Burning down the house: California’s fire insurance crisis

California residents have become accustomed to historically large wildfires occurring at an astonishing pace, with eight of the ten largest fires ever recorded in California occurring in the last 10 years. The increasing frequency and destructiveness of wildfires has strained fire insurance systems to a near breaking point, and rural communities are often the most impacted by both wildfires and rising insurance costs.

Fire danger sign on scorched ground outside Klamath. Image source: National Interagency Fire Center

A primer on California’s FAIR Plan

California’s FAIR Plan, commonly referred to as the “insurer of last resort,” was created by the California Legislature in 1968 to act as a temporary safety net for homeowners who were unable to find home insurance from regular providers. Unlike a typical home insurance plan, the FAIR Plan only covers fire damage to structures, not household goods or personal liability. Contrary to public perception, the FAIR Plan is not a state funded insurer. The FAIR Plan is instead a state managed insurance pool comprised of all private insurers licensed to conduct business in California.

When FAIR Plan premiums fail to cover their exposure, the California Insurance Commissioner may levy assessments of up to a total of $1 billion per year (gross, not per insurer) against private insurers based on the market share of these insurers. Ostensibly, private insurers are not permitted to pass the costs of these assessments along to their ratepayers without approval from the Insurance Commissioner.

Trends in FAIR Plan usage

FAIR Plan usage has grown significantly in recent years. In 2009, only 7% of California ZIP codes had FAIR Plan policies that accounted for more than 10% of policies in that ZIP code. By 2022, this was true of 22% of California ZIP codes. FAIR Plan usage tends to be much higher in rural areas, as demonstrated by the below map, published by Avery Bick and Nam Nguyen in this post.



To select a few extreme examples from this map, one ZIP code located in Placer County where the largest community, Foresthill, has a population of 1692, has a FAIR Plan rate of 69.625%. Another ZIP code in Orange county has a FAIR Plan rate of 79.67%, and their largest community, Silverado, has a population of only 932.

While the FAIR Plan was not intended to insure such a large proportion of California’s residents, the reason why that trend is unfolding is quite clear: private insurers are fleeing the state as fast as they can. State Farm (still the largest insurer in California) and Allstate stopped writing new homeowner fire policies in 2022. A series of other large insurers left the state in the following years, with Nationwide, Farmers, Travelers, Tokio, and American National all ceasing to write new policies from 2023-2025.

As FAIR Plan usage has expanded, premiums for FAIR Plan policies have also increased significantly, with some consumers seeing rate increases (rarely) as high as 300% in a single year. While the average FAIR Plan policy costs around $3,200 per year, it is common for policies to cost more than $10,000 per year in high fire risk areas.

Why has rural California been hit so hard by the insurance crisis?

The reason that this crisis has hit rural California particularly hard is relatively intuitive. As phrased by Prof. Minnich of UC Riverside, “People want to live with nature, but they don’t recognize that nature is explosively flammable.”

Housing in wildland urban interface (WUI) areas is much more prone to fire damage. Defined commonly as an area where urban development mingles with undeveloped wildland vegetation, WUI overlaps significantly with areas typically considered rural, but it may also include development on the outskirts of urban centers.

Residential development in WUI is the fastest growing land use type in the United States, with the number of houses in WUI increasing by 46% from 1990 to 2020. California has seen the greatest increase of houses in WUI, with one third of California households in WUI as of 2020. Note the striking resemblance that the below map of change in WUI in California, published by Prof. Miriam Greenberg in this article, bears to the above map of FAIR Plan coverage rates.



The increasing number of houses in high fire risk areas coupled with more frequent and destructive fires have proved a hurdle that insurers are often unable to clear without substantial premium increases.

The future of the FAIR Plan

Increased reliance on the FAIR Plan, along with massive exposure from the Palisades and Eaton fires has led Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to levy the first assessment against FAIR Plan member companies since 1994. The assessment is for the full $1 billion allowed. 

Additionally, Commissioner Lara mandated the use of wildfire catastrophe models in FAIR Plan's most recent rate increase application. The rate increase currently proposed would average a 35.8% increase, with about half of policyholders seeing an increase between 40% and 50%.

In addition to these efforts by the Department of Insurance, a variety of legislative measures have been passed or proposed to address California's insurance crisis. One of the most notable among these is Assemblymember Lisa Calderon's (D, 56th District) AB 1680, which seeks to overhaul the FAIR Plan in a number of ways, perhaps most significantly by extending FAIR Plan coverage to water damage, personal injury liability, and other coverages typical of standard home insurance policies. 

Conclusions

These and other measures taken by California in response to the Palisades and Eaton fire make clear that policymakers know action is needed, but there is little doubt that they are inadequate. While efforts to mitigate the costs to FAIR Plan policyholders are important, California's insurance crisis is inherent in our homebuilding choices and lack of adequate wildfire hardening. As previous blog posts have noted, wildfire prevention efforts in rural areas of California are severely underfunded. Without serious efforts to mitigate wildfire risk, California is unlikely to halt the exodus of private insurers. 

Big tech sets its sights on rural Arizona

The blog’s most recent post discussed the Rural Health Transformation Program. Passed as part of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” this “rural slush fund” was added as a last-minute sweetener to secure the support of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski.

One of the $50 billion fund’s stated goals is “tech innovation.” States utilizing the funds must spend them on three or more approved uses, including:

Providing training and technical assistance for the development and adoption of technology-enabled solutions that improve care delivery in rural hospitals, including remote monitoring, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies.

This sounds promising. Rural hospitals face unique challenges, and technology that improves care and increases capacity could be transformative. An earlier post on this blog discussed how RFK Jr. has promoted AI nurses as a potential solution to the rural health care crisis. That optimistic vision contrasts sharply with how artificial intelligence is currently arriving in many rural areas.

In December 2025, Sharon Goldman reported for Fortune on a massive AI data center project planned for rural Arizona. The development would be built on a 2,000-acre property called Hassayampa Ranch, located about 50 miles west of Phoenix near the unincorporated community of Tonopah in western Maricopa County. The area is home to a few hundred residents, drawn there for its tranquility and clear skies for stargazing.

Photo caption: Buckeye Ranch, Tonopah. © Nextdoor

This quiet corner of the desert has become the center of intense activity since developer Anita Verma-Lallian purchased the land for $51 million, backed by billionaire venture capitalist and Trump mega-donor Chamath Palihapitiya. The plan is to spend as much as $25 billion to build a data center that would produce 1.5 gigawatts of compute and consume as much electricity as a million homes.

Photo caption: Visualization of the land parcel. © Jason Ma, 2025

Investment in rural communities sounds exciting, but who benefits? As Andrew Aitken noted in The Builder Bureau, AI is largely being developed for and used by urban populations, while rural people continue to struggle with poor network coverage and slow internet speeds. So while it remains unclear whether Tonopah will reap any benefits from hosting AI infrastructure, residents are already bearing the costs.

This pattern echoes concerns raised in prior entries on this blog. A May 2024 post discussed how rural folks in Montana are resisting efforts to make their land a “carbon sponge” for urban America. As one county commissioner put it:

The question I keep hearing is, ‘Why are they making us the dumping ground for the rest of the country?’

A similar dynamic is at play in Tonopah, with rural Arizona poised to bear the environmental burden of infrastructure that primarily serves urban tech consumers.

In her Fortune article, Goldman explains that Tonopah residents are already worried about incoming noise and light pollution, traffic and infrastructure strain, and negative impacts on property values. Concerned community members have organized and signed petitions against the development. But with such a small population, their political power is limited against billionaire-backed interests. As Kathy Fletcher, a 76-year-old resident who lives on a one-acre plot next to the Hassayampa Ranch site, said:

All we can do is plead with the people here... We’re kind of treated like the redheaded stepchild, and they just think they can throw anything they want out here... We’re having a difficult time fighting the battle to tell people, ‘You can make a difference.’

Another major concern is water. AI data centers generate vast amounts of heat and require millions of gallons of water per day for cooling. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a medium-sized data center can consume up to 110 million gallons of water per year—equivalent to the annual water usage of approximately 1,000 households. Larger data centers can use up to 5 million gallons per day. For the people of Tonopah, who rely almost exclusively on ground wells for their water needs, the prospect of a massive development tapping into their water supply is daunting.

As Dillon Beckett wrote on this blog, utility-scale projects are “overwhelmingly sited in rural areas” and tend to “benefit a sliver of the community’s social strata (wealthy, often absentee landowners, with extensive real estate holdings) while spreading the cost across the entire community.” The Hassayampa Ranch data center fits this pattern: Silicon Valley investors stand to profit, while local residents face rising utility costs, depleted aquifers, and a transformed landscape.

Tonya Pearsall, a Tonopah resident who has lived in the area since 1999, feels a profound sense of loss as this project rapidly changes the character of her once-calm community:

We used to be able to see the Milky Way—that’s why we moved out here... It’s painful... I could break down and cry.

Photo caption: The night sky over Maricopa County. © David Iversen, 2025.

There is some movement in Congress to address these concerns. Representative Jim Costa (D-CA) has introduced the Unleashing Low-Cost Rural AI Act, which would require the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, and Energy to study the impact of AI data center expansion on rural areas, including effects on energy supply, consumer costs, and infrastructure needs. Whether such a study will lead to meaningful protections for communities like Tonopah remains to be seen.

The Hassayampa Ranch project is not unique. Similar fights are playing out in Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Georgia, where rural residents are pushing back against data center proposals that promise economic development but threaten local resources and quality of life.

As AI continues its rapid expansion, rural communities across the country will increasingly find themselves on the front lines of a familiar struggle: who decides what happens to rural land, and who bears the cost of progress?

From Benin City to global stages: what Rema's journey teaches us about rural potential

When we talk about rural areas, we often associate them with limited opportunities, economic struggles, and slow-paced lifestyle. However, raw talent and unique cultural identity are hidden in these communities. When nurtured, they can thrive on global scale. A perfect example of this is the story of my favorite singer, Divine Ikubor, popularly known as Rema. The Nigerian Afrobeat sensation rose from Benin City to international fame. In my opinion, his journey reflects the reality of many rural areas worldwide: full of talent just waiting to be discovered.

 

The singer’s beginnings were undeniably humble. He was born in 2000, in Benin City, Nigeria, a region that isn't traditionally known for producing mainstream music stars. Like many people from smaller towns, Rema had to navigate economic and social challenges while chasing his dream. According to the World Bank’s “Nigeria Poverty Assessment 2022”, about 40% of Nigerians live below the national poverty line. In many regions, especially in the north, access to quality education and basic infrastructure such as clean water and electricity remains limited. To make matters harder, the Afrobeat sensation lost both his father and brother at a young age, forcing him to take on responsibility for his family. Before his breakthrough, he worked multiple jobs to support them.

 

What makes Rema stand out globally is his ability to blend Afrobeat with international influences while staying true to his Nigerian roots. Rural communities have rich cultural histories that can become assets rather than obstacles. For example, rural tourism seems to be growing worldwide, as people are increasingly interested in authentic experiences: learning traditional farming techniques, attending local festivals, and exploring indigenous arts. By embracing these traditions, rural communities can turn their heritage into a source of income and pride. 

 

Just like Rema’s talent was waiting to be recognized, rural areas worldwide are filled with people whose potential remains unseen due to lack of exposure. Technology and social media are slowly changing this narrative. The singer used to make music as a teenager and post it online. One of his freestyles went viral and caught the attention of music executives, which led him to sign with Mavin Records, the label that launched his international career. Similarly, South African singer Tyla also gained international recognition through her 2023 hit “Water”. The song amassed over 10 billion views on Tiktok.

Rema’s journey is inspiring but it’s not just about music. It is a case study about how potential can flourish with the right mix of talent, opportunity, and technology. For rural communities to thrive, they need more than just ambition —they need support. In that context, Nigeria has taken steps to support its booming creative sector. Initiatives like the Creative Industry Financing Initiative (CIFI), launched by the Central Bank of Nigeria, provide financial support to young creatives in music, fashion, and film. Similarly, the African Creative Blueprint, backed by a $3.5 million USAID investment and run by Ascend Studios, provides training and mentorship in TV production and other creative fields.

But despite these good intentions, initiatives like CIFI and the USAID-Ascend partnership are often centered in urban hubs, where exposure, and industry connections already exist. For a gifted musician in a rural area with no stable internet, no mentors, and no recording gear, these programs can feel out of reach. In her blog post, Sophie Roppé made a good point about rural festivals like Bonnaroo and Hinterland: they’re not just music events —they’re economic catalysts and cultural lifelines for smaller communities. Similarly, if countries like Nigeria could host festivals outside of urban centers, it could celebrate local talent and stimulate local economies.

If Nigeria truly wants to nurture the next generation of creatives, it must dig deeper. Funding is a start, but it must be followed by real infrastructure, decentralized mentorship, and digital access that reaches every corner of the country. Like Rema, rural talent is ready to shine. The question is: Are we ready to invest in it?

Ndala and Cyclone Freddy: the harsh reality of climate change

On March 13, 2023, Ndala, a village in northeastern Mozambique, was almost entirely submerged in water. Heavy rains caused the river running through the village to overflow. The torrent of water and rocks cleared everything in its path: houses and people inside them, roads, bridges, livestock, and vehicles. The cause of these tragic events was Cyclone Freddy, the longest tropical cyclone on record. Two years later, Ndala still faces the effects of the storm. The population endures isolation, illness, and deepening poverty. The cyclone injured many, tore families apart, and destroyed livelihoods. 

 

The people most affected by extreme weather, particularly in places like Mozambique and across Africa, are often the least responsible for the climate crisis. Those affected live in communities with the least resources to adapt to climate disasters such as Cyclone Freddy. As a result, these countries and population pay the heaviest price for climate change with their lives. 

 

This vulnerability is not unique to Mozambique. In his blog post “Rural vulnerabilities in a changing climate”, Ryan Chen highlighted how rural areas with weak infrastructure are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. He cites Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where drought is worsening due to it. Similarly, Ndala also lacks infrastructure and has trouble dealing with flooding. 

 

The increased frequency of floods and droughts directly impacts agriculture, threatening crop yields and livestock, primary sources of income sustenance for many rural communities in Mozambique. The cost of adapting to these drastic changes strains already limited financial resources of rural communities.

Malawi, a neighboring country of Mozambique, was also impacted by Cyclone Freddy. Recognizing the previous challenges, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the government of Malawi launched a US$53 million agricultural development program in 2023. The initiative aims to commercialize agriculture, enhance small-scale farming resilience, and improve food security and nutrition across the country. As part of this effort, the seven-year Sustainable Agriculture Production program will equip farmers with the skills and resources needed to combat food insecurity, increase income, and improve rural livelihoods. In addition, the program allows funds to be reallocated to address immediate needs such as repairs to infrastructure that was damaged or destroyed by climate disasters. 

Nevertheless, while the IFAD has been actively involved in improving food security and resilient livelihoods for rural transformation in Mozambique, it didn't provide direct assistance to the country following Cyclone Freddy.

 

Climate disasters often lead to migration. Cyclone Freddy left thousands in Mozambique without homes, forcing them to migrate in search of safety and stability. However, under international law, these people do not qualify as refugees because their displacement is climate-related rather than a result of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group, as defined by article 1 of the Geneva Convention. 

Climate-displaced individuals are classified as internally displaced persons (IDPs) if they remain in their country or migrants if they cross borders. Under the Geneva Convention, refugees are entitled to the right to seek asylum, non-refoulement (not being sent back to danger), access to healthcare, education, and work in host countries, unlike IDPs and migrants.

 

This legal gap has sparked an ongoing debate about the legal recognition of “climate refugees”. The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) advocates for the expanded definition of refugees to include those displaced by climate change. However, many countries that ratified the Geneva Convention oppose this change, fearing it would increase migration and legal obligations. Amnesty International argues that concerns over mass migration are overblown. Instead, the organization emphasizes the need for humanitarian assistance, as climate change continues to displace communities worldwide. 

 

The case of Cyclone Freddy and Ndala underscores the growing urgency of this debate. Moving forward, the international community can no longer afford to ignore the impact of climate change on rural communities. Without action, climate migrants will remain trapped in legal limbo, denied the protections they desperately need.

Biden's investments in rural America

Farah Stockman wrote in the New York Times blog yesterday about the Biden administration's investment in rural America.  

Frustration in rural America, which has long felt left behind in federal attention and dollars, has been a major driver of right-wing populism. To counter that, the Biden administration has bet literally billions on the idea that federal investments can turn those places around. The infrastructure act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act all contained special incentives aimed at improving the economic prospects of rural towns and small cities across the country.

It’s too early to tell whether it worked.

Stockman then notes a recently published Brookings Institution Report seeking to assess just that--whether these investments are working.  In particular, it tracks "$525 billion in private investment in advance technologies like clean energy and semiconductors" and "found that a significant portion has gone into economically depressed places that hadn't seen those types of investments before."  Here's a bullet point form the Bookings Institution Report: 

So far, economically distressed counties are receiving a larger-than-proportional share of that investment surge relative to their current share of the economy. With comparatively low prime-age employment rates and median household incomes, these counties account for about 8% of national GDP but have received 16% of announced strategic sector investments since 2021.

The NYT blog post focuses on Haywood County, Tennessee and Matagorda County, Texas, which are seeing the benefit of these investments.  

Rural responses to corporate utility disasters (Part III): Building local power through community choice aggregation and microgrids

In this series on rural responses to corporate utilities, I have used the August 10 Butte Creek PG&E canal failure as a spring board for examining both investor-owned utility harms and community response. My first post talks about the failure’s devastating ecosystem impacts and the immediate community response. In my second post, I examined how the Klamath Dam removal project could provide a blueprint for Butte Creek Canyon and Chico community members to succeed in removing the Centerville dam and associated hydroelectric project. In this third and final installment, I turn to the topic of local electricity options.

Residents of Butte Creek Canyon and others in the Chico area frequently express justified frustration with PG&E, the large investor-owned utility that serves Butte County and much of the rest of California. After looking at local alternatives to PG&E, I see a path forward via community choice aggregation (CCA) and microgrids.

Butte County residents’ feelings, largely spurred by PG&E-caused fires, ecosystem threats, and blackouts, are not unique. In 2019, when PG&E was more frequently in the news, public dissatisfaction throughout the utility’s service areas rose from 49% to 61% in just 9 months. Around the same time, some state leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom considered replacing PG&E with a large public utility (you can read more about the debate to do so here). However, the state ultimately approved PG&E’s reorganization plan, more or less ending the immediate chance of a state government takeover.

This has largely left PG&E alternatives in the hands of regional and local governments.

Public utility districts are one option for local governments.They are municipalities or municipal corporations that provide and distribute energy for their residents.

While public utilities operating their own distribution infrastructure can offer community members a high level of oversight and energy resiliency, as well as lower energy rates, creating them can be time and resource intensive. The history of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is illustrative of this. Voters elected to create SMUD as a customer-owned, not-for-profit electric service in 1926, but operation didn’t begin until 20 years later. This Courthouse News Service article explains the sequence of events:

In 1934, Sacramento voters approved a $12 million bond to acquire PG&E's assets. What followed was a 12-year legal battle. The Railroad Commission, predecessor to the California Public Utilities Commission [CPUC], approved Sacramento's bid to take PG&E's wires and equipment by eminent domain for $11.6 million. PG&E challenged that decision in federal and state court, eventually losing when a state appeals court ruled against it in 1946.

PG&E’s resistance to public utilities didn’t end in the ’40s. In 2006, it spent millions of dollars to defeat a Yolo County ballot measure that would have allowed SMUD to take 77,000 customers from PG&E; and it has met San Francisco with significant resistance over its ongoing efforts to purchase PG&E’s power infrastructure within the city.

The barriers to creating a public utility district are high even for larger cities. They are exacerbated in rural places, where voters are less likely to approve local bond measures and communities often have less capital and fewer legal resources. It can also place the burden of improving poorly maintained infrastructure on communities. Enter community choice aggregation.

CCAs are local, not-for-profit programs through which communities can purchase their own electricity in place of investor-owned utilities. The existing investor-owned utility still operates the transmission lines and provides customer service. While this doesn’t give the community full electric autonomy, it can make local power more feasible in rural places. Under this model, communities don’t enter costly legal battles to acquire PG&E’s equipment and don’t take on the liability and costs of managing an aging grid that requires extensive maintenance and repair.

Communities in Humboldt County launched a CCA program through Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) in 2017. Their model is one that Butte Creek Canyon and Butte County residents might look to. (For another example of rural microgrids, see this blog post.)

In this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, RCEA Executive Director Matthew Marshall talks about the authority’s climate resiliency projects, which include using local logging byproducts of biomass to create renewable energy in the region and solar microgrid projects.

The Blue Lake Rancheria, a federally recognized tribe and member of the RCEA created a solar microgrid in 2018. In 2020, its microgrid allowed the tribe to continue providing onsite power during a county-wide public safety shut-off. This increased energy resiliency directly benefited community health as the tribe provided hotel rooms with continued access to power to community members who relied on electric medical equipment.

In 2022, RCEA opened the state’s first 100% renewable, multi-customer microgrid. The microgrid powers the regional airport and U.S. Coast Guard Air Station, both important facilities during emergencies. In the podcast episode, Marshall said this first multi-customer project can lead the way for other microgrid opportunities:

One of the things that’s very exciting about this, and we’ve gotten a lot of support and funding for this project from the California Energy Commission, is the opportunity to do this kind of a multi-customer microgrid setup [that] really opens up the opportunity to look at neighborhoods or areas where maybe there’s multiple hospitals or other kinds of situations where [... we may] be able to operate a whole section of the grid that includes multiple customers. [That] really will hopefully broaden the range of opportunities where you could deploy micro grids to provide resiliency and emergency response capabilities.

As another rural(ish), northern California region that also faces wildfire and other natural disaster threats, Butte Creek Canyon and Butte County as a whole could greatly benefit from implementing CCA and microgrids in a similar way. While obtaining full control of the grid would also be beneficial (and could still be pursued down the road), a CCA and microgrids offer a more immediate opportunity to create energy resiliency during wildfires and make more renewable energy-based choices within the community. 

And, the community might be able to obtain substantial assistance with funding a project like this. As I finished writing this, I discovered that just today, PG&E launched its portion of a CPUC Microgrid Incentive Program, which will provide grants to disadvantaged and vulnerable communities for installation of clean-energy microgrids. 

Amtrak: carrying more than passengers

Last week, Tony Pipa spoke at the UC Davis School of Law in a talk titled "Creating Sustainable, Equitable Rural Prosperity in the U.S.: Opportunities and Challenges for Federal Policy." Part of the conversation was about transportation to rural communities. You can read more about rural transportation here and here.

Transportation inequality is stark for those living in rural places in the U.S. "Federal transportation policy and funding programs heavily favor new highway and interchange construction." While this type of investment can make it easier for people to get to rural places and engage in ecotourism, for example, it doesn't encourage spending time in the rural communities themselves. 

Those living in rural communities are more reliant on cars to get around compared to those living in urban places. For instance, in 2019 rural residents drove 33% more miles than urban residents as 1,200 counties in the U.S. do not have access to public transportation. As a result, rural fatalities accounted for 49% of all traffic fatalities nationwide. 

Since airlines and bus companies have been cutting services to small towns for decades, the value of Amtrak in these rural communities cannot be overstated. Amtrak provides numerous benefits to residents and travelers regarding ease of use, safe transport, and economic prosperity. In 2015, Amtrak's long-distance services transported 4.5 million passengers, many of whom lived in places without other reliable transportation options. Over 2.5 million people say they can only travel with Amtrak services. 

From 1972 (Amtrak's first full year of operation) to 2019, passenger numbers went from 16.6 million to 32.5 million, even with route mileage shrinking by 1600 during the same period. Recently, Amtrak trains serving rural Virginia have had a 13% increase in riders between 2013 and 2019. In 2019, Montana mayors were asked what effect losing their Amtrak service, the Empire Builder, would have on their people, and all responded "devastating." 

Previously, Amtrak considered a plan to break up their Southwest Chief Service (which travels from Chicago to Los Angeles over a 40-hour journey). If the plan to break up this service had gone through, 32 universities would have lost train service along with 47 hospitals. Another way of expressing the impact is to note that 130,000 auto trips would have been added— and on roads four times more dangerous than the national average. These roads run alongside rural and small communities with the lowest median income across the entire corridor. 

Amtrak services often benefit rural communities economically. A Rail Passengers Association study reported in 2019 that the Southwest Chief brings in $180 million in direct and indirect activity to Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico.   

In Cut Bank, Montana, population 3,056, all together, residents pay $12,000 via federal income tax for their Amtrak service. That $12,000 investment results in $327,000 in benefits for the town.

This economic prosperity is partly due to the jobs Amtrak brings to rural places. Amtrak directly employs thousands of workers who reside in rural areas, which in turn provides millions of dollars in wages. Amtrak also employs subcontractors in these areas for manufacturing, equipment, and infrastructure work. 

In addition to employment, Amtrak services allow people to visit isolated places like those in Northwestern Montana, which boosts these regions' tourism economy. Even if people are just traveling through small towns on their way from Chicago to Los Angeles, for example, the nature of train service draws people towards new areas where passengers can wander around during long stops, supporting local vendors. 

Rural towns are aware of the benefits train travel has on their small communities and have invested in it. Meridan, Mississippi, population 39,000, invested $7.5 million on a new Amtrak station with another $200 million invested within the 3 blocks surrounding the station in the last 20 years. In Normal, Illinois, a $49.5 million grant created $220 million. However, due to shortages in funding for grants, "the burden frequently falls on towns for infrastructure and station costs."

Providing rural towns with reliable public transportation has ripple effects that benefit people in them, the economic health of the area, and even those living in urban areas who have an opportunity to visit places they might not have ever heard about. While Amtrak service in the U.S. has a long way to go before its positive impact can reach all of America, it currently provides a lifeline to many rural communities. 

California struggles to provide its rural residents with safe drinking water

Last week, a Los Angeles Times story detailed how rural California residents often consume contaminated drinking water, with 400 (or about 25%) of the state's water systems failing to provide safe drinking water to residents.

The article explained how California cannot provide clean water to residents in California's Central Valley. In particular, the article found Kern County's water systems do not function effectively. Almost 80% of the county's water supply (65 systems) have been categorized as failing for three years. 

Kern County is home to around 900,00 residents, of whom 18.5% live in poverty.  The county's economy is primarily based on agriculture and petroleum extraction industries and its median household income is $58,000 is significantly less than California's median household income of $86,000. 

The Central Valley, a vast agricultural region of California and ranks among the United State's most polluted areas, due to heavy vehicle traffic, diesel-burning locomotives, tractors and irrigation pumps, and wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. 

Despite its booming agricultural industry, Central Valley residents are among California's poorest. About 24% of the Valley's population lives below the poverty line. While suburbs like Elk Grove and cities like Fresno sprawl out of the region, the Central Valley's agricultural communities are classified as rural according to CivicWell, a Sacramento-based nonprofit. 

Overall, the region covers more than 20,000 square miles and is home to around 2 million people. For comparison, Los Angeles County covers 4,084 square miles and is home to almost 10 million residents.

According to the American Bar Association, water supplies in farming areas (like the Central Valley) often contain high nitrate levels because the nitrates seep into the groundwater from fertilizer and manure. 

Ingesting too much nitrate can affect how the blood moves oxygen through the bloodstream and can cause methemoglobinemia (also known as blue baby syndrome), which can result in serious injury or death. In adults, high nitrate exposure can potentially lead to an increased risk of cancers like gastric cancer, although there is yet to be a scientific consensus on causation. 

Despite these data, 85% of the communities with nitrate-contaminated drinking water have no treatment systems in place to remove the chemical.

Madison Condon of Boston University School of Law wrote a piece for the American Bar Association and further explained that rural residents are those most likely to face poor water quality and unsafe drinking water: 

All across rural America, small community water systems are failing to protect public health due to a perfect storm of forces. Poor regulation of agricultural waste and other pollutants, shrinking populations, and aging infrastructure all contribute to the increasing incidents of water quality violations dotting the rural landscape.

It is troubling that the Central Valley experiences a lack of clean and safe drinking water, especially because the water used produces 25% of the U.S.'s food and 40% of American fruits and nuts. The region is a major agricultural output not just for California, but for the entire county.  

Water contamination in farming and industrial communities is unfortunately typical. 

In 2017,  environmental lawyer Rob Billot reached a $631 million settlement with chemical corporation DuPont for releasing 7,100 sludge tons of perfluorooctanoic acid (also known as PFOAs or C-8) into a landfill in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The chemicals ended up in the town's waterways, leading to deleterious health effects in the Parkersburg community.  Many residents suffered cancers, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis–– all verified scientific effects from exposure to PFOA. A few years after the settlement, Focus Features made a film about the Billot's story called Dark Waters, starring actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo. 

Having access to reliable and safe drinking water is not merely a rural phenomenon, and happens in urban settings as well.   

In 2014, Flint, Michigan switched its water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River to save costs without the proper testing. Flint residents complained of a foul-smelling odor and suffered numerous health effects, but they were ignored for years. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission deemed the poor governmental response to the Flint crisis a “result of systemic racism.”

Having access to safe drinking water is essential for our health and wellbeing, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While EPA regulations require federal and state agencies to regulate public water systems, those regulations do not apply to privately owned wells. This can be a problem in rural communities like those in the Central Valley, where most private wells are the source of many landowners' water.

In a 2019 paper posted in Environmental Health, Schaider et al. studied the link between low-income communities and drinking water contamination. They found that: 

Low-income and minority communities often face disproportionately high pollutant exposures. [...] Small water supplies, particularly those that serve low-income and minority communities, may have poorer source water quality due to closer proximity to pollution sources.

Rural residents suffer higher rates of poverty than their urban counterparts. According to Circle of Blue, a nonprofit aimed to educate and inform about the problems plagued by climate change, found that many rural towns have neglected their drinking water systems for decades:

As some rural towns lose population and government funds shrink, some drinking water systems are one failure away from crisis.

With the lack of affordable housing and the rise in housing prices in the Bay Area and Southern California, the Central Valley's population is expected to increase by five million people by the year 2060. Lawmakers, politicians, and policymakers should ensure safe access to drinking water in rural communities, despite the region's low population density.

Regardless of the size of a population cluster in an area, where one's water comes from, and what a town's primary industry is should not impact safe and reliable access to drinking water. 

You read more about water contamination on the blog here and here. You can read more about California's Central Valley here and here.

Flooding impacts on rural Vermont

Though Vermont is known as a very rural state, I haven't seen much coverage of this week's flooding there that used the word "rural."  So I was happy (is that the right adjective?) to see this story from Vermont Digger, posted on July 13, that does just that.  The headline is "When you can’t get there from here: In rural areas, road closure updates hard to find."  The subhead is "From cardboard signs to Google Maps, information has been crowd-sourced and ad hoc."  Kristen Fountain reports, and the lede follows.

It was the talk of the porch at the Craftsbury General Store on Tuesday morning and inside the town office across the street: What was the best way, if there was one, of getting out of town?

Both locations were up and running on generators, though power was out. The noise drew neighbors like moths to light, seeking coffee and news.

Like many other small towns across the state, residents of Craftsbury and nearby towns — Glover, Greensboro, Hardwick, Woodbury and Wolcott among them —- woke to find that active flooding or major water damage had closed the usual travel routes along state roads. The conversation quickly turned to finding workarounds on the area’s network of local roads.

Those who arrived in cars offered up intel about which ones had deep standing water or were only partially washed out.

“It was definitely chaotic. A lot of people with a lot of information” were stopping by and calling, recalled Craftsbury Town Clerk Michelle Warren on Wednesday morning. Later, once power was restored for the senders, there were emails, too. “There were some roads we didn’t realize how bad it was until we saw pictures,” she said.

Officials in other towns posted lists of open and closed roads on their websites or Facebook pages and on Front Porch Forum groups, which worked to some degree.

Warren was grateful to have the help of a volunteer with geographic mapping experience on Tuesday to create a digital map where all that information could be recorded and shared via the town website. The tool has allowed her to update residents and travelers daily since then on where the town road crew and locals with excavators and dump trucks have made progress shoring up washouts.

One town that has been very much in the news in the wake of the flooding is Ludlow, population 773.  Here's some New York Times coverage with lots of photos of Ludlow, as well as other hard-hit towns in Central Vermont.  The lede for that story highlights familiar stereotypes of the region:

Vermont, a state known for peaceful green mountains, grazing cows and tidy covered bridges, is not often seen as a place where mudslides threaten highways, rivers churn with debris and murky, propane-fouled floodwaters fill downtown streets.

Another town getting a lot of attention in national coverage is Barre, population 8,000. 

Prior posts about Vermont are here, and this post in particular discusses the 2011 Vermont floods resulting from Tropical Storm Irene, as well as the historic 1927 flood.  

Will Democrats turn to "class" in the wake of Supreme Court rulings? And what does that have to do with rural America?

Jonathan Weisman wrote in yesterday's New York Times under the headline, "Supreme Court Decisions on Education Could Offer Democrats an Opening." The subtitle is, "The decisions this week on affirmative action and student loans give Democrats a way to make a case on class and appeal to voters who have drifted away from the party."  Some excerpts follow:

[I]n striking down race-conscious college admissions, the Supreme Court has handed the Democrats a way to shift from a race-based discussion of preference to one tied more to class. The court’s decision could fuel broader outreach to the working-class voters who have drifted away from the party because of what they see as its elitism.

The question is, will the party pivot?

“This is a tremendous opportunity for Democrats to course-correct from identity-based issues,” said Ruy Teixeira, whose upcoming book “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?” looks at the bleeding of working-class voters over the last decade. “As I like to say, class is back in session.”

* * * 

Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist pressing his party to expand its outreach to the working class, said adding a new emphasis on class consciousness to augment racial and ethnic awareness would fit well with Mr. Biden’s pitch that his legislative achievements have largely accrued to the benefit of workers.

Infrastructure spending, electric vehicles investment, broadband expansion and semiconductor manufacturing have promoted jobs — especially union jobs — all over the country but especially in rural and suburban areas, often in Republican states.

“By next year, Democrats will be able to say we’ve invested in red states, blue states, urban areas, rural areas,” he said. “We’re not like the Republicans. We’re for everybody.”

As I have argued elsewhere, I hate that these issues are often framed as if we have to choose between race and class--between helping people of color and helping the socioeconomically disadvantaged.  

Cross-posted to Working-Class Whites and the Law.   

Movement on rural broadband, thanks to a $42 billion federal investment

Here's the lede for NPR's story: 

This week, the White House said how it will divide $42 billion that Congress set aside to improve broadband internet access among the states. This funding from the government will likely have the biggest impact in conservative, rural areas.

The story is reported out of Montana, by Aaron Bolton:

Most places in America that lack high-speed internet are rural. Fewer than 6% of Montanans have access to fiber-optic service, says Tyler Cooper, with the research and advocacy group BroadbandNow. He agrees the Infrastructure Act funding is historic.

TYLER COOPER: It is, you know, the most holistic approach to closing the digital divide in the U.S. ever.

BOLTON: Lots of Republican senators from rural states voted against the Infrastructure Act, but rural Republican governors are embracing the broadband money.

ERIC RAILE: Broadband access, at this point, is seen as vital to economic development.

BOLTON: Eric Raile teaches political science at Montana State University.

RAILE: There seems to be real demand for it in rural areas, which feel like they've been left behind in some respects.

BOLTON: Montana's governor, Greg Gianforte, says broadband is crucial for good-paying jobs, education and affordable health care. Montana is set to get more than $600 million. Tyler Cooper with BroadbandNow says previous funding often didn't reach those most in need because internet companies decided where to expand their networks. This funding, he says, is different.

COOPER: It takes a state-centric approach to the issue for the first time.

BOLTON: Now each state will be required to craft plans with public input and get federal approval before the money is distributed.

COOPER: Handing the reins to these sort of state broadband offices and having them in charge of putting together a plan with local communities is just about the best way I could think of to try and make this more effective.

BOLTON: Among states set to receive more than a billion dollars each to expand broadband are Alabama, Alaska and West Virginia.

Here's a story out of Wyoming about the $347 million that state will receive.   

While Wyoming thrives on its rural heritage, it can be a liability as much as an asset when it comes to communication and information. Thanks to another influx of federal money, the Equality State will be more connected than ever.

On June 26, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (N.T.I.A.) announced the allocation of over $42 billion to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five territories to deploy affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service. This is part of the “Internet for All” initiative – a key component of President Biden’s “Investing in America” agenda.

The story quotes Gina Raimondo, U.S. Secretary of Commerce: 

What this announcement means for people across the country is that if you don’t have access to quality, affordable high-speed Internet service now – you will, thanks to President Biden and his commitment to investing in America. Whether it’s connecting people to the digital economy, manufacturing fiber-optic cable in America, or creating good-paying jobs building Internet infrastructure in the states, the investments we’re announcing will increase our competitiveness and spur economic growth across the country for years to come.

* * * 

Texas gets the largest allocation through the B.E.A.D. program, with over $3.3 billion. Wyoming’s northern and southern neighbors, Montana and Colorado, will receive nearly $629 million and $826.5 million, respectively.

On rural Democrats' quest for a "seat at the table" in Michigan

Nancy Kaffer wrote in the Detroit Free Press this weekend under the headline "Michigan's rural Democrats want a seat at their party's table."

Cathy Albro has a difficult job: As the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party's Rural Caucus, it falls on Albro and the caucus' vice-chairs to convince the state's Democratic establishment that the counties and candidates in her caucus ― places Republicans routinely win by 20 and 30 points ― deserve more: a place in the state party's strategy, with the investment to back it up, and more attention from the new Democratic legislative majority in Lansing.

Rural Michigan Democrats are in a unique bind. The problems facing residents of rural Michigan counties ― insufficient access to health care, jobs and high-performing schools, or inadequate infrastructure, including broadband internet ― aren't so different from the ones the rest of the state confronts.

But rural Democrats don't have a voice. In the state Legislature and in the U.S. Congress, they are represented almost exclusively by Republican lawmakers who tend to oppose Democratic legislation even when it addresses their constituents' critical needs.

* * * 

Now, for the first time in nearly 40 years, Democrats who prioritize those policies hold a majority in in the state Legislature. But Albro and her caucus know that even a party ascendant has limited resources, and making the case for renewed party investment in the areas they represent is a long game.

Still, rural Democrats say, their party should be careful not to count them out, because it needs their votes to keep winning statewide offices.

Kaffer than goes on to detail how Governor Gretchen Whitmer's recent reelection is attributable, at least in part, to her ability to cut Republican margins in nonmetro counties.  The story quotes Mark Brewer, a former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party who acknowledges that the party won't win a lot of rural counties:  

But we can’t get blown out, either. We need to keep the margin as close as possible. If we just abandon rural areas and start losing them 70%-30%, it’s going to be hard to win a statewide contest.

And it is that story of margins that has been the focus in another race where Democrats performed better than they have recently in rural places:  Pennsylvania. 

Morning Consult poll on rural attitudes toward the Democratic Party, and what one rural U.S. Senator is doing to reach his constituents

We've seen lots of stories about how Democrats should seek and can win the rural vote in the past few weeks (see earlier posts here and here, along with late 2021 post), and a big one appeared a few days ago.  It's from Morning Consult titled, "The Culture War Has Democrats Facing Electoral Demise in Rural America. Can They Stop the Bleeding?"  The piece by Eli Yokley leads with these data points, which are sobering for the Democrats: 

• 65% of rural voters view the Democratic Party unfavorably — including 48% who do so strongly.
• Among 21 issues tested, a rural voter’s desire for candidates to support securing the U.S.-Mexico border had the strongest correlation with negative views about the Democratic Party.
• Only 23% of rural voters say the Democratic Party “cares more about my community” than the GOP.

These are drawn from the results of Morning Consult's mid-January survey of 1,525 self-identified rural voters.  This bit of the story explains why rural voters remain so important:  

The Democratic Party’s attrition in America’s shrinking yet politically powerful rural communities was obscured during Donald Trump’s presidency, with the GOP’s suburban decline ultimately helping deliver Democrats a governing trifecta in Washington despite state-level losses.

But Democrats may no longer be able to rely on the suburbs given President Joe Biden’s mounting struggles that threaten to again highlight his party’s weaknesses in rural communities, where new Morning Consult research reveals culture-driven displeasure with the party in power. Some prominent Democrats believe an immediate course correction is required for the party to avoid perhaps decades in the political wilderness.

“The root issue is that rural voters are worth more in both the Senate and the Electoral College,” said Democratic data scientist David Shor, a 2012 campaign guru for President Barack Obama who has spent years warning his party that it faces extinction in the country’s more remote areas. “Either Democrats make these adjustments and do better with working-class voters, or they get locked out of the federal government for a very long time.”

This piece in The Hill by Hannah Trudo does not focus on rural voters only, but rather on Democrat messaging.  Same regarding this piece from Politico.  Jeff Greenfield offers his opinion under the headline, "Democrats are Losing the Culture War.  A Messaging Shift Won't Change Them."  This piece by Stanley Greenberg, the famed Democratic pollster, focuses on cross-racial coalition building among working-class voters.  

Meanwhile, back specifically on the rural front, I follow U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) on Twitter, and it strikes me that he does a brilliant job of reaching his rural constituents using social media.  I'm pasting screenshots of some of his recent tweets below, where he has been touring Montana cities and towns, from mid-sized ones like those in the Flathead/Kalispell region and small ones like Havre, on the so-called Hi-Line, which is the strip along the Canadian border.  I like the respectful way he listens to and communicates with his constituents--and the way in which he lets them know what he's doing for them.  The recent infrastructure bill has given him lots of opportunities to talk specifics with particular communities.  All of these screenshots were taken on February 23 and 24, which shows just how busy Tester stays when he goes home to Montana. 

Tester has also spearheaded an effort to rein in the power of meatpackers and thus protect ranchers:  

February 26, 2022

Tester also tweets regularly abut issues with the U.S. Post Office (reductions in service hit rural areas especially hard) and the need to expand broadband to all rural folks  

In short, it seems that Tester is out doing what Steve Bullock, former governor of Montana, said he could not do during his pandemic run for U.S. Senate against the state's junior senator, Steve Daines:  Tester is out talking to people, conveying his interest in them and their challenges.  He is also communicating his values and personally countering the negative stereotypes of Democrats in rural Montana--the stereotypes Bullock said he could not counter during the height of the pandemic.  

Here's Tester's Twitter bio, with his barn, near Big Sandy, MT, in the background.  His prior bio showed a photo of him in his tractor.  In this one, he's pictured in work clothes beside a big truck used to transport what he grows.  In sum, he is unabashedly and unashamedly rural and not in the least bit elitist or playing to coastal elites.  It's refreshing that he doesn't seem to care about what urban elites think.  He knows who his most important audience is. 

February 26, 2022

But Tester does "international" too.  Here's a Tweet stemming from his work on the defense appropriations subcommittee, related to the Ukraine crisis: 

February 26, 2022

And this tweet highlights his work on behalf of veterans.  He chairs the Veteran's Affairs Committee, which is a frequent subject of tweets, including when he visits veterans services facilities in Montana.    

February 26, 2022

Just goes to show that domestic and international service, action, and expertise are not at odds with each other. It strikes me that Tester is doing both--and he's doing them very well.  Indeed, he's not only doing a good job serving his constituents, he's communicating well to his constituents--and people like me who are not his direct constituents--what he is doing for them.   

Other posts about Tester are here, here, here, and here.