or university (HBCU) in the mid-Atlantic or southern region. The EESI Future Climate Leaders Scholarship program is managed by UNCF (United Negro College Fund), a philanthropic organization.
The start of the 118th Congress in January 2023 represented a key opportunity for EESI to introduce (or reintroduce) our resources and expertise to members of Congress and their staff. We prioritized outreach to the 79 new members of Congress, and reached all 100 senators, 435 representatives, and six non-voting delegates. Over the course of 85 meetings with staff, the EESI team discussed the Farm Bill, conservation, forestry, agriculture research, implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, the clean energy workforce, sustainable aviation fuels, hydrogen, the 2023 U.N. climate summit (COP28), and environmental justice.
Anticipating an interest in and need for basic climate policy education, we held our second-ever Congressional Climate Camp briefing series, which covered the budget and appropriations process, public polling on climate change, methane and other greenhouse gases, and implementing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act. The four briefings attracted more than 200 Congressional staff (and 1,000 people in all). In particular, the budget and appropriations briefing was our second-best attended briefing ever, with 464 watching either in person or online, and it was aired eight times on C-SPAN channels.
EESI, in collaboration with our partners at the Beneficial Electrification League, provided technical assistance to applicants seeking Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for clean energy projects. In 2023, IRA funding allowed USDA to announce two new programs to advance clean energy and resilience in rural areas: Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) and Empowering Rural America (New ERA).
PACE offers forgivable loans for up to 60% of the costs of renewable energy projects that use solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, or of the costs of energy storage projects paired with renewable energy. New ERA, the largest investment in rural clean energy since the 1930s, is a $9.7 billion fund to support the purchase of renewable energy systems, zero-emission systems, microgrids, and carbon capture systems. Leveraging our experience with the USDA Rural Utilities Service, EESI supported applications from rural electric cooperatives and others for $4 billion in New ERA funds as well as six PACE letters of interest for a total of $327.5 million in loans.
Two records related to EESI’s respected Congressional briefings were toppled in 2023: most briefing registrations and most attendees in a year. On average, 335 people registered for each of our briefings in 2023, besting the previous record of 324 set in 2021. A record number of people—5,072—attended our briefings in person and online, which was 200 more than in 2021, our previous record year. On average, each of our 21 briefings had 231 attendees, significantly above the average of 185 in 2017, which had been until now our best year ever in terms of average attendance per briefing.
Charity Navigator, America’s top charity evaluator with more than 11 million visitors annually, awarded EESI a 99% rating and four out of four stars for the 14th time. EESI is the ninth-best rated climate nonprofit nationwide and has been deemed a “Give with Confidence” charity. To calculate our 99% rating, which represented an increase over previous years, Charity Navigator evaluated EESI’s financial efficiency and trustworthiness, as well as our commitment to a high standard of governance practices and policies. It recognized EESI’s strong commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, based on the implementation of practices that Charity Navigator deems important. And it lauded EESI’s dedication to our mission, vision, and goals by providing our staff with professional development opportunities and collaborating with other organizations. EESI also maintained a 2023 Platinum Seal of Transparency on Candid (formerly Guidestar) and was a 2023 Top Rated Nonprofit according to GreatNonprofits.
As an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that receives no Congressional funding, EESI is deeply grateful to all our donors who make these achievements possible! Without donors, these achievements simply would not take place. Please see our funder page to learn more about our funders or click here to make a gift to support this work.
Advancing science-based climate solutions
Top-Rated Climate Nonprofit – 4-Star Charity