“A bill to amend the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act to reauthorize and expand the Rural Innovation Stronger Economy grant program.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section reauthorizes the Rural Innovation Stronger Economy grant program (i.e., grants to eligible rural partnerships to create high-wage jobs through stakeholder collaboration, workforce training, and entrepreneurship support) at $50 million annually for FY2027 through FY2031 and expands the program as follows: (1) revises the definition of eligible entity by broadening the working group's focus from identified industry clusters to industries in the area served by the partnership, eliminating the requirement that a region be large enough to contain critical industry cluster elements, striking the definition of industry cluster, and adding definitions of high-wage job (i.e., above-median wage for the region) and jobs accelerator (i.e., center or program in low-income rural communities offering co-working, skills training, and related services); (2) requires the Secretary to target grants to a broad range of rural community types with emphasis on populations under 20,000 and to award at least 10% of annual funds to benefit communities with populations under 10,000; (3) updates grant selection criteria to require representation of diverse industry bases, state rural development office concurrence for awards, and consideration of factors such as high-wage job creation potential and regional collaboration; and (4) makes conforming and technical changes to allowable uses and performance measures by removing multiple references to industry clusters. This section also makes a conforming amendment to update a cross-reference in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018.