By John Crabtree, johnc@cfra.org, Center for Rural Affairs

The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

The Center for Rural Affairs has said from the beginning, the Affordable Care Act is a perfectly legal response to the health care and health insurance challenges facing millions of Americans and rural Americans in particular. The Supreme Court's ruling will continue the already existing benefits and protections helping young adults, Medicare beneficiaries, children, and every one of us from unreasonable health insurance rate increases.

The Supreme Court decision also authorizes states to implement the system that allows Americans to purchase affordable, comprehensive health insurance coverage beginning in 2014. For those of us living in rural America, where we are more likely to be uninsured or underinsured, and where local economies are even more dependent on self-employment and small business, this ruling is a true victory.

It is now time to move forward in implementing the Affordable Care Act and the federal Department of Health and Human Services as well as the states should take action to fully implement the Act and immediately establish health insurance marketplaces with serious consumer protections and a robust governing board. Congress should also continue investing in access to medical professionals in medically underserved rural areas and maintaining rural hospitals.

Now that the legal wrangling is complete, it's time to bind up the nation's political wounds and get about the business of resolving the health care challenges facing the nation and its people.

Center for Rural Affairs voices mixed reaction to Senate Farm Bill

Lyons, NE - Today the United States Senate passed their version of the 2012 Farm Bill by a vote of 64-35.

"The farm bill that passed the Senate today funds beginning farmer and rancher training, small business loans and assistance, grants and loans for small town water and sewer systems and value-added enterprise grants for family farmers and ranchers," said Chuck Hassebrook of the Center for Rural Affairs. "These are vitally important steps forward for rural America."

But the Center for Rural Affairs also found real flaws in the Senate's Farm Bill. According to Hassebrook, the bill's greatest weakness is that there is no limit on crop insurance premium subsidies doled out to the nation's largest farms.

"More than 10,000 large farms received over $100,000 in premium subsidies last year - a year of record income. This bill will continue over-subsidizing crop insurance premiums for wealthy and powerful agribusiness interests, helping them drive out small, mid-sized and beginning farmers," explained Hassebrook.

"However, the bill does close loopholes in the cap on traditional farm program payments to large farms, requires recipients of crop insurance premium subsidies to practice some conservation and denies premium subsidies on native grasslands broken out for crops," concluded Hassebrook.

By Paul Mansoor, paulm@cfra.org, Center for Rural Affairs

People want wind energy, but don't want to pay a lot more for it. According to a new study, they may be able to have their cake--and eat it too.

Wind energy is attractive for economic reasons. A robust wind industry could bring hundreds of thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars per year into the economy, much of it in rural America.  But fear of higher prices has kept wind development grounded.

Although wind produces some of the cleanest energy, nobody wants higher electric rates. Wind towers are expensive. And in remote areas, developing new wind farms can require transmission improvements, which are necessary to send the electricity from producers to consumers. Power companies usually pass these costs onto ratepayers. This creates a bottleneck, stalling wind projects and keeping clean energy from getting off the ground.

However, introducing greater levels of wind together with smart system planning can decrease the annual market price relative to today. This means consumers would pay less for wind energy!

The key is to go "all in." The savings accrue when healthy wind development is combined with transmission upgrades. Installing just a few turbines at a time will cost more, on average, than multiple developments.

The case for wind energy keeps getting stronger. Job creation, clean energy and lower electric bills?

Change is coming... you can feel it in the breeze.

Lyons, NE - Today, the Center for Rural Affairs joined more than 185 leaders and rural organizations from across the nation in signing and sending a letter sent to every U.S. Senator expressing support for Federal investment in rural development in the Farm Bill currently being debated on the floor of the Senate.

The letter states that one of the proven job-creating titles of the farm bill is the Rural Development title, which authorizes essential grants and loan programs targeted at leveraging local initiatives to spur growth and opportunity in small towns and rural areas.

"If passed as it now stands, this will be the first farm bill in decades to provide no funding for small town and rural development..." Chuck Hassebrook, Center for Rural Affairs

"If passed as it now stands, this will be the first farm bill in decades to provide no funding for small town and rural development. Rural development has already been cut by one-third since 2003, mostly by the annual appropriations process through which Congress divides up the budget," said Chuck Hassebrook of the Center for Rural Affairs. "But passing a farm bill with no funding for job creating and community building rural development programs deepens that cut."

The Center for Rural Affairs and other signatories on the letter urged Senators to correct this deficiency by providing robust funding for the following successful Rural Development programs: Value-Added Producer Grants, Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program, Rural Energy Savings Program, and Rural Water and Wastewater Treatment Backlog.

"This letter demonstrates strong support for programs that create jobs and assist beginning farmers, small businesses and small towns across rural America," added Hassebrook.

The signatories also urged investment in the future of American agriculture. Specifically, the letter noted that, "The average age of an American agricultural producer today is 57, and if we let current trends go unchecked, that number will only increase.  Providing training and technical assistance to the next generation of farmers can help buck the trend and ensure future food security."

However, according to the letter, the Farm Bill passed by the Senate Agriculture Committee falls far short of maintaining current investment in the training tools that new and diverse farmers need to succeed.

"And that is why we are urging Senators to provide robust mandatory funding for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program and Outreach for Socially Disadvantaged and Minority Producers (Section 2501 program)," Hassebrook explained.

The complete letter, including signatories is available here: http://files.cfra.org/pdf/Support-Letter-Brown-Amendment.pdf