Congress extends rural broadband funding for six more years.
H.R. 5037 — Middle Mile for Rural America Act · Filed by Randy Feenstra (R-IA) · 10 cosponsors · Introduced Aug 26, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill extends a federal rural broadband infrastructure program by six years, shifting its funding window from 2018–2023 to 2026–2031. It allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture to continue financing middle-mile broadband networks (the backbone infrastructure connecting rural communities to the internet) in underserved areas, benefiting rural residents and businesses seeking faster, more reliable internet access.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative function is to extend the authorization period for USDA middle-mile broadband funding in rural areas. It is a straightforward program reauthorization with no hidden mechanisms or narrow beneficiaries.
What the text implies
- Extension assumes continued federal appropriations; the bill authorizes spending but does not appropriate funds, so actual deployment depends on separate budget action.
- Program success depends on state and local matching funds or private-sector participation; the bill does not address whether rural areas have capacity to co-invest.
- No new performance metrics or accountability measures are added; the bill extends the program as-is without updating oversight or deployment targets.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Rural residents and small businesses gain continued access to federal funding for broadband backbone infrastructure, addressing a documented gap in rural connectivity. The extension poses no apparent cost to citizens and expands opportunity for digital inclusion in underserved areas.
Who stands to gain
- rural broadband service providers and contractors
- telecommunications equipment manufacturers
- rural electric cooperatives (traditional USDA REA partners)
Named in the bill
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Electrification Act of 1936, Section 602(g), rural broadband infrastructure
Where it stands
10 cosponsors: 6 Democrats, 4 Republicans.
- Aug 26, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Aug 26, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce and House Committee on Agriculture · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a…”
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 $1,750,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 42 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.
Randy Feenstra, the sponsor, reported $570,750 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (nreca) — $1,750,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 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 (267 characters) on Jul 6, 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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