Created in 1935 as part of the New Deal, the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) spearheaded the Electric Cooperative Corporation Act passed by Congress in 1936. By 1953, funds made available by REA to cooperatives to build lines and provide service on a not-for-profit basis allowed electricity access to more than 90 per cent of United States farms. By 2009, cooperatives served 12 per cent of national consumers (42 million people) in 47 states. In a highly complex and increasingly multidimensional sector, many of these institutions are thus unlikely to possess mature regulatory skills or the high level of expertise and access to resources and information required for effective use of regulatory tools.