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ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

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modernization, advanced vehicles and fuels, carbon capture and storage,<br />

and clean energy manufacturing.13<br />

Since its actions to mitigate the Great Recession, the Administration<br />

has undertaken a set of efforts to help ensure that renewable energy is<br />

accessible to all Americans and underserved communities, in particular.<br />

Launched in July 2015, the National Community Solar Partnership, part of<br />

the Administration’s SunShot initiative, is fostering innovation in financing<br />

and business models and spreading best practices to facilitate adoption of<br />

solar systems in low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities.14 The U.S.<br />

Department of Housing and Urban Development is facilitating Property<br />

Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing to make it easier and more affordable<br />

for households to finance investments in solar energy and energy efficiency.<br />

The Administration has set a goal to bring 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar<br />

to low- and moderate-income families by 2020, and the U.S. Department<br />

of Agriculture has awarded almost $800 million to guarantee loan financing<br />

and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses<br />

(USDA 2016). USDA programs focusing on renewable energy have resulted<br />

in support for the construction of six advanced biofuel production facilities,<br />

more than 4,000 wind and solar renewable electricity generation facilities,<br />

and more than 100 anaerobic digesters to help farm operations capture<br />

methane to product electricity (Vilsack 2016). The Administration has also<br />

set a goal for the U.S. Department of the Interior to approve 20,000 MW<br />

of renewable energy capacity on public lands by 2020, and has set ambitious<br />

annual goals for the U.S. General Services Administration to purchase<br />

minimum percentages of its electricity from renewable sources, reaching 100<br />

percent in 2025; both of these update and expand on earlier such goals in<br />

the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EOP 2013, EOP 2015). The Administration<br />

has also expanded opportunities to join the solar workforce with programs<br />

like the Solar Instructor Training Network, AmeriCorps funding, and Solar<br />

Ready Vets to help reach the goal of training 75,000 workers to enter the<br />

solar industry by 2020.<br />

13 See CEA (2016c) for more on the impacts of these policies and more detail on clean energy<br />

support provided by ARRA. Some funded programs were extended or had greater take-up than<br />

anticipated, so the total allocation of ARRA-related clean energy programs will be more than<br />

$90 billion; CEA calculations indicate that just under $90 billion of ARRA clean energy-related<br />

dollars had been spent by the end of 2015.<br />

14 The SunShot initiative in the U.S. Department of Energy, launched in 2011, has the goal of<br />

making solar electricity cost competitive with conventional forms of electricity generation by<br />

2020.<br />

Addressing Climate Change | 435

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