House Committee Advances USDA Funding Bill
The bill includes $40 million for the ReConnect program.
WASHINGTON, June 3, 2026 – The House Rules Committee advanced Tuesday evening a bill that would fund the Department of Agriculture for fiscal year 2027, clearing the way for its consideration on the House floor.
The bill would provide $638 million in loans and grants for telecom and broadband, including $40 million for ReConnect program grants and more than $33 million for distance learning and telemedicine grants.
The committee cleared for House consideration an amendment that would prioritize distance learning and telemedicine grants to rural mental health and substance abuse care providers more than 30 miles from another health center.
There was little talk of broadband at the committee’s meeting, which stretched more than three and a half hours. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, said he supported the Trump administration eyeing fixed wireless and satellite connectivity in other grant programs.
He also implied he didn’t support perpetual broadband deployment grants.
“The ReConnect program, for instance, as we build out broadband, there is less and less that needs to be done. So why would you level-fund it from now until eternity?” he said.
Despite that, Harris and other lawmakers are looking to give USDA more broadband money than the Trump administration asked for in FY27. The agency had asked for $230 million in broadband and telecom loans and grants, and asked to zero out ReConnect funding entirely.
“This proposal is based on the assessment that [the Rural Utilities Service] has adequate funding available for rural broadband and should prioritize targeting resources on servicing its existing customers and applicants to ensure projects reach financial completion and begin construction,” the agency wrote in its request.
Karl Elmshaeuser, head of RUS, said at an April event that a sixth round of ReConnect funding would be coming “sooner than later.” The program has spent $5.5 billion since 2018 on rural broadband and received $51 million from Congress for FY26.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, some of whose members provide broadband, is supportive of USDA broadband funding and Reconnect. The group held its annual D.C. fly-in recently.
“We’re always looking for continued robust funding in the Reconnect program,” said CEO Jim Matheson told reports last week. It has “been a really successful program because USDA has an interesting understanding of rural America.”
