Ohio will soon get a dedicated person to help farmers, ranchers and other landowners apply for federal grants to help fight pollution and climate change.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would hire 40 people as Climate Change Fellows. They will be assigned to Ohio and other states to help people apply for the Rural Energy for America Program, which has $2 billion in funding for clean energy projects.
Anthony Kirkland, director of business and cooperative programs for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said each state's Fellow will have specific tasks.
"Helping to provide guidance to the grant recipient, or to the grant writer," Kirkland explained. "They'll also be helping with evaluating the process of an application and helping with monitoring, making recommendations, providing advice to the coordinator."
USDA officials said they saw a need to hire the Fellows after seeing an increase in applications. The program is part of President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.
The funding is expected to help transform rural power production, with new energy sources through net metering and power purchase agreements.
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