Congress extends rural school funding tied to federal timber sales
H.R. 1383 — Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025 · Filed by Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) · 93 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 14, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill extends the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, which distributes federal timber-sale revenue to counties and schools in rural areas containing federal land. The bill extends payment deadlines from 2023 to 2026, ensures counties do not double-receive payments for fiscal years 2024–2025, mandates Treasury make all payments within 45 days of enactment, and extends the authority for special projects and county fund expenditures through 2028–2029. Rural counties and schools dependent on these federal payments benefit by securing continued funding; the bill also includes minor technical corrections.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative function is to extend authorization and payment deadlines under an existing rural-revenue-sharing statute. It is a straightforward reauthorization with no policy innovation or sector carve-out.
What the text implies
- Double-payment prevention (subsection 2(a)(e)) suggests prior fiscal-year confusion or overlap; the bill corrects this but does not explain the underlying administrative error.
- 45-day Treasury payment mandate may signal prior delays in disbursement; the bill imposes a hard deadline but does not address root causes of delay.
- Extension of Resource Advisory Committee pilot program (Section 3) continues a decentralized forest-management model; long-term effectiveness and cost-benefit are not evaluated in the bill.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Rural counties and schools dependent on federal timber-revenue sharing gain certainty and continued funding for education and community services. The bill prevents double-payment and mandates prompt Treasury disbursement, reducing administrative delay and ensuring reliable cash flow to economically vulnerable rural areas.
Who stands to gain
- rural school districts in counties containing federal land
- county governments in timber-dependent regions
Named in the bill
Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Resource Advisory Committees, eligible counties, eligible states
Where it stands
93 cosponsors: 58 Democrats, 34 Republicans, 1 Independents.
- Feb 14, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 14, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources and House Committee on Agriculture · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $160,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 1 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Doug LaMalfa, the sponsor, reported $279,010 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Education Association — $100,000 on 2 filings
- California School Boards Association — $60,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 13, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (4,447 characters) on Aug 29, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 13, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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