BUILD America 250 Act proposes rural transportation federal funding cuts

Many people can't drive in southern Idaho, but the Living Independent Network Corp works to fill the gaps when public transportation is limited — and for most of rural America, it usually is.

The Living Independent Network receives $100,000 from the state annually, made possible through federal funds, reports Benton Graham for Grist. The money allows riders to pay for “bare-minimum lifeline service,” but their access is expected to worsen at the end of this year when federal money runs out.

Transportation programs authorized in 2021 by the Biden Administration's $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will expire at the end of this year. Lawmakers are fleshing out the BUILD America 250 Act, which would reauthorize those programs, but with $16.5 billion less in funding.

Advocates say the Biden Administration's legislation failed to broaden transportation access, but BUILD would be a significant step back. It would authorize only $103.3 billion over five years, opposed to the baseline $119.9 billion under the Jobs Act. This rate is not adjusted for inflation, and BUILD would actually need an additional $24 billion to match previous funding. 

Under BUILD, rural Idaho and Maine are estimated to see the nation’s largest drops in federal funding, falling 18% and 16% respectively. This could leave those with disabilities socially isolated, irregular transport services and families without options, leaving them to pay for a car, more gas, repairs or insurance. 

“The Biden infrastructure bill was not the high water mark,” Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director at Riders Alliance, said. “We could do much better than that in a variety of different ways, and we shouldn’t hold up bipartisanship as a core value of how we fund transportation when we have such sharply diverted views of the role of government to invest in people and communities.”

Rural hospitals struggle to keep up as electronic health records advance

Many rural hospitals and clinics rely on older electronic health record (EHR) systems to store patient documents and hospital data, but because larger hospitals tend to use more updated systems, the older platforms can’t communicate with “modern application programming or advanced data-sharing capabilities,” Liz Carey reports for The Daily Yonder.

The inability to securely share medical records between older vs. modern systems is called the “interoperability crisis,” and it’s stretching rural hospital staff to their thinnest. Only 64% of rural hospitals have adopted newer EHR systems, compared to 74% of urban hospitals.

Rural hospitals typically have only one to two technology workers, they may lack reliable broadband infrastructure, and upkeep of digital systems is expensive. Rural hospitals and communities that have been marginalized also consistently receive less federal funding than their urban counterparts. These disparities can "put rural healthcare facilities at a disadvantage," Carey writes.

Those gaps will cause "fragmented care," or lead to increased costs when physicians have to repeat tests and scans because they can’t access prior diagnostic images or results,” said Angela Chubb, senior manager of quality and regulatory advisory services at Nordic, a global health and technology consulting company.

The technology gaps also mean rural hospitals must work harder to recoup insurance reimbursement. Newer electronic health record systems allow more efficient data transfer among various state and national organizations for funding review. But data managers in many rural hospitals said providing those reports with smaller staffs and with less technological resources requires more labor. Often, the same information has to be re-formatted multiple times for different organizations’ standards.

Chubb told Carey that policy makers need to communicate with rural hospitals to better understand the solutions that will work in specific rural areas. “All rural communities ... are different. They all function based on their needs, based on their community needs, based on their provider needs, their demographics, their locations. It’s really how can these organizations structure the process that makes sense for them.”

Rural voters believe the economy is worse now than before Trump’s second term

More than half of rural American voters believe the economy is worse off now than when President Donald Trump began his second term, according to a new poll by The Associated Press and KFF.

The sample of 2,000 bipartisan rural voters reported holding negative views of national and local economies, citing concerns about the cost of groceries, gasoline and healthcare. A larger share than the average voter worried about affording such necessities, reports Ali Swenson, Sarah Jane Tribble and Linley Sanders for the AP and KFF.

Though rural voters have supported Trump in recent elections, these "findings suggest that many rural voters have not turned on Trump but that they also largely do not think he has delivered the economic renaissance he promised in his campaign,” Swenson, Tribble and Sanders report.

Only 4 in 10 rural voters approve of Trump’s economic performance, attributing economic downturns to his handling of the Iran War. Many say their local economies have worsened with the national economy. Rural Republicans have a more optimistic economic view, but “rural voters overall don’t perceive much positive impact from the administration’s healthcare policies even as they have been a top priority for Republican leaders."

Despite Trump’s approval of the Rural Health Transformation Program last year, which recouped from Medicaid cuts, the survey revealed that 60% of ruralites heard nothing about the program at all. Many voters still believe Trump aims to deliver on his promises, but polling shows his standing is slipping. Some 48% of rural voters approve of him — more than the average voter — but that number has fallen from 56% rural approval in earlier surveys.

Rural vet shortage could increase risk of food-borne illness in U.S. produced meat

Food-animal veterinarians remain scarce in rural areas, and that could mean less oversight of meat production in the U.S., increasing the risk of food-borne illnesses, according to a recently released report from the USDA. Brandon Genetin, James C. Davis and Grace Grossen write in the report that "shortages of food-animal veterinarians ... represents a significant concern for both public health and food security."

It's big news given that the U.S. is just now easing some restrictions on beef imports due to screwworm concerns, and that food-borne illness broadly has been a national concern for months. Screwworm is one of the diseases that could run rampant if the rural vet shortage continues, the report notes. 

The new report, "Food-animal Veterinarians and the Persistence of Rural Shortage Areas," states that veterinarian shortages "can weaken disease prevention, slow emergency response, and heighten risks to both livestock and consumers, creating potential supply chain disruptions." 

Rural food-animal vets are "the frontline defense against diseases and illnesses that can devastate herds," Genetin, Davis and Grossen write in the summary of the report. "When fewer veterinarians are available, infectious diseases such as avian flu and bovine tuberculosis can spread more easily and be detected later, increasing the likelihood of major outbreaks."

Florida's orange growers hope disease-resistant trees will revitalize the decimated industry

Flordia's orange growers are buying DNA-altered trees and inoculating their existing groves to ward off the devastating and incurable "citrus greening" disease that has ravaged the state's orange groves for the past 20 years. Julie Wernau reports for The Wall Street Journal that the EPA has approved both technologies this year, and growers have already ordered hundreds of thousands of resistant trees. 

"Citrus greening" causes oranges to drop from branches before they are ripe and turns them bitter. Florida's orange production has fallen by 95% since the disease was discovered. Wernau reports that 60,000 orange grove acres went out of production last year, which was 26% of Florida's remaining groves. Almost half a million acres are dormant now, while other groves have been transitioned into cattle ranches. 

Florida's state government created a two-year $330 million fund that will help growers buy inoculated and DNA-altered trees in an effort to revitalize the industry, Wernau reports. But, she writes, the new trees will take two years to start producing, and "the question is whether Florida's citrus industry can hang on that long."  

Applications are now open for Report for America host newsrooms; rural newsrooms encouraged to apply

Applications to become a host newsroom for Report for America (RFA) are now open for 2027-2028. RFA "recruits, trains, and supports" journalists to work in newsrooms across the country, "focusing on under-covered communities and issues." Rural newsrooms are highly encouraged to apply. 

This year, RFA is expanding its support for newsrooms who want to add photography, visual journalism and sports reporting positions, but it also support a wide range of other positions that will help local newsrooms maintain "more consistent, high-quality local reporting" on any topic. Reporters are placed in newsroom for two-year contracts. 

RFA offsets the salary of newly placed reporters up to 50%, or up to $27,500, in the first year, and up to 33% in the second year. Reporters with more than six years experience will be subsidized up to $30,000. The organization's Local News Sustainability team also works directly with host newsrooms on fundraising and other revenue opportunities to "strengthen long-term financial sustainability" of local news. 

RFA will host several information sessions to learn about the program, which can be found here. Questions about the program can be sent to recruitment@reportforamerica.org. To apply to become a host newsroom, click here. 

Rural communities can learn how to push back on data center construction from resistance to factory farms

The fight about construction of data centers continues across the country, and communities pushing back
on such construction could have a lot to learn about how to resist from the roll out of factory farms almost 40 years ago, Raj Patel and Jim Goodman write for Barn Raiser (republished by Next City). The push for factory farms looked similar to the fight about data centers now, and they write that those similarities might help rural residents resist data center construction more effectively. 

"By the time neighbors organized [against concentrated animal feeding operations], right-to-farm laws and state preemption had severed the ground from under them," the reporters write. And "while CAFOs crept into rural America, data centers are arriving as a land rush. This speed is both terrifying and an advantage." Terrifying because 67% of the 1,500 proposed data centers are in rural areas; an advantage because "CAFO country" has been here before, and the lessons they learned can help other rural places now.

Patel and Goodman have recommendations about what issues rural residents should focus on in hearings with their local elected leaders: water, power, money and democracy. They write that asking questions about those things will provide them with the most salient information. It's a lesson they say came too late for farmers. 

"Everything CAFO country learned, it learned too late, after the wells were ruined, after the smell lowered adjacent property values and health outcomes, after the statutes were written. Data centers are arriving early enough that the questions can still be asked in time."

McConnell casts deciding vote on Farm Bill, which has been stalled by Democrats due to SNAP cuts

Mitch McConnell returned to the Republican-led Agriculture Committee this week after his medical absence, and cast the deciding vote to advance the farm bill to the full Senate. This vote came on Tuesday, Sept. 15, after Democrats blocked the current version of the farm bill in August, reports Frida Garza for Grist. 

The absence of McConnell and Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville stalled the bill's progress, but once they returned, their votes advanced it. Democrats oppose the proposed farm bill because it doesn’t reverse the $186 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) signed into law by the Trump Administration's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“Changes to SNAP are typically implemented through the farm bill, which historically was passed every five or so years,” Garza writes. This is the fourth year the bill has not been renewed. “Democrats in the Senate Agriculture Committee have refused to support a farm bill that doesn’t restore SNAP funding; they have also pushed for a delay in a crucial change to SNAP that would increase states’ administrative costs for running the food assistance program.”

The proposed bill does neither of these things. To win on the Senate floor, Republicans will need 60 votes — they hold 53 seats, and will need to convince several Democrats to join them. Garza writes that it is unlikely the farm bill will be passed this year.

 

Many people with low-income rely on SNAP, and many farmers rely on a customer base who pays with SNAP benefits. The current iteration of the farm bill may leave states with higher administrative costs for SNAP. States will have to rethink their budgets, possibly ending up with less overall funding for agriculture, education, transportation or other programs.

Measles deaths continue to climb, and rural areas are not immune; cases in rural Pennsylvania are an example

This year is the deadliest yet from measles since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000. In Pennsylvania, four people have died from measles as of Sept. 15, 2026, and nearly 700 have been infected, reports Dani Blum for The New York Times. 

In Pennsylvania's rural Mifflin County, an unvaccinated 18-year-old died from measles-related neurological complications. Another county reported the death of a 40-year-old woman, later confirmed as unvaccinated. Last month, state health officials reported the deaths of two infants who contracted the virus.

Measles fatalities are typically one to three deaths for every 1,000 cases. Blum writes that this statistic suggests Pennsylvania’s case count is higher than what is being reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not recorded any deaths from measles this year.

“The Pennsylvania deaths have been embroiled in political controversy, with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. disputing whether measles directly caused some of them,” Blum writes. “Last month, Dr. Erica Schwartz, the new director of the C.D.C., directed agency staff to not include the first two deaths in the national tally, going against the agency’s typical practice of accepting data reported by states.”

The virus is most dangerous for children, adults over 20 and those who are immunocompromised. “Roughly one in five unvaccinated people who contract measles in the United States is hospitalized.” Measles-related pneumonia and immune amnesia are among the deadly symptoms.

Trump shifts funds from National Parks to projects in Washington

Funding U.S. National Parks Service projects has not been a priority for the Trump Administration, which has siphoned money from the USNPS for several Washington, D.C., projects, including the unveiling of gold leaf statues, reopening ornamental water fountains and repairing the Lincoln Memorial pool. This spring, the Trump Administration used at least $67 million generated by park entrance fees to fund such projects, reports Maxine Joselow for The New York Times. 

About 1,500 projects at more than 200 sites nationwide were deemed “low priority,” while projects in Washington were added to a list of White House priorities. There is currently a $24 billion backlog of deferred maintenance projects across the parks.

Staff cuts and funding shifts have left 433 USNPS sites in turmoil, with 20% of the parks being significantly understaffed. A proposal to sell a small parcel of Yosemite’s land to a private developer has become a bipartisan issue, Joselow writes. “Polling shows that Americans of all stripes and political persuasions overwhelmingly love their parks.”

Trump has taken other actions that affect the parks, including putting his face on park passes and ordering the removal of exhibits that "inappropriately disparage Americans,” as was the case for one exhibit about slavery and a sign about climate change.

Fran P. Mainella, a Republican who led the Park Service under President George W. Bush, said that Trump may not realize the value of parks to the public and the economy, and said there needs to be a way to better tell Trump that story. The parks and politics are no strangers; the Bush Administration was accused of promoting religious and conservative content at the parks.

Nonetheless, “Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican who leads a subcommittee on national parks, said in an interview that Mr. Trump ‘has been an incredible supporter of the parks.’ He dismissed reports of funding and staffing issues at parks as ‘fear-mongering’ by the president’s critics before the midterm elections.”