Rep. Kelly's car dealership received money for solar panels he voted against in Congress

A car dealership owned by family members of U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of Butler is the recipient of a nearly $315,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to install enough solar panels to power 25 homes.

The grant program was funded by President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which Kelly, R-16th Dist., opposed because it was "loaded with bad policy and wasteful spending."

The allocation was listed in a USDA report of quarterly awards from its Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). The grant is being used at a Mike Kelly Automotive Group dealership in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, which is located in Fayette County in the congressional district of fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-14th Dist.

The grant allows the dealership to install a 261.9-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system, which is projected to save the family-owned business an estimated $27,300 a year.

Kelly said Inflation Reduction act would cause inflation at time

The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) was authorized by the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, also referred to as the Farm Bill. In 2022, Biden's $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which passed strictly along party lines by a vote of 220 to 207, infused $1.05 billion into REAP. The USDA began distributing loans and grants through six quarterly disbursements in 2023 and 2024.

Kelly said in August 2023 that the bill would drive up inflation, not reduce it. In a press release following his vote, Kelly cited, among other things, the $357 billion that the bill dedicated to what he described as "'so-called 'climate change' legislation," including tax credits for electric vehicles.

“Representative Kelly’s energy policy has always supported an all-of-the-above approach," said Kelly spokesman Matt Knoedler. "Additionally, Rep. Kelly does not have an active role in the day-to-day operations of his family’s business.”

Dealership also received PPP loans

It's not the first time Kelly's car dealership has been the recipient of a taxpayer-funded federal program. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the group of car dealerships that was first created in 1953 applied for and received a nearly $1 million forgivable loan from the Paycheck Protection Program. The program helped businesses across the country keep workers employed as businesses were shut down in the early stages of the pandemic.

Kelly would later come under fire for having the PPP loan forgiven, first in July 2020 for voting against bipartisan legislation that made the recipients of PPP loans public, and two years later in August 2022 when he protested President Joe Biden's announcement that he would cancel up to $20,000 of student loan debt for many borrowers.

On X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, Kelly said the following about Biden's student loan forgiveness plan: “Asking plumbers and carpenters to pay off the loans of Wall Street advisors and lawyers isn’t just unfair,” he wrote. “It’s also bad policy.”

The official account of the White House responded to Kelly's post, saying, “Congressman Mike Kelly had $987,237 in PPP loans forgiven."

A similar exchange between Kelly and the White House occurred two months later. Kelly has defended the PPP loan, saying the money went directly to the company's 200 workers at a time when, "A Democrat governor declared those employees 'non-essential' and shut our doors." Unlike student loans, he said at the time, the Paycheck Protection Program loans were designed to be forgiven. Kelly said the student loan debt that Biden sought to forgive would just be "transferred to the backs of American taxpayers."

What is the Rural Energy for America Program?

The Rural Energy for America Program was designed for rural small businesses and agricultural producers to fund "renewable energy systems or to make energy efficiency improvements. Agricultural producers can also apply for new energy-efficient equipment and new system loans for agricultural production and processing," according to a USDA fact sheet.

Small businesses are eligible only if they are located in rural areas with 50,000 or fewer people. The $1.05 billion of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act boosted the maximum grant from $250,000 to $500,000 for small businesses, and from $500,000 to $1 million for agricultural producers, according to the USDA.

George J. Kelly Sr. founded the family business in 1953 when he bought a Chevy dealership in Verona, Pa. After selling the dealership, which was relocated by its new owner, he formed Kelly Chevrolet-Cadillac in Butler, which he ran from 1957 to 1997. That's when his son and the future congressman, George Joseph "Mike" Kelly Jr., took the reins of the business, adding Hyundai and Kia franchises.

Kelly was first elected to office in 2009 and has served from seven terms since his swearing-in in 2010. He is seeking an eighth two-year term this year.

Matthew Rink can be reached at [email protected] or on X at @ETNRink.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Kelly car dealership gets federal grant for solar panels