The Brooking Institution recently released a report accessibility to federal funding for rural communities (What’s in it for rural? Analyzing the opportunities for rural America in IIJA, CHIPS, and IRA)….

By passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the 117th Congress approved over a trillion dollars in immediate appropriations and nearly $600 billion more in authorizations to invest in infrastructure, clean energy, climate resilience, and industrial policy. Many of the resources are aimed at supporting local and regional institutions and governments, reflecting a renewed focus on place-based policy.

Given the complex challenges that rural communities face to achieve and sustain prosperity, we examined the provisions of this legislation to identify where rural places are statutorily included or where funding objectives are exceptionally relevant to rural community and economic development. Our analysis estimates that more than $464 billion, or 45% of the combined appropriations in these three laws, present a significant opportunity for rural America. An estimated $24 billion, or 2% of these appropriations, is exclusive to rural places.

At the same time, the multiplicity of the programs; their design, matching, and reporting requirements; and their scoring criteria and decision making processes can create barriers to access for rural communities, whose local government officials are often volunteers and whose city halls often have limited staff. Even the wide variety of definitions for “rural” used across federal agencies creates complications. Sixty-six of the programs receiving appropriations are brand-new, complicating an already complex federal ecosystem of more than 400 programs.

It aligns with a view of the comments I heard at the Minnesota Broadband Task Force meeting this morning.

• First, someone commented that there were nonprofits in the Twin Cities that were able to help organizations (in this context, a cooperative) get federal funding but not in rural areas.
• Second, the Office of Broadband Development recognized that while BEAD funding needs to provide funding for rural areas, the rules that NTIA says they must use to administer the funding, is a barrier, especially related to mapping and potential challenges because smaller, rural communities do not have expertise, staffing or funding for consultants to do the work to follow up on barriers or opportunities.
• Third, there is competitive digital equity funds (as well as state-administered funds) available but NTIA is looking at making big grants, not smaller ones, which puts smaller, rural communities at a disadvantage.

The Brookings report looks at these issues and at matching, which is another barrier for rural communities. Here’s what they say about broadband…

Broadband funding ($62 billion in appropriations) has particular importance for rural communities, given the persistent gap in rural access. These resources focus on closing the gap in physical deployment as well as ensuring accessibility through initiatives such as the new Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, which will allocate $42.5 billion to the states to distribute; the Affordable Connectivity Program, $14.2 billion to enable low-income households to subscribe to high-speed internet; and the three State Digital Equity Programs, worth $3.29 billion. The USDA ReConnect program received $1.9 billion in appropriations, which the department reported as financing $2.86 billion in loans and $140 million in technical assistance.

I’m excited for a webinar that Brookings is hosting on January 31, which I think will really move this conversation forward – at a very important time…

Join us on January 31 from 2-3:30 pm ET to hear takeaways from a new Brookings report quantifying the funding and technical assistance for rural America and hear from rural leaders on the challenges and opportunities they see on the horizon.