News

Far too often we hear conversations and read stories about the health care law that are so politically charged it becomes impossible to figure out what is really going on. So how about instead we take a step back and think about the law in terms of wh...
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By Steph Larsen Recently, President Obama issued an executive order creating the White House Rural Council. According to the official press release, the council "will coordinate programs across government to encourage public-private partnerships to promote further economic prosperity and quality of life in rural communities nationwide." Over at Daily Younder, there's some healthy skepticism. What will...
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By Ian Johnson, CFRA supporter Recently my community involvement around sustainability principles snowballed into an involvement and experience far greater than I could have imagined. While in Washington, DC recently, I re-connected with one of my ol...
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Last week we headed east to Cherokee, Iowa, to attend a public meeting on a new electric transmission project, Rock Island Clean Line. The open house meeting in Cherokee was one in a series hosted by Clean Line Energy, the company in charge of develop...
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What exactly are "rural subsidies"? The ill-defined term is at the center of a debate between Washington Post Columnist Ezra Klein and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.   See part one, part two and part three of their exchange. I hope to have more thoughts on the overall exchange later, but I want to start by highlighting this key element. While Klein refers...
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In order to maximize clean energy development throughout the region, our electric transmission grid must be updated and expanded to more fully integrate renewable power. For example, this map from the Department of Energy's 2008 report  illustrates how wind would have to move throughout the country in order to meet a goal of 20% wind...
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Alyssa Charney is an intern at the Center for Rural Affairs. She grew up in Massachusetts and has a degree in Environment Studies and Geography from Vassar College in New York. Here at the Center we’ve been thinking a lot about what wind energy projects in the region will mean for rural communities. Wind energy...
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Driving down a two-lane highway in rural Nebraska last spring, I passed a Native American man riding an old bicycle toward the nearby Omaha Indian Reservation. We were at least 7 miles from the nearest town, and he had four grocery bags bulging with food slung over his handlebars as he worked to climb...
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Politicians were busy in the waning days of the 111th Congress. Two issues in particular caught our attention at the Center for Rural Affairs: the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) and changes to the estate tax. Both of these measures affect rural Americans in very real ways, so it’s worth...
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By Steph Larsen Everybody these days seems to love the idea of family farmers and ranchers, and most consumers would argue that livestock producers deserve a fair price for what they sell. Big livestock producers shouldn't get paid more just for being ...
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