USDA rural telehealth program gets seven-year lifeline
H.R. 290 — Rural Telehealth and Education Enhancement Act of 2025 · Filed by Nicholas Langworthy (R-NY) · 7 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 9, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill extends the Department of Agriculture's Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program authorization from 2023 to 2030, keeping the program alive for seven additional years. Rural communities and agricultural producers benefit by maintaining federal funding for broadband-enabled distance education and remote medical services in underserved areas.
Why we flagged it
The bill performs a single, straightforward function: extending an existing USDA program's authorization window by seven years. It is a routine reauthorization with no policy changes to the program itself.
Who it affects
Rural residents and agricultural communities gain continued access to federally funded distance learning and telemedicine services that would otherwise expire. The extension preserves existing infrastructure and services with no apparent cost to citizens or restrictions on rights.
Named in the bill
Department of Agriculture, Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program, Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, Section 2335A
Where it stands
7 cosponsors: 7 Democrats.
- Jan 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 9, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Agriculture · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $40,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 12 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 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Nicholas Langworthy, the sponsor, reported $1,046,611 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Ata Action — $40,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 17, 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 (291 characters) on May 21, 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 17, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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