(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Updates: Rural America Under Trump [1] ['Staff', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2025-02-06 In-depth coverage of Trump’s second term. More Stories Trump Administration Defies Judge’s Order to Lift USAID Funding Freeze February 21, 2025 – On February 13th, Federal Judge Amir Ali gave the Trump Administration five days to lift the funding freeze on foreign aid. On the evening of February 20th, Ali ruled that the administration had not complied with this order. Read More Axios: Judge says Trump admin has withheld foreign aid despite court order Previously: Five Days to Lift USAID Funding Freeze February 14, 2025 – On the evening of February 13th, a federal judge ordered President Trump to temporarily lift his administration’s funding freeze on foreign aid. The administration has been given five days to restore funding, which affects projects in over 100 countries. The sudden loss of funding has halted the implementation of projects that affect millions globally, ranging from urgent medical treatments, humanitarian aid, and refugee resettlement to economic development, literacy, and food and water supply. The freeze has also had a significant impact on U.S. workers and businesses, including the country’s farmers. Hundreds of thousands of tons of U.S.-grown food slated to be delivered around the world are ‘stuck’ in ports and warehouses, and will likely go to waste as farmers and non-governmental organizations go unpaid for work they have already completed. Previously: USAID Shutdown February 4, 2025 – On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order to pause all foreign aid for 90 days. Last week, Trump and and Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency, took actions to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The agency provides billions of dollars in aid globally, including projects that focus explicitly on rural development. Mara Slepyan is a senior program manager at a non-governmental organization that partners with USAID to implement programs. As a result of the aid freeze, projects ranging from clean water supply and child literacy in Tajikistan to agricultural support in Ukraine (known as ‘Europe’s breadbasket’ because of its essential role in the continent’s food supply) have been paused, potentially for good. “Dismantling USAID will have catastrophic effects for rural communities around the globe, which are no longer receiving the much-needed support that has already been promised to them,” Slepyan said. Democratic lawmakers have called this action illegal, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced that he is acting as the director of USAID, even as Trump and Musk work to dismantle the agency. Read More CNN: Gutting of USAID could cost thousands of American jobs KFF Health News: The status of President Trump’s pause of foreign aid and implications for PEPFAR and other global health programs Trump Purges Staff at Rural Housing Program February 20, 2025 – Staff of the USDA’s Rural Development and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs faced President Trump’s federal purge on Thursday. The Rural Development Office and its urban counterpart, HUD, have been financing infrastructure and housing across the nation for decades. These programs primarily benefit low-income families. At least 550 staff at the Rural Development program and half of HUD’s staff will be discharged, according to a newsletter report from the Housing Assistance Council (HAC), a nonprofit advocacy organization. ‘“The affordable housing crisis in rural America requires more capacity and attention, not less,” said David Lipsetz, president and CEO of HAC in a statement released on Thursday morning. “We cannot afford this kind of disruption to programs that rural communities depend on.” Disaster Dollars at Risk in Rural Communities February 20, 2025 – An office under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) responsible for disaster recovery efforts, including in the rural communities hit by Hurricane Helene, could face significant cuts under the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to reduce the federal workforce. The Office of Community Planning and Development could see staff numbers fall from 936 to 150, or 84%, according to a document outlining the administration’s plans obtained by The New York Times. Staff at Community Planning and Development oversee the distribution of billions of dollars a year that go toward rebuilding homes and infrastructure, often coordinating that money with other federal disaster relief programs. In January 2025, HUD announced it would allocate nearly $12 billion in Congress-appropriated funds for recovery from 2023 and 2024 disasters, as well as ongoing recovery from earlier disasters. More than $1.6 billion of that funding will go to communities across North Carolina. HUD requires at least 80% of the funds to be expended in areas identified as “Most Impacted and Distressed.” Rural Polk and Cleveland counties make up two of four counties HUD identified as such. The rest of the funding will be distributed across 23 other states. It is unclear how staffing cuts will impact the flow of recovery dollars that have not yet reached communities. Read More The New York Times: Trump Team Plans Deep Cuts at Office That Funds Recovery From Big Disasters Housing Wire: HUD announces $12B in long-term disaster assistance across 24 states Federal Layoffs in Rural Communities February 14, 2025 – About 75,000 federal workers, or roughly 3% of the federal workforce, chose to take buyouts offered by the Trump Administration after a ruling from a federal judge reinstated the offer’s expiration, Wednesday, February 12. For some rural residents who worked for the federal government, the buyout option may have been an alternative to relocation that the Return to Office executive order would have required. A rural Colorado resident who asked not to be identified by name said she chose to accept the deferred resignation plan because she was hired as a fully remote civilian HR employee for the Army and does not have access to an office within 100 miles. “It was the decision of maybe getting a few months of pay and security or being fired outright, so I took the risk and am waiting to see what happens,” she said. Since the window to apply for the “Fork in the Road” buyout program closed on February 12, federal agencies began to lay off employees who are within the one-two year probationary period. Agencies affected by layoffs this week include the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Small Business Administration, the Department of the Interior, and more. All of these agencies affect rural communities significantly, from helping with grant funding for rural businesses, resources for rural schools, and affordable housing, to employing seasonal workers for the U.S Forest Service. We’ll be following how these layoffs affect rural America. Read More CNN: Thousands of probationary employees fired as Trump administration directs agencies to carry out widespread layoffs Politico: Forest Service fires 3,400 people after ‘deferred resignation’ deadline passes NPR: Layoffs accelerate at federal agencies with more cuts to come Trump Nominates Oil and Gas Advocate to Run Bureau of Land Management February 14, 2025 – President Trump nominated oil and gas lobbyist Kathleen Sgamma as director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency in the Interior Department that owns a quarter-billion acres of land in Western states. The date of her confirmation hearing is still to be determined. Sgamma spent 20 years of her career trying to limit government regulations on public land in the American West. She represented the interests of hundreds of natural gas and oil producers during her tenure at the Western Energy Alliance (WEA), a nonprofit advocacy group. If the Senate confirms her nomination, Sgamma will be responsible for managing BLM policies on renewable energy installations and greenhouse gas emissions. Her leadership will mark a shift from the Biden Administration’s focus on green energy on public lands. Read More The Colorado Sun: Trump picks oil and gas advocate from Colorado to lead Bureau of Land Management E&E News: Trump names oil and gas advocate as next BLM director Dismantling the Department of Education? February 11, 2025 – This month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump advisors are weighing a plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (DoE), which would shut down agency functions that are not explicitly written into law by Congress and/or move DoE responsibilities to other federal departments. This would put many of the department’s programs at risk, but several of its major responsibilities are protected by congressional statute, requiring an act of Congress to be removed or altered. These include the management of $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, oversight for implementation and enforcement of national special education laws, and administration of $15.6 billion in Title I funding, the main federal program aimed at improving outcomes for low-income students. The GOP’s Project 2025 playbook made similar recommendations to close the department and shift its featured programs into no-strings-attached grants given to states, which would not require them to use that funding to support schools serving low-income students or students with disabilities. Ultimately, Project 2025 advocates for phasing out Title I funding within the next decade. “These discussions are closely related to a larger strategy from Republicans to move the country away from the public education system and toward a private education system dominated by school voucher programs,” said Lane Wendell Fischer, rural education reporter for the Daily Yonder. “The vast majority of rural communities rely heavily on their public schools, many of which are already struggling to make ends meet.” Dissolving the entire Department of Education is unlikely, said Forbes education contributor Peter Greene in an interview with the Daily Yonder last October. “[Shutting down] the Department of Education has been a promise of every conservative president for 40 some years,” he said. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Read More NPR: Trump is weighing big cuts to the U.S. Education Department The Wall Street Journal: Trump advisors weigh plan to dismantle Education Department USDA Federal Funding Freeze February 10, 2025 – Farmers are missing out on millions in promised federal funds after Trump’s funding freeze, despite assurances that his overhaul wouldn’t harm individual farmers. The federal government promised farmers who participated in programs under Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act millions of dollars in reimbursement for things like new fencing or the installation of renewable energy systems. Farmers are now on the hook for the money they’ve invested. “The impact has been immediate and wide-ranging, from cash assistance for ranchers to fix cattle watering systems to help for corn growers wanting to plant cover crops that curb wind erosion,” reported Reuters’ J.P. Huffstutter and Leah Douglas. House Democrats of the Agriculture and Appropriations committees wrote a letter to the USDA on February 6th, citing concerns about how funding freezes could cripple the rural economy. “To be clear, the people impacted by this funding freeze are hardworking, rural Americans and small businesses,” the letter said. Read More Farm Policy News: USDA Freezes Conservation, Other Direct Farmer Funding The Washington Post: Farmers on the hook for millions after Trump freezes USDA funds Health Communications February 7, 2025 – Within hours of his inauguration, Trump issued a memo pausing all health communications until a presidential appointee can review the material. The order halted all health communications until further notice. “The abrupt order has already disrupted patient care, public health oversight, halted medical research funding, and obstructed critical regulatory processes,” wrote 34 Democratic senators in a letter to Acting Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dorothy Fink. The federal government has since taken down some online data portals, including a tool that assesses social vulnerability to natural disasters. Federal health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also replaced the term “pregnant people” with “pregnant women,” seemingly in compliance with Trump’s federal ban on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The Daily Yonder is an authoritative source on data-driven rural health reporting. During the coronavirus pandemic, we were the only news source tracking death and infection rates weekly at the county level. We used CDC reports for most of our coverage. In other words, our data reporting on rural America in many cases relies on federal communications. Although the CDC’s Community Profile page, which we used to drive our coronavirus reports, is still available, further restraints on the agency’s ability to communicate with the public about infectious outbreaks will impede news outlets like ours from keeping our readers in the loop. Read More NPR: Some federal health websites restored, others still down, after data purge The Journalist’s Resource: As the US government removes health websites and data, here’s a list of non-government data alternatives and archives EPA Funding Freeze February 7, 2025 – Disbursements associated with the federal government’s $7 billion Solar For All program have been paused as a result of President Trump’s funding freeze at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The program, established after the 2022 passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), aims to make solar energy available for low-income Americans across the country, including rural communities in the Southeast and communities in the industrial heartland. More than $500 million in funding is set to go to Tribal communities, per the program’s website. Of the 60 grantees announced in 2024, nine specifically mention rural aspects of their proposed projects. Projects in Alaska, Arizona, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee and a conglomerate of states in the Southeast were all awarded funding for solar deployment involving rural communities. Though Trump’s halt on IRA spending has been challenged in the courts, Solar For All program funding remains frozen. On Thursday, February 6th, 2025, Democratic lawmakers explicitly mentioned the Solar For All program in a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin criticizing the freezes for their impact on families and businesses. Read More Utility Dive: EPA funding freeze endangers $7B Solar For All program Floodlight: Trump’s funding pause clouds future of Solar For All Program Don’t miss the rural headlines. Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. 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