Rural News Clips, July 2, 2025
How federal Medicaid cuts in the Senate-passed reconciliation bill might affect rural areas; Who qualifies for $6,000 senior deduction' in GOP tax bill
POLITICS AND ELECTIONS
Kentucky Lantern
Commentary: In small-town Kentucky, finding all the more reason to resist
July 2, 2025
Local residents of Clay County gathered in Manchester’s downtown to hold an anti-Trump rally, chanting against Medicaid cuts and advocating for health care access in their rural community.
About two dozen protesters from Manchester and nearby towns faced off with passing Trump supporters in trucks along Main Street, illustrating the growing political engagement in rural Kentucky.
Manchester police managed the event effectively, ensuring that all participants could exercise their right to protest safely in this small town.
ABC News
How an empty North Carolina rural hospital explains a GOP senator’s vote against Trump’s tax bill
July 2, 2025
Martin General Hospital in Williamston, North Carolina, closed in August 2023, forcing rural residents onto 30-minute drives for emergency care.
Senator Thom Tillis broke with his party over the proposed $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts, warning that siphoning billions from Medicaid would threaten hospitals in poor and rural regions like eastern North Carolina.
North Carolina’s Medicaid expansion, covering over 673,000 residents since December, has been a lifeline for rural hospitals and local economies, but the bill’s cuts could reverse those gains and trigger more closures.
CLIMATE CHANGE
KDLG
How is climate change impacting life in rural Alaska? Researchers are looking for answers
July 2, 2025
The Polaris Project’s NSF-funded research across rural Alaska communities has documented coastal bluff erosion of up to 10.69 meters per year, threatening critical infrastructure and prompting discussions of relocation in villages like Newtok.
Thawing permafrost and receding sea ice undermine traditional subsistence lifestyles, with Dillingham households reporting an 18 percent decline in harvested resources over four decades and raising concerns about future food security.
Rural residents face difficult choices as cultural ties and social networks pull families to stay while environmental hazards push them to consider migration, highlighting how climate change uniquely strains remote Alaskan communities.
New York Times
National climate assessment paints stark warning for future
July 1, 2025
Extreme heat waves, prolonged droughts, intensified flooding, and wildfires pose growing risks nationwide, with rural farming communities suffering more severe crop losses and water shortages because of limited irrigation infrastructure and longer supply chains.
Economic projections show billions in agricultural output declines, disproportionately harming small-scale and family farms that lack capital for adaptation and operate on tighter margins.
Rural roads, aging water systems, and volunteer emergency services are especially vulnerable, jeopardizing critical services and hampering disaster response in remote areas.
The Hill
NOAA climate change research to face deep cuts under Trump DOGE funding plan
July 1, 2025
The administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal would eliminate NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, halting core climate studies essential for long-term forecasting that rural farmers and ranchers depend on.
Funding for all climate, weather, and ocean laboratories and research grants would be phased out, depriving rural communities of critical scientific data needed to prepare for droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events.
These cuts threaten to undermine rural disaster preparedness and agricultural planning by removing the detailed environmental monitoring that small-town emergency services and cooperative extension offices rely on.
EDUCATION
North Carolina Justice Center
Opinion: Trump’s unlawful withholding of federal school funding falls hardest on rural, high-need districts
July 2, 2025
The administration’s impoundment of $154 million in federal education grants forces districts to slash student services, with rural and high-poverty districts bearing the greatest burden per student.
Rural districts such as Avery and Graham counties face cuts of $580 and $376 per student respectively, threatening teacher recruitment and critical programs like Title I migrant education and after-school enrichment.
Loss of these funds will force rural schools to reduce support for English learners, before- and after-school programs, and professional development, widening the achievement gap in remote communities.
GROCERIES
Medical Xpress
Online grocery program bridges food gap in rural Mississippi
July 2, 2025
The GOODS online grocery ordering and delivery service in Sunflower County cuts travel time and transportation costs for rural residents by partnering with retailers that accept SNAP benefits and offering no-cost delivery.
By leveraging local nonprofit organizations, financial institutions, and civic networks, the program overcomes common rural challenges like limited internet access, technological barriers, and distrust of online shopping.
GOODS strengthens the local economy and workforce development in this low-income region by improving access to fresh, healthy food and demonstrating how community-driven solutions can bridge rural food deserts.
HEALTH CARE, PHARMACIES AND RURAL HEALTH
Fox News
‘Crisis brewing’ in Trump country as hospitals shutter at alarming rate, top ER doc warns
July 2, 2025
A RAND study finds that emergency rooms have become the de facto “front door” to the healthcare system in rural areas, generating nearly $5.9 billion in unpaid care each year and overloading small‐town ERs.
More than a dozen rural hospitals in states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee have closed before and during the pandemic, deepening healthcare deserts and forcing residents to travel long distances for critical services.
HEAT
Energy & Environment News
Employers to OSHA: Don’t kill the heat rule. Weaken it.
June 30, 2025
Industry representatives urged OSHA to model its heat standard on Nevada’s performance-based rule, potentially leaving rural agriculture and construction workers without clear temperature triggers for mandatory water breaks and rest.
Vague requirements risk increasing heat-related illnesses among rural farm and ranch laborers who work long hours in remote fields without precise guidance on when to implement cooling measures.
Weakening the federal rule undermines rural emergency responders and volunteer fire departments that depend on robust standards to prepare for and manage heat-induced health emergencies in isolated communities.
LAYOFFS AND FUNDING CUTS
CNN
Medicaid cuts and work requirements included in GOP bill, advocates sy
July 1, 2025
The GOP bill would impose an 80-hour-per-month work requirement on Medicaid recipients, disproportionately impacting rural enrollees who face limited job opportunities and sparse public transit.
It would tighten eligibility checks and reduce provider taxes, threatening the financial stability of rural hospitals and clinics that rely heavily on Medicaid funding.
Advocates warn these changes could deepen healthcare deserts in remote areas by cutting coverage for low-income families and increasing uncompensated care burdens on small-town providers.
MENTAL HEALTH
The Hill
Democratic states sue Trump administration over school mental health funding cuts
July 2, 2025
Sixteen states filed suit after the administration cut more than $1 billion in school mental health grants, arguing the move violates federal law and jeopardizes essential student support services.
Rural districts face the steepest losses, as they rely heavily on these grants to employ school psychologists, counselors, and social workers amid already limited local mental health resources.
Plaintiffs seek a court order to restore funding and block new ideological conditions, warning that continued cuts will deepen youth mental health crises in high-need rural communities.
The Daily Yonder
Proposed federal cuts put rural behavioral health resources on the line
July 2, 2025
Rural nonprofits like Simply Hope in Cassia and Minidoka counties, Idaho, built vital recovery support networks with SAMHSA’s Building Communities of Recovery Grant, and losing this funding would stall or reverse those hard-earned gains.
The proposed FY2026 HHS budget would cut nearly one billion dollars from SAMHSA, eliminating dozens of regional and national grant programs that rural communities rely on to fill gaps where 65 percent of counties lack a psychiatrist and 81 percent lack a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Without these grants, small-town behavioral health facilities and volunteer organizations will face critical shortages in counseling, peer support, and crisis services, deepening treatment deserts and heightening risks in areas with suicide and overdose rates well above the national average.
POLLUTION
Inside Climate News
Truckers say oil and gas companies are violating hazardous materials transport regulations
June 29, 2025
Truckers Movement for Justice is urging the Department of Transportation to enforce hazardous material regulations because drivers hauling fracking waste often lack information on the radioactive and toxic contents as they travel through rural areas.
Fracking wastewater moves along rural highways without proper labeling or precautions, heightening health risks for drivers and small communities when spills contaminate livestock fields and local water sources.
The exemption under federal waste disposal law leaves rural towns with limited resources and volunteer emergency services struggling to respond to hazardous spills that breach reservoirs and threaten public health.
The New Lede
As nitrate levels soar in Iowa, new research underscores risks for babies
June 30, 2025
A new study finds that prenatal exposure to nitrates in drinking water increases preterm birth and low birth weight, with rural Iowa residents disproportionately affected due to reliance on private wells.
Agricultural runoff from fertilizer and livestock manure contaminates unregulated rural water sources, leading to temporary watering bans in small towns.
Many rural communities lack affordable water treatment options, leaving expectant mothers and infants at greater health risk and highlighting the need for targeted infrastructure investment.
PUBLIC LANDS
The Washington Post
What an 8-mile stretch of dirt road in Utah says about the meaning of America’s public lands
July 2, 2025
Reopening the Poison Spring Loop to off-highway vehicles restored recreational access for rural landowners and outfitting businesses that rely on OHV tourism to sustain local economies.
The surge in ATV traffic threatens landscapes shaped by generations of ranching and mining, and places added strain on rural volunteer emergency crews and land-management agencies dealing with trail damage and accidents.
The conflict underscores how rural Western communities wrestle with balancing economic gains from outdoor recreation against preserving the natural environment and local way of life.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
The Associated Press
Senate GOP cuts renewable energy tax credits in big budget bill
July 2, 2025
The Senate’s budget deal speeds up the phase-out of 30 percent tax credits for wind and solar, removing key financial incentives that many rural landowners depend on to lease land for renewable projects.
Loss of these credits threatens community-scale renewable installations in small rural utilities and family farms, prompting delays or cancellations that could cost local jobs.
By redirecting benefits toward fossil fuel leases on public lands, the legislation undermines efforts of rural regions seeking to diversify their economies through clean energy development.
SAFETY NET PROGRAMS
Bridge Michigan
Michigan rural hospitals at risk under Trump’s ‘beautiful’ bill, experts say
July 2, 2025
Proposed Medicaid cuts in the Senate’s “big, beautiful bill” threaten to slash at least $6 billion from Michigan’s rural hospital budgets over the next decade, endangering facilities already operating on razor-thin margins and putting up to 13 rural hospitals at risk of closure.
Loss of coverage for an estimated 200,000 Michiganders—many in counties where Medicaid covers more than 40 percent of residents—would force rural patients to travel farther for care, strain volunteer emergency services, and deepen healthcare deserts in remote communities.
Kaiser Family Foundation
How might federal Medicaid cuts in the Senate-passed reconciliation bill affect rural areas?
July 2, 2025
Rural areas rely heavily on Medicaid, with one in four adults and nearly half of all births covered by the program.
The reconciliation bill would reduce federal Medicaid spending in rural regions by about $155 billion over ten years, far exceeding the $50 billion set aside for the rural health fund.
Such cuts could accelerate hospital closures and worsen workforce shortages in rural states like Kentucky, which faces more than $12 billion in reduced Medicaid funding.
FOX 17
‘Matter of life or death’: Tenn. rural residents fear Medicaid cuts in Big Beautiful Bill
July 3, 2025
The One Big Beautiful Act would slash Medicaid funding and could shutter nine rural hospitals in Tennessee, threatening emergency care and maternal services in small towns.
Residents living minutes from Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital warn that losing their only nearby medical facility would have life-or-death consequences for rural families with limited transportation.
SENIORS AND NURSING HOMES
The Washington Post
GOP tax bill includes a $6,000 ‘senior deduction.’ Here’s who qualifies.
July 2, 2025
Many rural senior households rely almost entirely on Social Security income but earn too little to benefit from the new $6,000 deduction.
The deduction would worsen the Social Security trust fund outlook by hastening its exhaustion date, threatening retirement security in rural areas with limited alternative income sources.
Upper middle class seniors in small towns may see tax relief, but low income rural retirees who already pay minimal taxes would be excluded, deepening economic divides in those communities.
WEATHER
The Daily Yonder
Dust storms return to the Midwest
July 2, 2025
A mid-May haboob swept loose topsoil from farmland across northern Illinois and Indiana into Chicago, highlighting how drought and soil degradation extend dust storms into regions unaccustomed to such events.
Rural farmers depend on USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service grants for soil conservation, but a Trump-era freeze on NRCS funding threatens the programs that help prevent topsoil loss and future storms.
Dust Bowl history shows that New Deal initiatives like the Soil Erosion Service and Civilian Conservation Corps projects were vital for restoring soil health, and renewed dust events warn of mounting rural health and economic risks if conservation funding lapses.