On July 22, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced a commitment to coal communities that allocates $300 million in American Rescue Plan funds to support economic revitalization in hard-hit coal and energy communities. The new funding announcement advances the broader goals of the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization. 

NETL Director and IWG Executive Director Brian Anderson said, “For generations, energy communities helped build America and now it’s time to help them rebuild. Today’s funding announcement is a powerful first step in helping revitalize the nation’s coal and power plant communities by helping create good jobs, clean up environmental waste and support energy workers as the nation transitions to a clean energy economy.”

These grants are the largest dedicated source of funding for coal communities in the history of the EDA. They also further President Biden’s commitment to support the recovery and revitalization of America’s energy communities – and build on direct investments into specific projects from agencies across the federal government. 

The new funding is part of EDA’s broader announcement of $3 billion from the American Rescue Plan to invest in American communities, with six new notices of funding opportunity (NOFOs) for communities across the country. The funding will help communities accelerate their economic recovery, improve resilience to future economic shocks, and build back better. There is also a webinar, tentatively scheduled August 5 to explain how to apply for this funding.  

To learn more about the IWG or to explore the nearly $38B in additional funding opportunities available across the federal government to energy communities, please visit energycommunities.netl.doe.gov. This site centralizes funding opportunities, upcoming meetings and webinars, and other resources available government-wide that support immediate and long-term economic revitalization of the nation’s coal, oil and gas, and power plant communities.

Established by President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, the White House Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization is working to catalyze economic revitalization, create good-paying union jobs, and support work in energy communities, especially hard-hit coal, oil and gas, and power plant communities, across the country. 

The group’s initial report assessed priority geographies and existing authorities available to the government to support energy communities as the nation shifts to a clean energy economy. The IWG is now charged with advancing President Biden’s commitment of robust federal leadership in direct partnership with energy communities to foster investment and economic revitalization, ensure the creation of good-paying jobs that provide a choice to join a union, remediate mining and drilling lands and plant sites to address environmental degradation, and secure the benefits that workers have earned.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers technological solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By leveraging its world-class talent and research facilities, NETL is ensuring affordable, abundant and reliable energy that drives a robust economy and national security, while developing technologies to manage carbon across the full life cycle, enabling environmental sustainability for all Americans.