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Dear Senator,

As you consider the opportunities to support Western communities as part o f the American Jobs Plan, please keep the communities served by rural electric co-ops in mind for just transition funding.

The burden of energy costs in rural areas is among the highest in the country and has added to the hardship during the pandemic. Many rural utilities source power from coal-fired power plants that are uneconomic when compared to increasingly competitive clean energy sources. As a result of historic over-reliance on coal, the Generation and Transmission organization that covers much of the Mountain West, Tri-State, has $3.4 billion in debt that stands as a barrier to fairly and justly transitioning the region from coal to lower cost clean energy on a timeline that avoids the worst impacts of climate change.

But even as Tri-State and other cooperative utilities retire coal plants to save customers money, communities will be disproportionately impacted by coal plant retirements if rural cooperative utilities do not put forward adequate Just Transition plans as a part of their move to a clean energy economy.

Please ensure that rural communities are looked out for in the American Jobs Plan by including the following in any assistance package:

1) Transition assistance funds must be tied to a timeline for coal retirement announcements and closure dates.
2) Preference must be given for local generation resources in cooperative communities.
3) The savings generated from the transition from coal to clean must be reflected in electric cooperative rates.
4) Specific transition assistance should be targeted at helping local communities impacted by coal plant retirements, with trackable metrics to ensure those dollars go to local communities and workers, not G&T management
5) Coop members should be able to easily access G&T plans and decision making processes regarding transition assistance.
6) Coal must be fully replaced with clean energy, not gas resources.

Thank you for your time and consideration.