{"id":19764,"date":"2026-04-26T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/?p=19764"},"modified":"2026-04-26T17:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T23:20:15","slug":"fulcher-on-announcement-of-secure-rural-schools-payments-helped-facilitate-house-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/fulcher-on-announcement-of-secure-rural-schools-payments-helped-facilitate-house-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Fulcher on Announcement of Secure Rural Schools Payments, Helped Facilitate House Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:&nbsp;<\/strong>April 20, 2026<br><strong>CONTACT:&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"mailto:Christianne.Allen@mail.house.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Christianne.Allen@mail.house.gov<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WASHINGTON, D.C.&nbsp;<\/strong>\u2014 Today, U.S. Congressman Russ Fulcher (Idaho-01) released the following statement after the U.S. Forest Service announced it will issue $248 million in Secure Rural Schools (SRS) payments for&nbsp;2025&nbsp;and $182 million in retroactive payments for&nbsp;2024. These funds go to eligible states and counties with untaxed National Forest System lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The announcement comes after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the\u00a0Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025 in December of last year, which was later signed into law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bill reauthorized the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s Secure Rural Schools and Self-Determination Program through Fiscal Year 2026 and provided lapsed payments for 2024 and 2025, a measure Congressman Fulcher helped facilitate get on the House floor and advocated for with House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republican Leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFederal programs like SRS are vital to Idaho\u2019s rural communities, where a significant portion of land is owned by the federal government. However, this funding has grown increasingly difficult to garner support for in the U.S. Congress, as states without vast federal landholdings often view this program as a subsidy,\u201d&nbsp;<strong>said Congressman Fulcher.&nbsp;<\/strong>\u201cI am grateful to Speaker Johnson and House Republican Leadership for their collaborative efforts with my office to get legislation to provide payments through Fiscal Year 2026\u2014in addition to lapsed payments for 2024 and 2025\u2014on the House floor and passed. While I am very pleased to see these funds released, I will continue to advocate for a long-term solution in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Idaho counties will receive a total of $24 million in payments for Fiscal Year 2025 and&nbsp;$27 million&nbsp;for 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:&nbsp;April 20, 2026CONTACT:&nbsp;Christianne.Allen@mail.house.gov WASHINGTON, D.C.&nbsp;\u2014 Today, U.S. Congressman Russ Fulcher (Idaho-01) released the following statement after the U.S. Forest Service announced it will issue $248 million in Secure Rural Schools (SRS) payments for&nbsp;2025&nbsp;and $182 million in retroactive payments for&nbsp;2024. These funds go to eligible states and counties with untaxed National Forest System lands. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":19765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[824],"class_list":["post-19764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions-op-eds","tag-press-release","cat-243-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19767,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19764\/revisions\/19767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}