A Country Home & Energy Projects Lose

A Country Home & Energy Projects Lose. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

It has always been a bit of the “Us and Them” syndrome when it came to people living in rural areas as opposed to city dwellers but USDA Under Secretary, Dallas Tonsager says some may not understand how involved the Agriculture Department is in promoting and financing home ownership in rural areas.

TONSAGER: There’s a great longstanding tradition by USDA to be involved in home ownership as well as all aspects of the rural economy. The key programs are a single family housing guaranteed loan program which is the primary program tool we use for medium income people. Particularly people who have up to 115% of medium household income or eligible. We do a loan guarantee for a new or for a purchase of an existing home and it’s 100% guarantee of the loan.

Seven proposed Cassia County, Idaho wind energy projects could lose out on millions of dollars once guaranteed under the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act. The Idaho Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday determined it won't extend the increased cap on the guaranteed rates that created a favorable climate for the development of wind energy in Idaho. The PUC opted to limit the amount of power wind and solar projects can qualify for PURPA rates to 100 kilowatts - one one-hundredth of the 10 megawatt cap that was in place until Dec. 14, 2010.

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange report.

(Grange)

That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.