House Ag looks at infrastructure needs

Work on the 2023 Farm Bill continued  this week with testimony on the infrastructure needs of rural America. 

Financing the modernization of aging water systems in rural communities was a repeated topic.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D - Washington: “When I was reviewing requests for congressional funding projects. Um, I really put a focus on municipal water programs and over and over what we're seeing and hearing from people operating these is that they are, um, often past the recommended lifespan. They're undersized, they're on the brink of collapse.”

Matthew Holmes, National Rural Water Association: “They, they do the best with what they have and they have to spend an excellent long standing program. But again, we are dealing with so many new challenges in the water sector. It's changed out there in rural America.”

Nikki Budzinski, D - Illinois: “Can you weigh in on the issues as the similar issues as well and further discuss your organization's idea to create a rural investment initiative?”

Olga Morales-Pate, National Cooperative Business Association: “For example, the funding that you get through USDA, you actually don't see the money until you close at the time of closing. So between the pre-development and that design piece, there is a lot of pre-development funding that is necessary to advance those projects, and it can take up to two years. The decisive communities that we work in do not have the cashflow or the ability to be able to move through that process. Unfortunately, I've seen projects that have had to be de-obligated because we're not able to get them to the closing.

Rep. Glenn Thompson, R - Pennsylvania: “What initiatives should we consider for the 2023 Farm Bill to bring high quality in demand jobs to rural America.”

Cornelius Blanding, National Cooperative Business Association: “Chairman, I think there's a lot of things already underway. Congress, USDA has been talking about infrastructure, like beef processing facilities and others, so we think it's important to look at the anchor in rural communities, which is always based around agriculture.”

For Market to Market. I'm Peter Tubbs