March 3, 2021 3:20 a.m. 

Oregon and Idaho congressional leaders are pushing to ensure that counties do not lose out on essential services due to federal land ownership.

A release said the bipartisan push for reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools program is led by Oregon’s Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and Idaho Republican Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch. The bill would reauthorize the SRS program through September of next year. The release said the program, which helps fund essential services in rural communities that are home to federal land, expired in September of last year. The last payment under the current authorization is scheduled for next month.

Wyden said the two-year extension of SRS is an urgently needed must-do while the work continues on a permanent SRS endowment “…that gets rural counties once and for all off this roller coaster of uncertainty”.

Merkley said “Our rural communities have been among the hardest hit by the health and economic impacts of the ongoing coronavirus crisis”. He said those consequences have only been made worse because many of these towns and counties are losing the critical revenue needed to pay first responders, teachers and other essential workers “…at a time when they are needed most”.

The release said in the last Congress, the group led similar legislation to extend SRS for two years. While it was voted out of committee unanimously, it did not receive consideration on the Senate Floor before the end of that session.