In October 2016, Dairyland Power Cooperative began the federal environmental review for its 102-mile Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line, a project to deliver power to millions of homes and businesses across Wisconsin, Iowa and other parts of the Upper Midwest.

In January 2020, the La Crosse, Wisconsin-based G&T received approval.

In September 2024—after multiple legal challenges despite the government finding that the project wouldn't cause significant environmental impacts—the 345-kilovolt line finally entered service.

“It's really important that we're able to get these projects done in a reasonable timeframe, and nearly 10 years is not a reasonable timeframe," says Katie Thomson, Dairyland's director of communications, member services and stakeholder engagement.

Now, thanks to years of sustained advocacy by electric cooperatives, including congressional testimony in February 2023 by a Dairyland executive, the tide is turning on the often frustrating and unpredictable federal permitting process.

In July, federal agencies began rolling out new procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act that will shorten and simplify reviews for energy and broadband projects.

Though more work remains to fix federal permitting, the NEPA improvements are another in a recent run of advocacy successes for electric co-ops.

“It goes to cooperation among cooperatives," says Jason Herbert, Dairyland Power's vice president of external affairs. “We speak better when we speak with one voice."

NRECA CEO Jim Matheson agrees, noting that the historical role co-ops play in improving quality of life in the territories they serve makes a big difference when trying to cut through the partisan noise in Washington.

“Today, our reputation in Washington is more durable than ever," Matheson says. “When policymakers look at America's electric cooperatives, they see people helping their communities. Policymakers listen to us and trust us because we have our finger on the pulse of the communities we serve."

'That local connection'

The policy playing field for electric cooperatives has shifted dramatically in the past year, swinging from the Biden administration's focus on decarbonizing the power sector to the Trump administration's embrace of always-available generation.

Navigating that landscape can feel like whiplash for co-ops and NRECA's Government Relations team, which advances the policy interests of the association's nearly 900 members regardless of who sits in the White House or which party controls Congress.

And co-ops have scored big wins with one key strategy: letting the needs of their more than 42 million consumer-members be their North Star.

This year, for the third year in a row, NRECA was rated by federal policymakers as the most reputable and effective trade association in Washington, D.C., according to a Beltway research firm that studies the influence and reputation of nearly 150 prominent companies and associations operating in the nation's capital. Both Republicans and Democrats view NRECA favorably, the study showed.

Mike Partin, NRECA president and CEO of Sequachee Valley Electric Cooperative in Tennessee, says lawmakers respect NRECA because the association collaborates so well with its member co-ops.

“The connection between local co-ops and the team in D.C.—the dynamic of that is pretty powerful," he says. “If it's just the folks in D.C. talking to elected officials, that's one thing. When you bring in that local connection, their ears perk up a little bit more."

Being not-for-profit entities enhances co-ops' influence, Partin says.

“We're driven by something more than profit," he says. “I think that resonates with a lot of folks, even if they don't serve a lot of electric co-ops. We're relationship-builders, and we're truth-tellers, and we don't get into partisan politics. When we come to [lawmakers], they're willing to listen."

'We stay the course'

Despite some major policy differences, NRECA managed to notch several historic victories under the Biden administration, including securing co-op access to federal energy tax incentives and unprecedented federal support for innovative generation and grid projects.

The Trump administration may have sharply different priorities, but NRECA's government relations team has been no less successful, aligning co-op needs to the president's “energy dominance" agenda.

“We're effective because we realize that it's not business as usual in Washington," says Ashley Slater, NRECA's vice president of regulatory affairs. “Political change can be turbulent, but we stay the course, sticking to our co-op mission and values. Ensuring that policies in Washington result in safe, affordable energy for electric cooperatives informs everything we do from an advocacy perspective."

Even before Trump was inaugurated in January, NRECA sent a two-page letter on co-op priorities to the incoming president. The letter was followed by more detailed policy roadmaps and meetings with key agency leaders shortly after Trump began his second term.

“We were ready to go with tailored correspondence to the president-elect," Slater says.

And co-op effectiveness extends beyond the federal agencies. In the first seven months of this year, NRECA lobbyists helped prepare six co-op witnesses, including Matheson, to testify before Congress on topics ranging from grid reliability to coal ash management. In every case, congressional staffers reached out to NRECA and asked for a co-op witness to appear, a unique opportunity that reflects the association's strong relationships on Capitol Hill.

NRECA's advocacy centers on policies over politics, says Hill Thomas, NRECA vice president of legislative affairs, whose team helps prepare those witnesses.

“Our policy focus gives us an edge. Every team member has relationships with both Republicans and Democrats, House members and senators," Thomas says. “As an organization, we tell the truth about how policies are going to affect co-ops. Sometimes, that truth makes Democrats happy and frustrates Republicans. Sometimes, it's just the opposite. Having that North Star of what's best for co-ops helps us stay above the partisan fray."

Making connections early with the new administration and new Congress laid the foundation for some decisive policy wins. In April, for example, the heads of nine electric co-ops participated in a White House event where Trump rolled out executive actions aimed at preserving critical baseload generation.

In June, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to repeal Biden administration power plant regulations that NRECA had warned Administrator Lee Zeldin were a threat to electric reliability and affordability.

Shortly after that, Trump announced he would reverse efforts by the Biden administration that would have set the stage to breach the four Lower Snake River dams in Washington state. Preserving the dams, which can supply over 3,000 megawatts of always-available, carbon-free power to more than 50 electric co-ops in eight Western states, has been a major priority for NRECA members.

Co-ops have also fought successfully to maintain access to crucial federal infrastructure funding programs, working with both longtime career staff and political appointees to communicate the connection between their projects to grid reliability and resilience.

“We sit in the gap between the policy and the practical," Slater says. “We're translating back and forth between policymakers and our members, who have the practical experience and can tell us exactly how policies will impact their ability to serve safe, affordable, reliable energy."

'Leveraging the entire toolbox'

NRECA Senior Vice President for Government Relations Louis Finkel says there's no better illustration of co-op advocacy and effectiveness than the July announcements of NEPA changes.

“After three years of sustained advocacy in Congress, the courts, with the executive branch, we finally have progress," he says. “It's the apex of what we do, leveraging the entire toolbox and cross-disciplinary collaboration, both within the organization and with the membership, to affect an outcome."

This “toolbox advocacy" is also helping roll back EPA rules that threaten reliable, affordable power, culminating in a June proposal to repeal the Biden administration's greenhouse gas standards for power plants.

NRECA engaged with co-ops through a range of channels, including its Environmental Policy Council, to understand the full scope of concerns with the Biden rule—feedback that helped NRECA make its case against the mandate to both EPA and the courts.

“We knew right away that the [Biden] greenhouse gas rule wasn't something our members were going to be able to live with," says NRECA Regulatory Affairs Director Dan Bosch. “To really push back effectively, we needed details and specifics so we could adequately explain to the EPA the serious problems with this rule. What our members can provide is the tangible impact of these regulations."

This on-the-ground insight helps NRECA file credible, constructive comments with agencies “that blend the legal, the policy and the practical together," says NRECA Regulatory Affairs Director Viktoria Seale.

G&Ts like East Kentucky Power Cooperative and Minnkota Power Cooperative gave detailed projections on the impact of the Biden greenhouse gas rule, from spending billions to install untested emissions technologies to shutting down crucial generation altogether. EKPC and Minnkota shared those examples in comments to EPA and public messaging, including a press briefing NRECA arranged after the Biden administration released its rule.

“We knew we had a compelling story with clear and concrete examples that could serve as an argument against the rules—and we had NRECA to help us leverage that story," says Shannon Mikula, Minnkota's legal counsel for special projects.

'We're educating'

On Capitol Hill, NRECA's legislative team focuses on building genuine relationships with lawmakers and staff to pierce through the partisan chaos, Thomas says.

“It's an endless, ongoing conversation with Capitol Hill—with congressional staff, leadership staff and members of Congress whose states and districts are affected by a given policy," he says. “We're educating them about the issue, putting good arguments on the table and asking them to do the right thing."

Recent efforts by NRECA and co-op leaders helped ensure that lawmakers preserved elective-pay tax credits, which provide direct federal payments to co-ops when they deploy new energy technologies, including carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage, renewables and more. It puts co-ops on a level playing field with investor-owned utilities, which have long enjoyed access to tax breaks for deploying wind, solar and other renewable energy.

NRECA advocacy also helped pass the Fix Our Forests Act in the House in January. The bill, a key co-op priority, would make it easier for co-ops to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires by expediting federal approvals to allow them to harden their grids and remove hazardous vegetation that fuels blazes.

It also would reduce groundless lawsuits that delay wildfire mitigation efforts.

Thomas said NRECA's advocacy efforts get a boost from its political action committee, America's Electric Cooperatives PAC; its grassroots network, Voices for Cooperative Power; its grasstops network of co-op leaders throughout the nation and its ability to tell the stories of co-ops and their consumer-members.

“For any issue, we really have a lot of world-class tools at our disposal," he says.

The most valuable asset NRECA has in lobbying Congress is “a good reputation," Thomas says. “Electric cooperatives have an exceptional reputation in their local communities," he says. “That foundation opens a lot of doors for us. And we have a bunch of professional, dedicated lobbyists who take that very seriously and have the skills to take advantage of the opportunities that creates."

And despite the worsening partisan divide in Congress, “there is still some fertile ground for good decision-making," Thomas says.

“On committees like Agriculture and Energy and Commerce, there are people who are earnestly trying to get it right. It's those doers who many times we have our best relationships with," he says. “By and large, members of Congress want to represent their co-ops well. We're just trying to help them make that connection."

Fixing FEMA

In April, electric co-op leaders from throughout the nation came to Washington, D.C., for NRECA's annual Legislative Conference.

As they descended on Capitol Hill to meet with their state delegations, one of the biggest issues they discussed was the future of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA and its disaster relief funding should be streamlined and improved, co-op leaders told lawmakers, but the agency is essential and should not be eliminated.

Without money from FEMA's public assistance program, co-op work to restore power and rebuild their systems after natural disasters would take much longer and raise costs sharply for rural communities.

That message was reinforced by NRECA Legislative Affairs Director Will Mitchell, who met with members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to ensure that co-op concerns were addressed in a bipartisan FEMA reform bill that committee leaders introduced in July.

“We do the big meeting at Legislative Conference, then we're up here all year round doing smaller meetings like this," he said on a lobbying trip to the Longworth House Office Building shortly before the bill was introduced in the House.

Mitchell, who zips around from the House to the Senate side of the Capitol on his electric bicycle, helped committee members understand what's at stake for co-ops and their consumer-members as the lawmakers crafted the Fixing Emergency Management for Americans (FEMA) Act of 2025.

The legislation would greatly speed up the timelines for co-ops to receive reimbursement funds from FEMA and allow co-ops to improve their systems rather than just rebuilding them exactly as they were.

At a July meeting with a top aide to Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Ore., Mitchell talked about the devastating wildfires that have plagued Oregon in recent years and said co-ops have to take out loans to rebuild their systems after those disasters.

The faster that FEMA can reimburse them for those costs, the better off co-ops and their members will be, he said. Otherwise, co-ops may be forced to raise rates to pay for the extra expense, and that would be a hardship for many of their members, Mitchell said.

“It's a very important issue for electric co-ops," he told Olivia Wilhite, senior legislative assistant for the congresswoman.

Wilhite says she didn't hesitate to meet with NRECA when Mitchell reached out to make an appointment. “We know that rural electric co-ops are an important part of our district," Wilhite says. “We want to be responsive because their members are our constituents."

Mitchell said such meetings with lawmakers yield benefits well beyond lobbying on a single issue.

“It's the face time and relationship-building," he says. “Those are some of the most important things you get out of these meetings."

Political 'surround sound'

Co-ops don't just tell their stories in the halls of Congress and agency offices.

NRECA's Communications department helps raise the profile of co-ops through strategic paid media and event sponsorship campaigns, says Shelby Hartley, senior manager of advocacy communications at NRECA.

As part of that effort, NRECA sponsored a POLITICO event in February that brought together key lawmakers from both political parties to discuss grid reliability and other energy issues. One of the interviews featured Matheson.

NRECA was also a sponsor of this year's popular Congressional Baseball Game in June, hosting a reception and running ads featuring electric co-ops and reliability issues.

Similar digital ad placements include the hallways of Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., where members of Congress fly in and out, and on Spotify, YouTube and other popular platforms.

“We're trying to create a surround-sound effect," Hartley says. “It is a very noisy environment in D.C., and everyone's attention spans are very short these days. It's important for us to get our targeted message out in as many ways as possible. That way, when our lobbyists go to Capitol Hill, we've helped pave the way."

NRECA's social media efforts follow members of Congress home during their August legislative recess, sending targeted ads to lawmakers even when they're not in Washington, Hartley says.

“We always encourage our co-op members to engage with their members of Congress during August recess and invite them to meetings."

Hartley says all the efforts on branding are paying off, evidenced by NRECA's three wins as Washington's most effective trade association and repeated requests for co-op leaders to testify before Congress and meet with agency officials.

“We're just keeping that drumbeat going."