Rural Electrification Administration

Rural Electrification Administration (REA), U.S. Department of Agriculture agency that helps provide loans and expertise for electric and telephone development in rural communities. Established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1935), this agency loans money mainly to organized state cooperatives. Both state and federal regulations determine the stipulations of the individual loans. The Congress yearly determines the monies available and interest rates for the REA. In the beginning, about 10% of rural farms had electricity and about 30% had modern telephone service. REA loans have helped increase those percentages to almost 100%.