WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden returns to southwestern Wisconsin on Thursday to make good on his pledge to make new investments in rural electrification and other infrastructure improvements.
Biden will be in Westby to announce $7.3 billion in investments for 16 cooperatives that will provide electricity to rural areas in 23 states. The goal is to lower the cost of much-needed internet connections in hard-to-reach areas.
Funding for the project comes from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in August 2022 and passed along party lines in Congress. The law invests about $13 billion in rural electrification through multiple programs and will create 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs, the White House said.
The government calls it the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal in the 1930s.
Democrats see Wisconsin as one of the must-win states in the November presidential election between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden won the state by about 20,000 votes in 2020, moving Wisconsin into the Democratic fold after Trump narrowly won the state in 2016.
And Thursday’s trip will be a return to a state Biden visited earlier in his presidency, when he promised to deliver infrastructure improvements and better internet for rural areas, among other things.
“It’s not a luxury; it’s a necessity now, just like water and electricity,” Biden said in June 2021 at the La Crosse Municipal Transit Utility. “And this deal would make that possible for everyone, while driving down the cost of internet service across the board.”
Natalie Quillian, deputy White House chief of staff, told reporters Wednesday previewing Biden’s trip that “when he comes back tomorrow, he will have delivered on so many of those promises.”
