This bill became law on 2025-12-18 as Public Law No. 119-58.
The summary below describes the bill at the version we last reviewed; the enacted text may differ.
YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyEnvironmentTransparency & AccountabilityCounties near national forests get school and road money again — plus two skipped years.
Your Money
Counties with national forest or other federal land get yearly federal payments for schools and roads. That money stopped after 2023 and now runs through the 2026 budget year.
The payments for 2024 and 2025 were never made. The law ordered the Treasury to send them within 45 days, minus any other federal land payment a county already got for those years.
Counties can spend part of this money on search and rescue, firefighting, and wildfire safety help. They can start new work of this kind through September 2028.
Environment
Local committees pick projects on nearby federal land, such as fixing forest health, streams, and old roads. The deadline to start new projects moved from 2025 to September 2028.
Transparency & Accountability
The old law required a report to Congress on a test run for picking these committee members. That report is no longer required, though the test run itself lasts through October 2026.
More about this bill
If you live in a county with a lot of national forest land, this is now law. Local governments cannot tax federal land. To make up for that, the government sends counties yearly money for schools and roads. Those payments stopped after 2023. They now run through the 2026 budget year. The two skipped years, 2024 and 2025, were paid too. The Treasury had 45 days to send that money out. The program reaches more than 700 counties across the country. Counties can also keep using this money for local safety work through September 2028. That covers search and rescue, firefighting costs, and wildfire safety help for homeowners. Some of it pays for internet at local schools. A separate share funds repair work on nearby federal land, such as forests, streams, and old roads. Local committees help choose those projects.
Congressional Summary
Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025This act extends and modifies the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) program, under which states and counties containing certain federal land may receive payments from the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for schools, roads, and certain other municipal services.The act modifies the SRS program, including byextending payments made to states and counties containing federal land through FY2026,providing lapsed payments for FY2024 and FY2025,extending the authority of counties to initiate projects using such funds through FY2028, andextending the authority to initiate projects proposed by resource advisory committees through FY2028.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- Senate
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Public Law
- Action Date
- 2025-12-18
- Date Added
- 2026-07-16
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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