the station and the comforter is gone. They'll be weeping and awaiting. No light will be found because the one who shed the light has gone and loved us. Sheds his clothes into a new bangle, heavenly red knows the end of song. Comforter is gone. Bangle, heavenly red. Being in such beautiful music, we all really, really appreciate it. Music and singing for the soul. I'm really excited to be here with you and the Greater Burlington Multicultural Resource Center which has, as its mission, really an essential mission, to increase awareness and provide opportunities to celebrate, promote, and support cultural diversity within our community. We need that now more than we've ever needed it. And everyone who is here, I know shares the goal that is the commitment of the Greater Burlington Multicultural Resource Center. You know, we're going to be hearing from Dr. Dyson and I, of course, have seen him and read some of his articles and commentaries. And he's an extraordinary person and in some ways carries on the legacy of Dr. King. You know, he's got a Princeton PhD, but he grew up on the streets and he has the wisdom that comes with study and he has the wisdom that comes from growing up on the streets. And he combines the two. And he's a voice who is called on all of us, in myself, very, very much included, to challenge the forces of unconscious, white privilege and implicit bias. You know, each of us has to look within our own heart and soul to understand what it is we don't understand and to try to appreciate and understand the experience of others who haven't had the opportunities that everyone is entitled to. And for all of us in our daily lives to acknowledge the terrible toll, the terrible toll that generations of oppression, 250 years of slavery, more, followed by over 100 years of Jim Crow, to a current country, the richest in the world, where the poverty rate for African Americans is double, more than double, that of white Americans. That doesn't happen just by accident. It's not a combination of policies that grind away at the heart and soul and the opportunity of people who want to work hard and make good communities and make themselves the best they can possibly be. But it's also a complacency that sometimes is the result of people, especially ones who are better off, not having a vivid awareness of some of those forces that are out there holding other of our neighbors and our friends in our community back. You know, and today Martin Luther King is a special day. It's, I met Martin Luther King when I was 20 years old. I was working in a community organization in the west side of Chicago. I grew up in a white Irish neighborhood. And we went with some of the neighbor kids and two buses down to Atlanta for the SCLC convention. And I remember pulling into Atlanta and these two buses and the leader of the group, the African American man who was our leader, he wanted to see Martin Luther King. So he had the two buses pull up to his house. And he went in, we sat out and waited, and he came back out. But then we all went to the Ebenezer Baptist Church. And this was an incredible experience for a young Irish Catholic from Springfield, Massachusetts. Because in that church, and I went to Catholic Church, and you know, we don't have singing like we just heard. And we don't have singing like I heard in the Ebenezer Baptist Church. And we didn't have preaching like I heard in the Ebenezer Baptist Church. And the first preacher was Hosea Williams. And I'd never heard anything like that. I never heard anything like it. I said, what's happening now? And then this man named Ralph Abernathy came out. And I said, wait. And I never heard anything like that. And then Martin Luther King himself came to the podium. And I was up in the balcony. And he preached as only Martin Luther King could preach. And I was just overwhelmed by everything, really. And I was unaware of the struggles. I knew it in an abstract way. And I was working in the west side of Chicago, where there was brutal housing discrimination, where African American families who'd come up from the south wanted to get a toehold in the economy. And they'd get some decent jobs, but in order to buy a house, they had to pay twice what a white family had to pay. They couldn't get a mortgage. So they had to buy it on contract. And on the contract, they had to pay twice the interest rate that you'd pay if you got a mortgage. And under this contract, if you missed a payment after four or five years, you lost the house.  That was legal. That was the law.  I had no idea that this was going on. And of course, the narrative is in that neighborhood, which was having real challenges, people didn't care about it. But, you know, I lived there for two years. People cared. The difference was, in order to make that mortgage payment, they had to work two jobs, sometimes three.  And how did that happen? That had nothing to do with how hard people worked. It had to do with the federal government would not insure mortgages in that neighborhood, redlined, off limits. It had to do with because banks decided it didn't matter what your credit worthiness was. It didn't matter how long you had held that job. It didn't matter that when you did the numbers, you could pay the mortgage. We're not giving a mortgage in that neighborhood. That's off limits. That was the legacy that, that's what makes this happen. It's not an accident. And Martin Luther King faced this every single day. And he made a decision, and this is the part that was so extraordinary to me even this day. Now just tell a little story about the end of his preaching. He, you know, I was, all of us were overwhelmed and the church emptied. And I was with three or four people and we lingered. And then after everything had quieted down, I saw that Martin Luther King and some of his aides went upstairs and some cameras followed. And Martin Luther King was giving a press conference to denounce the war in Vietnam. And I remember being puzzled. Why would the civil rights leader with such prominence and such focus and such commitment to the civil rights of African Americans, why would he be diverted to get involved in a very controversial debate at that time? And he was way ahead of his time about the injustice of the war in Vietnam. And in my youth and lack of judgment, I actually thought he was quote wrong because it would take away from his civil rights activities. But I've come to see how he was right because injustice anywhere was injustice everywhere, where he made the connections between what was going on in foreign policy with what was going on in Laundale, which is the neighborhood I worked in, that was denying opportunity, that he understood that most of those kids who were going off to war, their main qualification was that they were poor and could be drafted and they couldn't go to college or pay to get some kind of deferment. And that comprehensive approach that Martin Luther King had that I think our country has come to appreciate those of us who want to make this a much better and more just society. He had that in him and he couldn't stop himself if he saw injustice he spoke out against it. And of course, the other thing that was so astonishing I think to anybody when I look back about it and I see the horrible fractious politics sometimes that are so on display now, every single day he faced the prospect of real violence directed at him. And the combination of having to go through a day where your safety was imperiled, where you didn't know whether you're going to be able to get home that night and tuck your kids in, he had four kids, where you didn't know whether you'd be able to say goodbye to your wife. And he would every single day embrace that day and keep marching forward. And not only did he do that, but those hostile feelings and the hatred that he experienced where he was being attacked because he stood for justice for African Americans. And it was too much to handle for so many people in our country. And of course, he'd been in that bus boycott. He'd seen Bull Connor. He'd seen dogs turned loose. He'd seen my colleague in Congress who's an inspiration to all of us, John Lewis, get beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Every single day he faced that, but he had this incredible, incredible heart and commitment to loving his neighbor. How is it that a person has the strength to endure the rampant anger that comes out of nowhere that has nothing to do with what the person who's being hated has done? And in fact, that person, in the person Dr. Martin Luther King, everything he had done was generous and loving. But how, when you're on the receiving end of all that, everything from insults to physical attacks to the FBI illegally wiretapping and sending you secretly a letter saying your days are numbered, but you maintain a capacity to be really connected and loving to the people in your life and the people that you're leading. And whenever I get discouraged at the state of politics or my own limitations or the mistakes I made, it's really my memory of that man and how no matter what he faced, now how matter how repetitive it was, he had an enormous capacity to act out of love. And we really saw that, of course, with that extraordinary address he made with his I Have a Dream speech. So I am so glad to be here with you and especially in this time, you know, we just got, we just are opening up government and just think about what the fight has been about. It's about whether we build a wall when it should be, how do we break down the walls of separation. We should be talking about the bridges that will connect us, not the barriers that will divide us. And this is a very difficult time in our country, but if any of us have doubts about the need to move ahead and why we should, let's remember this man, Martin Luther King, he didn't do it because there was a guaranteed success at the end of his struggle. He was well aware that the struggle that he was pursuing might ultimately end as it did with him being assassinated. But he knew that however it ended, he knew that whenever it ended, each day that he had on this earth, each breath that he could take was going to be a breath for freedom. It was going to be a breath for solidarity. It was going to be a breath for love. So thank you so much for allowing me to be here in the guide for us these last three weeks in Congress when we've been fighting this horrible wall fight with our diverse caucus was to recognize the diversity is our strength and unity is our power. And let's all of us when we leave be unified, strong in our diversity, in our commitment to what we learned from Martin Luther King. Thank you very much. Thank you representative Welsh for your very kind message this afternoon. Let us give representative Welsh yet another round of applause. I would like to start off by thanking our musicians Vivian Dean, singer and Nancy Hinston who so generously agreed to come and perform for us at very short notice with Dan Bishop on bass and Andrew Moraz on piano. Thank you. Ms. Susan Sussman is here this afternoon representing Senator Leahy. Please stand, Senate. And Kate Farley is here representing Senator Sanders. Now you know in my 25 years this is about the third that Senator Sanders has missed. He was always present. So I have some not so good news. Our keynote speaker this afternoon is still in transit. He left Chicago this morning at around six a.m. to Charlotte and then on to Washington and I got a text from him that he's delayed. So I'm not sure he's going to make it in here in time to address you this afternoon. Every year we recognize community members who have done outstanding work in our community in their effort to embrace diversity. And this afternoon we will recognize two of those community leaders. The first one is Christine Kemp Longmore. And I now invite Adeline Robertson to do the citation to Christine. And after Adeline has done the citation, our new new deputy chief who most of you haven't met, he is here representing our chief, Brandon Del Poso, who unfortunately couldn't be here this afternoon. So I'll ask Chief Deputy Chief Mirad, John Mirad to do the presentation of the Adeline. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Adeline Robertson. Hello to all those that I know and don't know. I'm here thanking Patrick for his numerous years of doing the MLK. Let's just say thank you to Patrick for all his hard work. Thank you, Patrick. We need to give you an award, Patrick. You deserve it. Just saying my opinion. But right now I'm going to present the award. I'm going to give you a background for Christine Kemp Longmore. She's also a good friend of mine from my sister church, Christine Kemp Longmore. Christine Kemp in 2005 co-founder of Uncommon Alliances, a grassroots organization led by steering committees of racial and ethnic minority workers toward dismantling racial and ethnic profiling in law enforcement. A Chidman County effort that resulted in the first traffic data collection project in Vermont with four local police departments and justice systems officers who met regularly with community members and began the statewide race data collection. And then in 2011, she received the IACP, which is the International Association of Chiefs of Police Civil Rights Award for Burlington Police Department under the leadership of Chief Michael Shorlin. And then in 2015, Mrs. Longmore appointed to the Burlington Police Commission of Services as chair until 2018 after completing a three-year term. In 2016, she joined the Board of Directors Justice for All in Vermont State Police, Fair and Impartial Policing Committee. In 2016, she joined the Racial Justice Reform Collision Agency as a member. 2016, she co-founded with her daughter Jada the Catholic Community Council of Accountability with law enforcement officers based on the model of uncommon alliances. A grassroots effort led by a steering committee made up largely, but not exclusively, of racial and ethnic minority. In 2017, she was appointed chair by T.J. Donovan, our very own, Vermont Attorney General's advisory panel on racial disparities in the juvenile and criminal justice system of Vermont, three-year term. And in 2018, she was the recipient of the 2017 Ken Schwartz Award, City of Burlington for exemplary commitment to restorative justice, community-based responses to crime and conflict and preventing recidivism. Thank you for your service, Christine Kemp-Lawar. Give her a round of applause. Thank you, and thank you, Deputy Chief Mered for doing the presentation. Thank you, Ed Lyne. So, the next presentation is the Shal Dorr, who will be presented with his award by Mr. Don Baker, who's the president of Key Bank, and now also president of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. And this is going to be the citation is by Tato, and Tato is one of the shining lights. She was just appointed to the board of the Howard Center for Human Services and is one of the leaders of the Association of Africans Living in Vermont. Good afternoon, everyone. As Patrick said, my name is Tato Razave, and I work for the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, where we help all the refugees and immigrants who get resettled in our state to settle in Vermont in their new home. This afternoon I have a pleasure of introducing Shal Dorr. Shal is the founder and executive director of the Sudanese Foundation of Vermont, otherwise known as the SUT Fund Incorporated, a nonprofit organization established in 2016. Its mission is to support new American families and their children to succeed academically and athletically in Vermont. Shal is also the president of Sudanese community in Vermont. Shal is also the manager of the Nile Soccer and Basketball Academy, a soccer and basketball mentoring program for Chittenden County's new American children. Its mission is to promote a healthy lifestyle through sports. As the manager of academy, Shal oversees fundraising efforts to support the mentoring programs, provide college scholarships, and run the Nile Athletic Academy. Through partnership with Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Rock Point Camp, and the Vermont Folklife Center, Shal has worked to secure full scholarships for new American children to attend summer camps and participate in other recreational activities. Prior to coming to Vermont in 2007, Shal lived 12 years in a refugee camp in Kenya. He fled the civil war in his home of Sudan, now called South Sudan. In 2011, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Vermont, where he was a McNair scholar. And he also was awarded the Merrage Foundation Scholarship for the American Dream in honor of Vermont's former Governor Madeleine Kennan. Shal serves on a number of boards in Vermont, including Spectrum Youth and Family Services and formerly the Vermont State Health Assessment Committee. Most recently, Shal was appointed by Mayor Weinberger of Wellington to serve on the Community Development and Block Grant Advisory Board. It is my pleasure to introduce Shal to you. Thank you, Shal, and thank you, Mr. Don Baker, for presenting this award. I would like at this time to acknowledge Dr. Wanda Heading Grant, Vice President for Human Resources, Diversity, and Multicultural Affairs at the University of Vermont, and she is also, she's a regular attendee of these programs, but today she's representing President Tom Sullivan and Leslie Black Sullivan. Please stand and be acknowledged. Today, we remember the great civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Coretta Scott King. In 1963, when Dr. King delivered his I Have a Dream speech to that gathering at the Lincoln Memorial, not only did he speak to the hearts of African Americans who struggled for the rights of American citizens, but he also spoke to the hearts of all his countrymen. We're therefore thankful to those of you who come year after year to these celebrations and remembrance of the late civil rights leader, those of you who stood with us in the past and those who will stand with us in the future. We're here today not only because of the past out of which we have emerged, but because of the present that we serve. Let us continue to, in solidarity, to remember the work and the legacy of the late civil rights leader. Let us embrace each other. Let us ask ourselves what kind of world do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a world that's characterized by peace, justice, and equity? In order to have a world characterized by peace, we must have a world characterized by justice. In order to have a world characterized by justice, we must have a world characterized by equity. And how do we do this? By coming together, by remembering, by celebrating. I thank you for being here today and we look forward to seeing you next year as we remember Dr. King. I very much regret that our keynote has not made it and so I turn over to our wonderful musicians again. Thank you.


Air Force Special Warfare is the Department of Defense's Ground Combat Force. It specializes in the application of air power and consists of seven career fields, combat control, para-rescue, tactical air control parties, special reconnaissance, combat rescue officers, special tactics officers, and tactical air control party officers. AFSPEC war operators conduct some of the most physically demanding and mentally challenging missions in the U.S. military. In line with these unique requirements, an underlying principle is that human capital is our competitive advantage. To that end, our rigorous training pipeline can last up to two years and intentionally builds airmen who are physically and mentally prepared to face these challenges. The AFSPEC war community values certain characteristics, traits, and qualities. These characteristics are crucial to being a successful operator, and they're emphasized throughout the Special Warfare training pipeline. Let's discuss them. DRIVE is absolutely foundational, and it can be defined as initiating action and persisting to accomplish tasks and goals. This effort has to be geared toward meeting and accomplishing a high standard, simply trying and not quitting is insufficient. Someone who has the kind of drive valued by AFSPEC war might be described as reliable, persistent, and has someone who takes initiative. DRIVE can be cultivated by paying attention to details, exercising self-discipline, and working hard to accomplish goals that require sustained effort. Stress Tolerance An operator's career hands them all kinds of stressors, both on and off the battlefield. In the face of an immediate stressor, maintenance of physical composure and cognitive functioning, like attention and memory, is absolutely crucial. You can improve your stress tolerance by learning how to control your responses to things like time pressure, uncertainty, chaos, and ambiguity. PROBLEM SOLVING When faced with a challenge or problem, what is your approach? How do you define the problem, come up with ideas about possible solutions, test those out, and decide which is the best course of action? These are all aspects of problem solving, another quality essential to successful AFSPEC war operators. No matter your AFSC, you will be put in unique situations that require strong problem solving skills. TEAMWORK AFSPEC war operators are not lone wolves. They must be able to function well in team environments. This is more than just popularity. Think about how you interact with others to work toward a common goal, how you adapt to your role as a leader or follower on the team, and how you contribute to an environment in which the team operates smoothly and effectively. Work on this by paying attention to teams in which you participate, and notice how you can continually strive to improve your teamwork. COMMUNICATION High quality information exchange can mean the difference between resounding mission success and complete mission failure. Some types of communication play a crucial role in team functioning. Here, we're really talking about more formal communication skills. Can you logically and purposefully organize your thoughts? Can you tailor your communication to make sure the receiver of the information understands it? Can you use the right terms, correct grammar, and appropriate pronunciation to make sure your message gets through? TRAINABILITY We don't expect new students to have existing skills related to AFSPEC war. We do, however, want people who are motivated to learn and open to the challenge of developing their knowledge base. Think about how you currently approach challenges related to learning and executing new skills. What are your weaknesses and strengths in those areas? How strong is your motivation to learn and grow? INTEGRITY Last, but certainly not least, AFSPEC war values integrity. Our operators often navigate ambiguous circumstances in which they're called upon to make independent decisions. Can we trust you to do the right thing when nobody is looking? Do your behaviors reflect an honest, fair, and ethical worldview? Think about these characteristics that are so important to the AFSPEC war community. Do these align with your values and motivations? How can you leverage your strengths or mitigate your weaknesses to become the best possible candidate to join Special Warfare? To learn more about Air Force Special Warfare, please visit


I want to talk about the requirements for a second. If you don't live in the US or you don't have a US IP address and a social security number, it will be very difficult for you to drop ship on the Facebook marketplace. And that is because you won't have the shipping options when you're creating a new listing and the shipping options will allow 50 states in the US to be able to see your listing since you can ship out to all of them. But if you don't live in the US, Facebook will not enable the shipping options for you, then you'll only be able to select a specific location where you can list your product on and not so many people are going to see that listing. So if you don't live in the US or if you don't have a US IP address and a social security number for verification, once you hit $500 in sales, you should not consider drop shipping on the Facebook marketplace at this time. But I will definitely keep you guys updated if I hear any news that this is now working for international sellers. So US IP address, social security number, those are the two requirements to begin drop shipping on the Facebook marketplace. Of course, you're going to need a computer and internet connection and the will to learn.


Hello and welcome, everyone, to our briefing, Financing Inclusive Clean Energy Investments in Rural America. I'm Dan Bresset, Executive Director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute was founded in 1984 on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress to provide science-based information about environmental, energy, and climate change topics to policymakers. More recently, we've also developed a program to provide technical assistance to rural utilities interested in on-bill financing programs for their customers. ESI provides informative, objective, nonpartisan coverage of climate change topics and briefings, written materials, and on social media. All of our educational resources, including briefing recordings, fact sheets, issue briefs, articles, newsletters, and podcasts, are always available for free online at www.esi.org. The best way to stay informed about all of our work is to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions. Our briefing today is the first in a series about existing federal programs that deliver multiple climate benefits. There is a lot of discussion in Washington about the new policies and investments we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% based on 2005 levels by 2030, which would be consistent with the US commitment under the Paris Agreement. And count us at ESI among those who want to see those policies and investments enacted yesterday. But while we're working on that and implementing the latest provisions from the bipartisan infrastructure law, let us take a moment to look across the federal government and notice all the good work already underway. Today, our focus is the Rural Energy Savings Program, which is administered by the Rural Utility Service of the US Department of Agriculture. Our panelists will describe RESP and the Clean Energy Projects it facilitates across rural America. But RESP is not alone, not by any means there are also a number of high-impact energy efficiency programs at the Department of Energy and a network of landscape conservation cooperatives supported by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and myriad efforts across agencies to make climate adaptation programs, funding, and data accessible to states, local governments, and communities. If you've not yet signed up for this entire series, which we'll run through next month, visit us online at www.esi.org forward slash briefings and RSVP today. ESI is a longtime fan of RESP. ESI has helped many rural utilities secure RESP loans and design equitable on-bill financing programs for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electrification upgrades. I'll leave it to our panelists to fill in the details and explain how RESP facilitates these investments in rural areas for clean energy. But before I welcome our panel, I would like to introduce Representative James E. Clyburn, who represents the sixth district of South Carolina. In addition to being majority whip of the third ranking Democrat in the US House of Representatives and, according to former President Barack Obama, one of a handful of people who, when they speak, the entire Congress listens. Representative Clyburn is also the clean energy and rural issues leader who is the driving force behind RESP. From the very beginning, right up to today, is a terrific privilege for me and ESI to welcome Representative Clyburn to our briefing today. Hello, everyone. I'm grateful and an opportunity to speak with you about their present need to make energy affordable and accessible to all communities across our nation. Resources such as electricity and broadband are critical to our everyday lives. There should be no barrier to obtaining these necessities. I have heard gripping personal stories from people in my congressional district having to choose between paying their energy bills or putting food on the table or even having to buy medication they need to stay well healthy. Rural families have explained to me how they face higher costs because they're homes like proper insulation, which they compensate with excess heating and cooling. For example, a constituent of mine, Alicia Smith, from Orangeburg County, lived in a double-wide mobile home with inefficient and obsolete utility systems. Her energy bill averaged more than $400 a month. Alicia's story and many others inspired me to introduce the Rural Energy Savings Program Act. I recognize the need for partnership between the federal government and rural electric cooperatives to address and produce and reduce the energy burden of rural households. I've seen the benefits of the Rural Energy Savings Program in South Carolina. It has provided the essential funding to the Help My House program, which has leveraged approximately $1.3 million to reduce the energy burden of 159 households in my district alone. This access to the program led me to include an additional $200 million for the program in the House Pass version of Build Back Better. These additional resources will allow the program to reach more homes and help more people. Programs like the Rural Energy Savings provide a roadmap for how the federal government can partner with rural communities and others to provide much-needed assistance to lower energy costs for the vulnerable. The Recently Passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is another example of the work we're doing here in Congress to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis. Federal investments in public transit, particularly in rural communities, will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. $65 billion has been allocated to upgrade our power infrastructure by building resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewables and clean energy, while also keeping costs low. The new law also funds the development and employment of innovative, clean energy technologies to help move us to a zero emission economy. Our efforts in Congress are aided by the great work of groups like the Environmental and Energy Environment Institute, and I'm thankful to have partners like you to help inform good energy policy. I look forward to continuing working with all of you to create more energy-efficient society and providing the resources needed for these overlooked communities. Well, thank you, Representative Clyburn, for sharing your heartening and inspiring remarks with our audience today. It's very, very generous of you to join us. We know you have lots of things going on. And I'd just like to also say many thanks to your excellent staff for their advice and assistance in the lead-up to our briefing today. Let me remind everyone that we will have some time for questions after our panel, and we will do our best to incorporate questions from our online audience. If you have a question, you can send it to us via email, and the email address to use is ask, ask, at EESI.org. Or you can follow us on Twitter or other social media platforms at EESI online, but if you use Twitter, you can send us in a question that way, too. Let me introduce our first panelist today. Bob Coates currently serves as an Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Electric Program in the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Service. He is an electrical engineer with a master's degree in the Administration of Science, Technology, and Innovation. Bob has also worked in electric utilities, cable television, IT consulting, and home building. Bob, welcome to our panel today. I'm really looking forward to your presentation. Thank you. I actually cannot start my video. And let me tell you, it's a little daunting going after Congressman Clyburn. But thank you, John, Michael, Miguel, Dan, and everyone at EESI for setting up this webinar and also inviting me to speak. I am honored actually to be part of this discussion. Next slide, please. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the Rural Energy Savings Program in general, and then also some specifics. I'm not going to go into a deep dive on this because most of you have already heard about the program. But I wanted to talk to you a little about some of the current events and things that are going on. But it's a relatively new program that started with the Agriculture Lact of the Farm Bill of 2014. It's morphed a little bit over the years, actually quite a bit, to the point where we now issue something called a notice of solicitation of applications annually, with the exception of this year because we have not gotten an appropriations bill yet. So we're dealing with just continuing resolutions. The program is still open based on the NOSA from FY 2021. Next slide, please. So this is a RESTB overview. And again, I just want to give you a very, very quick overview of the program itself. It is a relending program where RUS, under the REST program, lends to an eligible borrower. We'll talk about that in a minute. And that eligible borrower then relends to what we call a qualified consumer, which is a consumer that's identified by the eligible borrower. Our funding is 0% interest for up to 20 years. It's really 10 on a payback. But the loan program is for 20 years to the eligible borrower. The eligible borrower then relends that funds for eligible activities, as we call it, at up to 5% for up to 10 years. Next slide, please. So who can be a REST borrower? It's any power district who can't see me. Anyway, for some reason, as I say, I cannot show you my video. But a REST borrower can be anyone within our typical FFP, what we call our FFP, infrastructure loan program. There we go, where we spend or allocate approximately $6 billion a year for electric infrastructure across the co-ops across the country, or an entity primarily owned or controlled by one of those entities. Or new in the 2018 Farm Bill, any corporation states, territories, et cetera, that provide or propose to provide energy storage or energy conservation measures and related services improvements, financing, or relending. This would also include green banks. Next slide, please. So the program profile is, as of FY 2021, we have 31 approved loans that range in size from $150,000 to approximately $50 million. There is no upper or lower limit to REST at this point. Average loan size is just less than $7 million as of now. And we do have a lot of approved loans, not only for energy efficiency, but also for renewable energy. We have one full loan for manufactured home replacement, which is a big deal for us, and we're hoping to see some really good things out of that this year. FY22 funding is currently in excess of $200 million. So we have at least $200 million available. Next slide, please. Wanted to give you a snapshot of the list of eligible activities. This is directly out of the regulation. I don't want to talk about this too long, or I want to talk about this in general. But the most important part of this is number 15, which is other approved activities, investments, directly related to energy efficiency implementation. The important thing there is this is a fluid document, it's a fluid program. We did not, two years ago, have the ability to lend REST funding for EV chargers. And now it is likely to be a very, very significant focus of REST in the coming years. Next slide, please. So some of the popular REST eligible activities are building envelope improvements, windows, doors, insulation, et cetera. HVAC upgrades and replacements, especially in manufactured housing. But this is a significant and relatively easy project that can be done to reap a fairly significant energy efficiency benefit. EV chargers, battery storage, solar, and other clean energy projects, both on and off the grid, are also an important part of the program at this point. Next slide, please. So this is actually language from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, since we don't have one for 2022. But what this does is it gives you information showing that in these appropriations bills, we've actually made adjustments to REST. These adjustments are only available for the length of the appropriation. We hope that these will actually be incorporated into the Farm Bill or some other act going forward. But we take advantage of these when we have the opportunity. And that would be, for instance, if there are systems out there and certainly within the co-op world, there are that meet the morality statute in some areas, but not in others. This provision allows those particular borrowers to include their REST program throughout the entire service territory. And this is also where we're allowed to loan for the replacement of manufactured housing units, which, as I say, is just in its infancy. But we hope will be utilized more and more as time goes on. The FY 2021 budget authority, budget authority being an important term, is $11 million and available until expended. People ask all the time what this means. Let's talk about that in the next slide. So what makes up a REST budget? And really, what is budget authority? What is the subsidy rate? And how is it all calculated? Budget authority is not the actual budget. It is government cost, not necessarily the amount of loan funds that are available. So government costs include the cost of capital, because this is a zero interest program. And even the Treasury rate is higher than zero at this point, even though it's fairly low. That is the cost of capital that it costs the government to actually run a program like REST. Operational costs, which is fairly low as well, because we only have a couple of part-time employees, myself and one or two others, that actually run this entire program. And also the delinquency rate for the loans that we have outstanding. And I am very, very happy to say that our delinquency rate for REST is, was, and has been, zero. We have not had a late payment. We have not had a delinquency at all throughout the entire process of this program, which is wonderful as far as we're concerned. So the amount of budget that we actually have available is the budget authority, which in this case was 11 million for 2021, and divided by the subsidy rate. Oh, I also want to talk about the budget authority that's actually broken into a couple of different pieces. Fiscal year funding, which is funding for one or a specific number of years. Congressman Clybert actually talked about 200 million in the Build Back Better bill. That would have been stretched out over a 10-year period. OK, so fiscal year funding is if we got that 11 million for just FY 2021. But if you remember, it said available till expended, which means it's no-year money. And we are actually allocated that funding until we spend it, or Congress can sweep it back, but they have not done that to this point. So again, getting back to the budget calculation, it is the budget authority divided by the subsidy rate. Our subsidy rate for REST has run up until this year, has been running in the 12% to 14% range, OK? Let's assume it's 10. And let's assume it's $10 million that we're allocated. So you divide the $10 million by 0.1, 10%. It actually means that we have $100 million to loan out for that particular year. The no-year money carries over from year to year. The budget gets transferred back into using the subsidy rate, back into budget authority that's added to the budget authority that's being allocated for that particular fiscal year, and then that rolls up into the budget for each year. And currently, we have in excess of $200 million available for REST right now, even without the continuing resolution. Next slide, please. So I'd like to talk to you a little bit about some success stories that we have from our borrowers. This is Umatilla Electric, which is a small cooperative in eastern Oregon. They originally had an energy efficiency program over about 10 years, from 2009 to 2018. They made 23 loans at 5% interest. When they implemented REST in 2019, their energy saver loan exceeded $500,000 for, well, for 2021, and a million dollars since January 19. So more than 100 members have received loans at about 2% for mostly weatherization projects. Their on-bill financing, which is a requirement within the REST statute, it allows them to utilize member information, as far as credit, et cetera, to allow easier qualification for their loans. 80% of their loan applications are approved. And they have other ways to approve them as well. But what's interesting is, and again, it gets back to the delinquency rate within REST itself, currently, and I just checked last week, they have no member loan default since they began the program. It's great, because it gives folks the opportunity to actually reduce their electric bill while they're paying off these particular projects. Next slide, please. OK, let's jump all the way across the country down to where the next neighboring state to Congress and Clyburn, and that is PD Electric, which is there's a PD in North Carolina, and also one in South Carolina. This one's the one in North Carolina. And this slide shows you a screenshot of the software program that the automated meter reading information provides. And I'm hoping you can actually read this, because I'm showing it. OK, a description of the energy efficiency project, the REST project for this particular homeowner, is metal ductwork, which means what was done. A contractor came in and reattached and probably insulated the metal ductwork under a manufactured home. What the upper right corner shows is the kilowatt hours per degree day of improvement. And long story short, that shows the percentage reduction in their energy usage over time. And that's 38 and change percent. So you can imagine what a home with limited means, what a reduction of an energy bill in the order of 38 to 40 percent would do to them. And realize, Congressman Clyburn talked about a $400 bill. We hear regularly of people, again, this is in North Carolina, that have bills at summer and winter in the order of $700. So 40% of, let's say, $400 is still on the order of $160 a month, which provides a lot of extra food and or gas for a particular family. Next slide, please. So I just wanted to wrap up by giving you some energy efficiency benefits from three different perspectives. From the consumer perspective, obviously there's reduced energy costs over time and also an increase in quality of life. If you're living in a dwelling that is drafty, has poor or broken windows, doors, poor insulation, et cetera, the inclusion of that with the ability to do it over time truly increases the quality of life for those dwelling in that unit. From the cooperative perspective, it helps to reduce the actual peak load on the system. Peak power is very, very expensive. I have a house on the northern neck electric co-op system in very eastern Virginia. And it gives us the opportunity to reduce our energy costs. But the peak can be up to $3 per kilowatt hour. So another piece of it from the cooperative standpoint is to reduce infrastructure costs. If you can reduce that peak, that means you don't have to push as much power down the line. You don't have to update it as often. To the society, it is the opportunity to improve decarbonization through energy efficiency measures. Because in reality, the coal is about 30% efficient. If you can reduce that by one kilowatt hour and effectively, you've reduced the carbonization by three times that amount. And it also reduces impact on social programs, and providing energy assistance, health care, and also schools. Kids that are more healthy have more of a propensity to actually go to school.  I'm done. Thank you. Thanks, Bob. That was a really excellent way to kick off the panel. And for folks in our audience, you were just given a very concise overview of a program that can get a little complicated. So if you want to go back and revisit any of Bob's slides, thankfully, everything will be posted online at www.esi.org. You can also go back and watch his presentation again. RESTP is a great program, but the explanation you just heard about, Credit Subsidy and Budget Authority, all that stuff was gold. So it's a great way to kick off the panel. And now we will hear from Doug O'Brien. Doug O'Brien is the president and CEO of the National Cooperative Business Association, CUSA International, where he works with the cooperative community, both domestically and internationally, to deepen its impact on individuals and communities. NCBA CUSA is the primary voice for cooperatives in the United States. They use the cooperative business model to empower people and their businesses and communities. Previously, Doug led the work of the White House Rural Council and served in top positions at USDA Rural Development. Doug, I'll turn it over to you. And thank you, and thank you to the entire EESI team. It's great to be part of this conversation. Wonderful presentations already by Congressman Clyburn and Bob, and I'm looking forward to the presentations from my other colleagues here. So much so that I'm going to be pretty brief. I just want to make a couple points with a few slides here about setting a little bit more context. So the two points I'll be making are going to be, you know, why cooperatives and just a little bit more about what are cooperatives. And then I want to follow up on that last point that Bob made in a point that the congressman made so eloquently on what rest can really mean in terms of the quality of life for rural households, and in particular, low-income rural households as Dan mentioned, NCBA-CLUSA is the APEX Association for all kinds of co-ops here in the United States. So in our association, we have rural-electric cooperatives. We have agriculture cooperatives, food co-ops, worker co-ops, housing co-ops, et cetera. And our job is to advocate and promote for the cooperative business model. And let's talk about the just a quick context on co-ops here in the United States. You on the screen there, a number of data points. I'm just going to point to the ones over on the right-hand side there. In the United States, there's maybe 65, maybe 70,000 establishments that are cooperatives, cooperatively owned. I'm going to talk a little bit more just what does that mean. But I want to talk about electric co-ops. They power about 20 million homes, schools, and businesses across the United States. So co-ops are not a marginal idea. They really have gone to scale for rural electrics, for agriculture, for credit unions, and other places. In fact, so much so that one out of three people in the United States are a member of a co-op. And next slide, please, Dan. So co-ops are their businesses that are owned and controlled by the people who use the business. In the case of rural electric cooperatives, those are consumers, their households, their businesses, their farms, and rural places. They are the members of the business. And through a democratic process, a democratically elected board, these rural electric co-ops are controlled by the people who use them. And they benefit the people that use them. And what are those benefits of cooperative ownership? First, they meet needs that many times private markets and government programs don't meet. So they're solution machines that otherwise that the public and private sector is not meeting. We see data that co-ops tend to survive at a greater rate over a longer period of time. Because co-ops have a longer vision. They don't have a sort of a financial quarter type of rise. And they're looking at the long-term interest of their members, given the nature of the entity. We also see that co-ops, they have a better economic multiplier in local economies. It makes a lot of sense, because the people who own and get the benefit of those co-ops are there, right there, in the community. So obviously, you're going to get better community impact relative to firms that are owned and controlled by outside entities, outside investors, et cetera. And finally, the co-ops give people who use and benefit from that service or from that good. They give them a voice. They give them an opportunity to really participate in the business in a meaningful way, given that democratic governance. Next slide, please. Just a few numbers. You saw one already. There's 20 million businesses and households that are served by rural electric co-ops. There's more than 900 rural electric cooperatives across the country make huge contributions to local economies, contribute 88 and a half billion dollars nearly to the US GDP annually. So just a few numbers there. You can check those numbers out later, as we've already posted those PowerPoints. Next slide, please, Dan. All right, so you saw some numbers. I like maps. Take a look at this map, who and where are served by rural electric co-ops? 56% of the nation's landmass, certainly up through the spine of the country, almost all of it. And then as you move towards the coast, some significant coverage, but not as universal, but really a significant coverage by these member-owned utilities. Next slide. So this is an important one, and I'm hoping that the next slide, at least on mine, Dan, the... Oh, there it is. Here it comes. Oh, that's interesting. It's switching back and forth there for me. But I'll make the point very quickly. Imagine these two really important maps come together, that electric co-op territory that we've already seen, and then the high poverty territory. And you'll see that there's a very significant overlap. That is, most of the high poverty counties in the United States, the vast majority are rural, and the vast majority of those counties are served by rural electric cooperatives. Why is that important? Next slide, Dan. OK, just a couple data points here that I want to dig into, the energy burden as a percent of household income. The national rate, about 3.3% of household income goes to the electric bill. In rural, it's about 25% higher, which is a lot, right? So that's 4.4% of that household income. And then low income is nearly three times, two and a half, three times the national average for the energy burden, and that's at 9%. And we know, and we've heard already some specific examples from Congressman Clyburn and Bob, that that number can be a lot higher for some households, particularly those, you know, there's data that shows that older people, that BIPOC communities, that renters, and those who live in manufactured housing, you know, that percentage of their income can go well over 9, 10 into the double digits. Now, those are just numbers, but what does that mean? Those are dollars, particularly in these low income households. Those are dollars that are competing for food. They're competing for perhaps medicine in the household.  They're competing to put the gas in the car or to make sure that, you know, that late model automobile can be maintained and kept up. And so, you know, so that folks can get to their job, into school, into the hospital, et cetera. I mean, these are real world things that Congressman Clyburn talked about earlier. And that's why I get really excited about this program, because I and, you know, many of us, I'm sure, on this webinar today, we've thought of, you know, what are the tactics that can really move the needle for rural households in terms of increasing their quality of life and in particular for those households that have low income. And RASP is one of the most effective tools, in my opinion. Next slide. So, Bob covered this. You can go to the next slide, Dan. That was just a summary of how it works, but Bob did an excellent job at that. Look forward to hearing from others and look forward to the questions and the conversation. Thank you for the opportunity, ESI, and my colleagues here. Thank you, Doug. And you thank the entire ESI team, and I probably should thank the entire NCBA-CLUSA team, especially Kate Latour, who's been so helpful to us on all things RASP. So thanks again for your presentation, and thanks for all of your support for RASP and a nice working relationship with ESI that it goes back many years. If you have questions in our audience today, as a reminder, briefly, there are a couple ways you can ask them. One, you can send us an email, and you should send the email to askask.esi.org. You can also follow us online on Twitter at EESI online, and you can send us in the questions that way, and we'll do our best to incorporate those questions into our discussion with all of our panelists after our fourth speaker. But that brings me to our third speaker today. Denise Abdul-Raman is an Energy Democracy Fellow for the National NAACP Environmental Climate Justice Program. Among our many responsibilities and interests, Denise supports the NAACP's Equitable Clean Energy Initiative, its Power Up Clean Energy and Jobs Initiative, its Black Green Pipeline Initiative, and its Just Transportation and Equitable Goods Movement. Denise advances equitable clean energy policy and practices that ramp up minority and women business enterprises and give them a fair chance. She holds a bachelor's degree in management, MBA in healthcare management, and a health informatics designation from Indiana University School of Informatics, and she was a podcast guest in season two of The Climate Conversation. So be sure to check that out. Denise, we're really looking forward to your presentation. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you so much, Dan, and to EESI and my distinguished panelists. I would just like to share some nuances around this very important topic. I first want to start with that. The NAACP has 2,500 branches across the U.S., which obviously includes rural communities. In fact, our leadership and president and CEO, Derek Johnson, lives near and around in some of those areas. We are embarking on 113 years as of February 12th of the existence of our organization and our program, the Environmental Climate Justice Program, is about 12 years old. However, we have resolutions on energy, climate, and conservation that go back to the 1970s since the time of the energy crisis. Some of how I want to present is always human-centered and just noting that we believe that energy is a human right, so no one should die from the cold of the winter and nor should they die from the heat from the summer. And just visually here, this is our chairwoman, Kathy Eglin, who lives in Mississippi, who recently deployed solar on her home and also made her house a climate-efficient home. She has all the energy efficiency and all the different things to make her home resilient to the impacts of climate. In addition, she's just an example of, there's a report that came out from ACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE that indicates how Americans living in rural areas spend a disproportionate high share of their income on their energy bills, and rural households have a median energy burden 4.4% compared to the national burdens of 3.3% and rural low income households are even worse off shouldering a median energy burden almost three times greater than the burden by their higher income counterparts. Other rural residents hit hard include elderly, non-white, renting households and those living in multifamily or manufactured homes. The problem is most glaring in the east and in the southeast. About 41% of the households in rural areas have incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level compared with roughly one third of the households in urban areas. And for example, African American rural households are three times as likely to live in substandard housing as other rural residents. The historical lack of affordable and adequate housing options in rural communities fuels many challenges. And then so I've just highlighted a little bit about our advocacy, the high energy burdens and then just a little round climate according to our NAACP lights out in the cold report states that nationwide have annual temperatures that have been rising over the last 50 years. The hottest parts of the country include Texas and the southwest and Florida have already experienced large increases in extreme heat days 90 degrees, 95, 100 and extreme heat when paired with rising humidity levels makes blistering hot days more dangerous. And this heat is increasing over the next decades. And the heat is already the number one weather related killer in the United States triggering asthma heart attacks and other serious health impacts. And so reducing one's energy burden making the energy efficient housing honing into clean energy is a advocacy or something that we need to do in a fierce urgency of now in order to save lives. Then as we speak to moving the money. One, this is a model of training in Evansville NAACP modeling the training of building solar and partnering with several different partners. And as we think about the moving in the money that yes there are many job opportunities for just transition in this clean energy space when solar geothermal and energy efficiency, which energy efficiency is the highest growing industry in this clean energy realm. And also we do not want to forget electric vehicles and the placement of their charging stations equitably in disadvantaged communities. We appreciate the equity commission that will advise the secretary of agriculture by identifying the USDA programs and policies, systems and structures and practices that contribute to barriers to inclusion or assets access and systemic discriminations or exacerbate or perpetuate racial and economic health and social disparities. This is a keen opportunity to ensure that the rural energy savings program funding and the infrastructure funding and the build back better soon to be funded program make their way to these disadvantaged communities. We need accountability to ensure that the low interest capital makes its way to communities that need it economically for their ability to be resistant to the impacts of climate and to support their ability to thrive so that they can work play and worship. Thank you. Thank you Denise. It's great to see you today. I really appreciate your presentation. And as a reminder, if you want to go back and revisit Denise's remarks or if you want to go back and revisit any of the slides either from Denise or any of our other speakers, everything is available online, www.esa.org. Also, Denise and Doug both mentioned a study by AC Tripoli. That of course is the American Council for Energy Efficient Economy. Their rural report is a resource that I think we turn to all the time. And if you are interested in a little bit more about where those energy burden numbers come from, you really can't go wrong by visiting the American Council for Energy Efficient Economy. They've been really, really good work on that topic. Our fourth and final panelist today is Travis Neal. Travis is a certified public accountant and the head accountant at Orcas Power and Light Cooperative, which serves the San Juan Islands in Washington State. Travis was instrumental in three successful Opalco applications to RASP, totaling $47 million. The Switch It Up program at Opalco is on the leading edge of equitable on-bill financing program design for beneficial electrification on-site solar, battery storage, electric vehicle charging, and community solar. Travis joined Opalco in 2015 when he moved to Orcas Island from Seattle with his wife and son. Travis, welcome to our briefing today and I will turn it over to you. Thank you, Dan. Can you all see my screen okay? I just want to double check that we can see it. I can see it and I can hear you just fine. Great. Well yeah, thank you, Dan. Thank you, John, Michael, Miguel, everybody at EESI. You'll see more why I have a lot of reasons to thank you all at EESI. I've loved these great presentations so far and it's an honor to be here and be included among all these great presenters. Wonderful lead-in from Congressman Clyburn and great overview of the REST program from Bob. I really appreciated hearing all of that. So lead into a little bit about Orcas Power and Light Cooperative. As Dan mentioned, we're a rural electric utility that's taken advantage of the REST program and it has done a lot of great things for us and so we'll review some of that. Just a little bit of background about us. We have been an electric utility since 1937, serving San Juan County and Washington State. You can see a few of the images here. We are very rural, sort of isolated as well, county off the coast of Washington, sort of northwest of Seattle, you can see. And we're very small. Bob mentioned Umatillo was a small cooperative. We are maybe a tiny cooperative then. We've got 15,000 meters, 238 gigawatt hours purchased power in 2021. And since 2015, we have had a for-profit, broadband subsidiary that's sort of piggyback off of our own fiber optic backbone grid, connecting our own grid together with smart devices. And one of the unique challenges of our service territory being very rural. We also have 15 distribution submarine cables and 10 transmission submarine cables, which increase the cost of our power quite a bit. Those are very expensive infrastructure to lay in and replace. And they do last a while, but they cost a lot when we do have to replace them. So that's a little bit about us.  And when it finally came along, I think we were one of the first to jump on the opportunity because it was exactly where we were trying to go with our utility. You know, having a fiber optic broadband subsidiary just a few years earlier, we were really going down this road of figuring out how we can embrace beneficial electrification, resiliency in our community, also help our community out. San Juan County happens to be of the 3,060 counties in the United States. I think the last data I have from the Economic Policy Institutes were number 37 in income inequality. And what that means is there are a lot of wealthy, high income folks out here. You can sort of see how there's a lot of waterfront available. But that also means there's a lot of poverty here. And we're not a persistent poverty county, but because of that, we're a high tourist location. And there's a lot of working class folks that the utility can really benefit by sort of being an instrument of change and benefit to their life. So we'll talk about the Switch It Up on Bill Financing program. And so Opalco were turning 85 years old this year in 2022. It took 82 years for us to start on Bill Financing. And we did that with the help of REST. As I said, we were one of the early applicants and received $5.8 million initially to begin our on Bill Financing program. And at that time, I realized, okay, now we've got to have an on Bill Financing program. What do we do now? And I actually Googled just how to create an on Bill Financing program. And that's how I found EESI and got in touch with John, Michael, and Miguel and with their help and collaborative efficiency, we were able to design a really awesome on Bill Financing program that since 2019 now has, as you can kind of see, we've financed over 220 energy efficiency projects for our members for over $2 million. Appetite is high. That initial $5.8 million is going fast. It's going to be gone before we know it. And so since then, we've applied for and been successful in, and now we have around 47 million aggregate of REST funds available. And with that, we're really, really excited to expand our programs. We started out only financing really ductless heat pumps, heat pump water heaters. Being in the Northwest, we are a winter peaker. And folks heating is a large part of their energy cost. Paired with that, there's no natural gas out here. Fossil fuels are another primary source of heating for a lot of homes. And those are expensive. Propane has to be barged out here. It's not down the road. You know, so there's all these other shipping costs sort of that increase the cost of living in the county here. So electricity, it really is by far the best use of heating and the biggest impact that we can have to lower our members' energy bills. Overall energy burdens, not necessarily electricity costs because our program was initially focused on beneficial electrification. So we're trying to move folks off of propane and onto electricity so they could save money. You know, especially by having a ductless heat pump, heat pump water heaters, these things are all have great impacts in our community. We were, as Bob mentioned, we were one of the few co-ops that we applied for and sort of asked if we could finance sort of the last mile fiber to the premise with an energy efficiency bundle. The way that we saw the demand within our community and the devices that we wanted to finance were in home battery storage and sense energy monitors and Wi-Fi controllers for the ductless heat pumps that are going in heat pump water heaters. And as we're in the process of changing out our meters to AMI meters, we want to have that ability to have that two-way communication with these devices in the future. And due to the limited internet availability in the county, it's really not possible without a consistent internet connection. And so the ability to finance just that last fiber drop as long as we're pairing it with some energy efficiency measures, that has a huge impact. And now that house is primed for the future of where we're going to go. You know, whether they have just a Wi-Fi controller for their ductless heat pump, whereas in the future they can have a smart EV charging station that can have two-way communications with our AMI meters. And they can be in part of other incentive programs that will develop in the future, especially as it relates to in-home battery storage and residential rooftop solar. If we can use those assets, they can benefit as part of these programs. That fiber connection is absolutely critical for greater energy efficiency savings for all our members in the future. And community solar is a big piece. I am really excited about that. That's huge. You see a picture of our first community solar array on the screen here. And this was a great project, but one of the things that limited us was that we didn't have a mechanism for low to moderate income members to participate. There was a small carve out of the array that directly benefited low to moderate income members, about 10% of the array. However, if our members wanted to invest in that community solar array, they had to pay for that and they had to come out of pocket for it. In a lot of cases, that's really applicable. Or it's not available to them. So we're currently in the middle of building another micro grid with a two megawatt community solar array that should be constructed in 2022 here. And I'm really excited to have the ability to on-bill finance community solar subscriptions. And at 2% interest, that's one thing I didn't mention about our program is that we were able to design the on-bill financing program in such a way that it really lowers our administrative burden. And we're able to offer financing at 2% interest. Even though I think initially we had the ability to go up to 3%, recently we had the ability to go up to 5%. We're still at 2% and it's working okay for us so far. And we'll see how adding new measures sort of changes that. But so far, we're financing everything at 2% interest over 10 years on the members power bill. And they're really able to, as Dan mentioned earlier, pay for these energy efficiency measures while they're reaping the savings. And hopefully in most cases, we're seeing a net zero impact because we are a winter peaker. There's greater savings being reaped in the winter months and maybe less so in the summer months. But overall, we're seeing having a great impact. And we're also expanding and financing our first weatherization measures. So we've started doing installation. We've got our first application going through there as well. So it's been absolutely transformative as you can see about what our members can do, the ways in which they can save money, improve their homes. And, you know, as I think Bob mentioned earlier in terms of defaults, we financed over 220 projects now for 220 different members. Since 2019, it's been two and a half years and we've had zero, zero defaults now and ever. And we do have sort of a loss reserve that that's part of the rest program that sort of requires you to sort of make sure that you can take a small risk. But so far so good. Knock on wood. We're doing great. So moving on and this is sort of, we've touched on this a little bit of rest impact on the cooperative role. So as I mentioned, Opalco is 85 years old. It took us 82 years to have an on bill financing program with which wouldn't have been possible without these rest funds. Although we had a great desire in the community for things like this, and we had a desire within our utility to be able to provide these services to our members. It also took us 78 years to have a broadband subsidiary. So up until 2015, internet connection was not something that was talked about in our county. So over the last seven years, we've seen a tremendous transformation. And our cooperative has really been at the heart of that. And so providing internet connections for folks to work remotely and sort of create a little bit of a middle class in terms of allowing new jobs to be in our county and participate in our community is transformative in itself. Not to mention pairing it with now the energy sort of revolution that we're seeing in 2021 was another great example why this is all so important to us in June and July. We experienced a unprecedented long duration heat wave in the Northwest, Seattle and our service territory as well, which there were deaths associated with it. And it was not something, you know, these heat waves are not something that we're used to in the Pacific Northwest. And pairing that with a lot of the sort of there's forest fires coming from British Columbia, Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, and making the air very, you know, unbreathable and deadly in certain cases to to folks with certain conditions. Ductless heat pumps are a great solution for cooling your house down, you know, and some air conditioning is something we've never thought about before, really, you know, in our neck of the woods. And but it sure is now. And on top of that, also in 21, 21 at the end of December, we experienced another long duration, unprecedented cold wave, a freezing wave, I guess, you know, so I grew up in Seattle, been in the Pacific Northwest my whole life. And I just remember thinking I've never seen anything like this out here before we were in the teens for week, week or more at a time. And maybe that's one thing at other places in the country. But when your homes aren't equipped for that, and your people aren't used to that, and we're just not ready to expect it, heating and controlling your energy bill during that heating so you don't have outrageous, all of a sudden kilowatt hour usage or propane usage was really important. So the changing world and the changing, you know, it's just something that we're really trying to be prepared for. And rest is allowing us to position ourselves for the future. And I also wanted to touch on the way that we're able to utilize rest to increase equity and includes inclusivity within our community. I mentioned that about with our community solar array, how low to moderate income members weren't really able to participate if they couldn't afford to pay for it in cash. Well, now they can. And, you know, so now they can have solar and they can be part of the overall energy community and changing the landscape and be an, you know, be an active member in the change. And without rest, it just wouldn't be possible without the funding for our on-bill financing program. And so I've seen the co-op change a lot in the last 70 years. And I, you know, the next five to 10 years, it's going to continue to change a lot. And the co-op is changing from just providing electricity, basic service to being a more integral part of the community, providing, you know, other services that are absolutely the most important for our members' future. And obviously, it's been great for fostering partnerships and lessons learned through rest. We've then now connected with EESI and co-ops all across the country. And we're talking about on-bill financing programs and innovative ways to use REST funds that might be possible now, or maybe we need to ask for, you know, permission and sort of understand, you know, is this possible within the balance of the REST program? And so we're starting to see that come out. And that just helps everybody. It helps everybody across the country. It's certainly helped. Fork is Power and Light cooperative. We then have in turn helped numerous cooperatives across the country and have shared lessons learned and best practices. And it's just a wonderful thing all around. I absolutely love the REST program for obviously reasons. And EESI as well has been pretty integral in making sure that we've got a great design for our on-bill financing program so we can really make the most of the funds that we have available. And with that, I, you know, I just think I want to wrap it up. And I just want to thank everybody again for having me here. It's been an honor and happy to participate and help other co-ops if in any way possible, if anybody has any questions. So that'll say thank you. And that'll be my time. Thank you, Travis. That was a great presentation. And thanks especially for helping put all of this in the, you know, sort of a practical context of what this looks like on the ground. So thank you very much for that presentation. While our panelists turned their videos back on, you heard a couple names tossed about over the course of our panel today. One of them you heard was Miguel. That's Miguel Ianas Barnwebo. He is a colleague of mine at EESI. You might remember him from co-moderating the Green Banks and the National Climate Bank briefing last year. You also heard the name John Michael. And that's John Michael Cross. And John Michael will be joining us to lead our Q&A today. John Michael has been with EESI since 2011. He works on our on-bill financing program, our energy efficiency, beneficial electrification, and helps folks like Travis coordinate with folks like Bob and sort of makes the magic of on-bill financing a reality. So John Michael, I will mute myself and turn it over to you to lead our Q&A. Thanks so much. Great. Thanks, Dan. And thanks for all our speakers. Yeah, my name was thrown around way too much for my liking. But I've enjoyed working with you all for a number of years. And honestly, you guys do all the hard work. I just check in with you every once in a while and point people to you to answer the hard questions. So with that, let's get to some more questions. So I think I want to start off today by asking something that obviously a couple of you have already touched on, but it would be good to dive into it a little bit more. So two big issues for rural America are job creation and broadband expansion. Can you touch on how the issues we're discussing today connect with these important topics? And this question is open to anyone and everyone. Do you want me to go first? Yeah, I don't want to take up any more time. I feel like I sort of touched on this a little bit. It was definitely part of our plan and it is part of our plan going forward. So I'll leave it to you guys. No, I think you did a great job, Travis. And the work that you do is really a poster child for what we try to do with REST. You've done a spectacular job of turning what was a pretty fledgling program into something that really is, it exonifies what it is that I think our Congressman Clyburn and all the others actually intended to do. But getting back to the focus of the question, John Michael, job creation was certainly a focus under REST. Again, it's not specific to the eight-page statute that is the REST statute, but clearly it was intended because the goal was to enhance the local economy in a manner that also included energy efficiency. And to that point, it was designed to provide funding for local tradesmen, companies, etc., to have the ability to do work that's critically important in many of these rural areas that otherwise would not have been done because money wasn't available for it. So the opportunity to basically pay over time is very, very critical to many of these important projects. As far as broadband expansion is concerned, the USDA, and more specifically Rural Utilities Service, in addition to many other programs within the USDA family, but the Rural Utilities Service has two different areas that address broadband as far as loans and or grants are concerned. One is our telecom program, our broadband program, which is frankly the lion's share of funding that our Rural Utilities Service offers. It's primarily for infrastructure and can be used for everything from the internet to television, to telemetering, to whatever. It's pretty much an open program, must be in rural areas, must provide a minimum, and I don't want to say what it is because it changes, but in essence a robust internet structure. The Rural Utilities Service electric program also has the opportunity to loan for fiber, both for the co-ops use and in certain circumstances, as long as we don't try to provide loans that compete with each other for all intents and purposes. There's more detail than that, but at this level we'll stay there. We can also loan up to 15% of our electric program funding for infrastructure. RESP, as Travis so eloquently said, has a very, very small component to it as an eligible activity for fiber drops all behind the meter and specifically for enhancement for energy efficiency. So we're doing our best and the infrastructure bill actually has funding for our brethren over in the broadband and telecom programs where we're still looking for some help with the Build Back Better Act for the electric program itself. Hi, this is Denise. I'd like to just say that I think it's very important when you have, I think it's millions and millions of dollars that are being provided to the various entities to then redistribute those funds, then there is going to be job creation. And so from our perspective of making sure that things are equitable, diverse and inclusive, I'll just say that according to Blacks and Energy in 2009, African Americans paid 41 billion to the energy sector, but only held 1% of the energy jobs. Currently, we hold about 7 to 8% in wind and solar. And so the idea of this capital investment and jobs being created, we do need to ensure that disadvantaged communities, again, are trained via the Clean Energy Corps or by industry to prepare for this green economic paradigm shift. Organizations like mine with the NAACP, we've been focused on building the Black to Green pipeline. We've been powering up jobs doing demonstration models in Indiana, California, Colorado, to show having partnerships with unions and training institutions and creating principles around how these jobs need to training need to be deployed, whether it's rural or urban alike, and ensuring that the policies and practices line up and ensuring fair chance as well for those returning citizens or formerly incarcerated. So it can make all the difference in people's lives. And so yes, this investment in dollars is extremely important. And in regards to broadband, this is slightly connected in the model we did in Evansville, people didn't have access to internet, especially during the pandemic. And the libraries had limited hours in order for them to access the internet. And so I just cannot imagine that they had challenged, I cannot imagine someone trying to secure a job and not have broadband access. And so certainly, that is keenly important. And the jobs that come along with that, thank you. All right, great. Thanks, everyone. What I forgot to do before I ask the first question is just throw another reminder out to our viewers that you are welcome to submit questions. You can tweet at us if that is the popular pop. That's the right verb to use. And also ask at EESI.org. I think also you just pop a comment into the YouTube comments. We are watching those as well. And since everyone was very much on time in their presentations, thank you, by the way. We still have quite a bit of time for Q&A. So what makes REST a good tool to improve equity and environmental justice outcomes? Or how could it be used in a way that maybe it hasn't been yet? Again, this is for anyone. I'll start, but I think I'll be brief because I really want to hear from Denise and Travis, but maybe emphasizing how REST can make a difference on that quality of life in household income for relatively low income people in rural places. And how a cooperative can help a family achieve those incomes, there's many different tactics. Bob, I think mentioned, I know I did before the webinar, that there is a carve out for persistent poverty areas in REST. So that's just a little bit more assurance, I think, from the cooperatives in those regions that USDA is focused on working with those partners, with those cooperatives. And then the cooperatives, I think innovators like Travis, you know, in this still relatively young program, we're seeing some great examples of co-ops. And we saw that long list that Robert showed, that Bob showed before, and all the different tactics that can be used by a co-op to help these households. I think that it's almost kind of limitless on what a co-op might be able to do to help these families. So Denise, I think, well, one, I mean, the program offers a zero percent interest, it has favorable 20-year term. I think the opportunity to have equitable and environmentally just outcome is plausible and can be put in, you know, the tool basket of options. However, at any time you can have someone be able to obtain inclusive on-bill financing. So if these utilities receive these funds and then they offer like an inclusive on-bill financing program, then I believe that that shifts, you know, access to different groups of people that may not normally have access and the ability to make their homes energy efficient or be able to access solar on their rooftop or to be able to participate in a fair and just model of community owned form of solar. So, but certainly the resources that are going to these corporations, to states, territories, subdivisions, agencies, municipalities, people, utility districts, and two cooperatives and so forth, I think it just depends on whether there's a accountability metric to these entities that are receiving these resources. It would be good to create some kind of a guidance document if it doesn't already exist, one that ensures that 40 percent of these resources go to disadvantaged rural communities and reserving and setting amount that ensures that certain people who are suffering from high energy burdens, high unemployment groups that are on the front lines of environmental injustice, that are suffering from the climate changing, are actually obtaining access so that we don't have this great energy divide, so we don't further wane people into energy poverty. It is possible, I think, also as another option to cooperatives, you know, as if they make according to a report by Institute of Local Self-Reliance, there's only about four percent of people of color, African American, that even serve on these cooperative boards. So, if these boards were to become more diverse, it could be that more thought leadership, diverse thought leadership will also help to ensure that these dollars get to disadvantaged communities. Thank you. Yeah, and I'll tack on just briefly. I know I mentioned this a little bit. When we first started our All-Mill Finance and Program with RAS, equity wasn't really consideration of what we thought the impact that we were going to be having. You know, as I mentioned, we're in the, our county is in the top one to two percent of counties in the country for income inequality, and the statistics are interesting, and they don't tell the whole story, because a lot of that income that is there on the other side, that top one percent, does not live in our county year-round, or contribute as part of the community very often. You know, it's very much summer homes, perhaps, and then vacation rentals or things like that occur. So, and since we started financing sort of these heating projects in particular, because our heating bills in the winter time can be quite high, because that is when we peak, you know, I'd say even last month in January, I had at least two members that I was on the phone with that were crying on the other end of the line, because they were so grateful that they could finance this Douglas heat pump, both of them ended up being Douglas heat pumps, because it could save them so much in their power cost every month. And as I mentioned, in the Northwest, we are not used to extreme climates in any direction. And in 2021, we experienced extreme climates in both directions, very extreme summertime heat wave, and very extreme winter time freezing, which many folks were very shocked with how much kilowatt hours they used and how much that cost it. And if that's a trend of the future, you know, if these sort of swings are going to be occurring sort of more frequently every year, then this is more important than ever to get in the hands of the most people possible, especially the people that are living here year round, you know, and those are the people that need this program. And so it's become a really big part of what we think about when we think about what are we financing, who are we financing it to, what are they able to get, what are the benefits they're going to receive, you know, community solar is a great piece of that. That was very obvious because they didn't have to come out of pocket for this stuff anymore. You know, in 2% interest over 10 years on your power bill, it's unheard of, I can't even think of, you know, and with interest rates rising potentially, this is, it's a huge benefit and, you know, our community is absolutely grateful. So I'm speaking for San Juan County when I'm saying thank you to Bob and RUS, ESI for helping us design our program. It's absolutely, you know, it's extraordinary. There we go. Okay, let me speak in a little bit. I think some of the best, the best that I've seen as far as equity and environmental justice are the presentations are the videos that both the ESI and ACEEE did related to South Carolina. If anybody wants a real reason to go to work on every day and trust me, those of you that work for the government know that it's, it can be a little difficult to work here sometimes. I mean, I run customer service, data calls, FOIA requests, all of that stuff in addition to rest. And we become a pincushion for a lot of people on a daily basis. So when we get positive feedback, like Travis has gotten over the last couple of years or last couple of weeks, it's really, it's very valuable to my staff and myself. And those videos that were put out by both the ESI and the ACEEE are impactful, powerful, and provide in a nutshell better than any of us could ever do the impact, the positive impact that these types of programs have on individuals, especially in manufacturing housing. I'm on a panel right now to work to expand the government's role in the replacement of manufacturing housing and finance and all kinds of other issues that as an engineer, I'll be honest with you, I didn't focus on until recently. But it's really amazing how much these poor people have to pay because they're in a situation that they probably didn't get there on their own volition, but either because of health issues or something else or the whole economic situation of 2008, 2009, many of these folks are still there. They'd love to get out, but they're very concerned and frightened, frankly, that they don't want, they're in a situation now that they can deal with. And many of them are very reticent to replace a manufactured home, for instance, because they don't want to secure any more debt. So we're all trying to work on ways to improve that, and hopefully we'll come up with a solution that works in the next year or two. So that trend, is it, words not working today? It's okay. I'm only moderating a panel. So looking ahead to next few years, this is a question we received transitions from, so what Travis and Bob you were saying. What trends do you see in rural America that might lead to more opportunities to take advantage of rest? Any challenges? And then just quash maybe a couple of questions together that we've received as well as maybe Bob, this is mostly for you. What all can folks take advantage of with rest? There's plenty of eligible measures that I'm not aware of an application that's been in for yet. It's a pretty wide range. So you get more ideas in from applicants. Rest can be doing a lot more things over the next couple of years. Let me answer the last question first. Travis and numerous other of the rest borrowers, applicants and those that are interested in rest have come in with questions of, can you do this? Can you do that? EV chargers is a big one. I can tell you that there's a huge move afoot again with the infrastructure bill primarily under the guise of DOE and DOT to put an electric vehicle charger across system, across the country. We are involved in that because as Dan said and Doug as well, the rural footprint is way larger than the majority of the lower 48 and also Hawaii and Alaska. And we've got interest in both of those states as well. So we're trying to utilize rest funds in addition to all the grant funding and everything else that's coming out of this current administration to improve the quality not only of life but also the economic quality and everything else that's associated with our rural communities. And that's what the USDA does and the rural utility service especially when it comes to the utilities that serve these particular communities. I'll jump into that first part of the question, John Michael, on trends and challenges. Just a few quick ones, a couple that have been mentioned already. The increased build out of broadband over the next few years, both in terms of geography and in terms of speed, I think will provide a lot of rural regions or a lot of rural co-op regions the ability to do more work around smart grid that they can leverage that new broadband that's not as Bob described, that's not financed by rest but now they've got this infrastructure and they can leverage that infrastructure to really do some great things using rest. So I think that's a great big one. I think in terms of challenge, I'll go ping pong here a little bit, in terms of a challenge the sad fact is that and I mentioned this before that I think well over 80 maybe even 90% of all persistent poverty counties are in rural America with many, many of those being minority majority, Native American, Black, Hispanic counties. And as the country continues to look for ways for really tangible ways to deal with inequality and inequity, I think REST will be a tool that people can recognize as one that can be really effective. And then the last thing I'd say in terms of an opportunity over the next few years is I think REST is starting a snowball effect. Now we know that REST now has been around for a number of years and there's some great examples many of which we pointed to and Travis really brought to life, a recent one. But I think this is going to be one of these kind of programs that once the field and in this case rural electric cooperatives and other municipalities see how people are using it in real examples that it's going to go faster and faster and I'm really excited about that. Travis, did you have a final comment? Please go ahead. Oh, I'll just tag on. It's really interesting to me, our co-ops have been around since 1937 and for the first 78 years of its existence, it probably, I guess what I'm trying to say is in the last seven years, it's changed so much more than in the prior 78 years where it's just a distribution cooperative providing power and now the fundamentals of what a distribution cooperative is for us now in the community has shifted very dramatically already in the last five, seven years since being able to have a broadband subsidiary which is sort of a trend that you're seeing across rural American cooperatives and now the REST program is sort of a new piece on top of that where we're able to relend for energy efficiency measures and so I'm seeing that trend as I talk to cooperatives across the country and I'm being connected with them through EESI in many ways sometimes through RUS as well and what I see that we have to implement what we can do in our own service territory and that's very different than what some other counties or cooperatives are going to be able to do in their own service territory but I think what to Doug's point is that we can serve as sort of the example and we've got it, we're using it, we're trying to be innovative with the ways in which we can use it. I'm happy to talk to other co-ops and sort of share our success as other co-ops were able to share their success with me and it sort of goes in tandem with on-built financing program design as well as innovative solutions to problems that your members are, you know, your members have across the country and they're very different across the country and so we're solving our solutions but I think just now having the examples because the REST program is sort of a newer in general being able to see the success stories, the default, the zero default rates for the most part as far as I know for anybody and now with the flexibility with being able to, you know, do different creative things that your members want and that you as a utility want to position yourself and be for your members so I just kind of wanted to add Thanks Travis. That's a great way to wrap up. Unfortunately, we are out of time. John Michael, thank you very much for being in the Q&A and thanks very much to Bob and Doug and Denise and Travis for four excellent presentations. As a reminder, if you would like to go back or this is to our audience, if you'd like to go back and revisit any of their presentations or any of the materials you can access everything by visiting us online at www.esa.org. You can also and this is kind of in response to some of the folks who have asked some questions that we're not going to have time to get to today. We actually do a lot of writing on REST and on bill financing and beneficial electrification and electric school bus electrification and all sorts of topics related to this program so in fact just I think a couple weeks ago our colleague Miguel published some articles about electric school buses. You can read case studies including about Opalco, other utilities co-ops from around the country. So we have a lot more available on this program because it's a good program we really like it and we also write a lot about things like the solar equity principles that the NAACP published last year that we were a big supporter of. So this is in some ways the tip of the iceberg on a small program but one that just generates awful lot of good stories. Also like to once again thank Representative Clyburn for his remarks earlier in our session today. Thanks again to his staff for making that possible. It's always great to welcome him into one of our events and again without Representative Clyburn REST wouldn't be where it is today so we appreciate his support. A couple quick plugs. Denise mentioned some issues related to the Justice 40 initiative. We've also heard a lot about energy efficiency, manufactured housing, heat pumps, standards and codes things like that. Those are topics that we'll be taking a look at coming up. So in a couple weeks we'll be taking a look at energy efficiency programs administered by the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. We will also be looking at large landscape conservation, climate adaptation data programs and then also I think at the beginning of April we'll be taking a look at the status of Justice 40. So if you are interested in those topics please stay tuned. The best way as always to stay up to date with everything we do is to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter climate change solutions and you can do that by visiting us online. You know we heard a lot of great stuff today low-income rural households face much higher energy burden three times higher than average and that's even worse for the elderly people of color. Lower energy bills help those households afford other necessities and it means less waste of energy and that energy can oftentimes come from fossil fuels which means that all of this has a big climate benefit as well. Programs like RASP are a critical resource for rural electric co-ops for example that provide lower no-cost financing and other incentives to their members who lack access to affordable capital for cost-effective energy efficiency and other clean energy improvements. RASP is a great program it's a great example of an existing federal program that does good work every single day and helps people, households and communities all across the country. I'd like to take a quick moment to thank everyone at EESI for making today's briefing possible thanks to Daniel Bryan, Omri, Emma, Allison, Anna, Amber, Savannah, Miguel and of course John Michael and thanks to our Two Spring Interns Emily and Grace. The next slide is a survey link if you have two minutes please we would appreciate your response we know we didn't get to all of our questions today we did our best so we'll take that feedback I'm sure that'll be shared with us in the survey it usually is but we read every response and we do our absolute best to make improvements in our programming if you have ideas if you had any technical issues if there was a problem with the webpage please let us know we want to make these resources as accessible to as many people as possible we'll go ahead and wrap it up there I hope everyone has a great rest of your Tuesday and we'll see you back in a couple weeks for energy efficiency means business thanks everyone have a good afternoon