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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, FEB. 16, 2009 – The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) today honors
Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) with the Association’s Distinguished Service
Award for his efforts on behalf of rural cooperatives.
In the last Congress, Senator Coleman took on the Bush Administration in
support of expanding the Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant (REDLG)
program.
“In his willingness to take on his own party’s leadership in
support of rural constituents, Senator Coleman exemplifies the key political
virtues: tenacity and spine,” said Jack Wolfe, president of the NRECA
Board of Directors.
Although Norm Coleman came to prominence as the mayor of St. Paul, he understands
the needs of rural areas. His Rural Renaissance measure sought to provide support
for forgotten rural areas through programs such as REDLG to create jobs and
spark new opportunities. Following disastrous floods, tornadoes and ice storms,
he has been at the side of cooperatives working to pull their communities back
together and pushed for relief funds.
In the Senate, Coleman proved a staunch friend and stood among a core group
of elected officials to whom NRECA could turn for support of new initiatives
or in defense of existing programs. He was instrumental, for example, in perfecting
the “small co-op” exemption in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, limiting
the reach of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) jurisdiction over
most rural electric co-ops.
In 2006, Coleman led the charge in advocating a provision in the Appropriations
bill that allowed generation and transmission cooperatives to extend their
Rural Utility Service (RUS) loans to meet the useful life of their plants,
a provision that saved cooperative consumer-members millions of dollars.
The following partial list illustrates his helpfulness on key legislative
issues:
- support for disaster assistance;
- support of legislation to remove the anti-trust exemption for railroads;
- support for RUS financing provisions in the 2008 Farm Bill;
- willingness to negotiate on provisions in climate change legislation;
and
- support for Western Area Power Administration funding and fighting against
cost-based rates.
Both the Minnesota cooperatives and the national cooperative program sincerely
appreciate his service in the Senate.
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