Standing Up for Rural Communities

Bob Casey believes that where you live in Pennsylvania shouldn’t determine the quality of your education, access to health care, or ability to obtain a family-sustaining job. He’s brought critical funding to Pennsylvania’s rural communities, from increasing rural high-speed internet access to reclaiming abandoned mine land and spurring economic development in rural communities. He is fighting in Washington to keep rural hospitals afloat in the communities they serve and successfully fought to pass provisions in the PACT Act to improve recruitment and retention of health care professionals at rural VA facilities.

As a champion for our farmers, Bob Casey has fought to make sure the Farm Bill works for Pennsylvania and ensures our agriculture industry can continue to thrive. It has helped facilitate direct grants and loans to rural communities, which went to help fund hospitals and improve police and fire stations. He helped expand the dairy industry’s safety net program for dairy farmers and lowered premiums for small farmers in the program. He secured permanent funding streams to grow the organic agriculture sector in Pennsylvania and funded a farm-to-food bank program to ensure surplus agricultural goods don’t go to waste. To make sure Pennsylvanians have access to clean water no matter where they live, he also delivered provisions in the bill that help farmers implement water conservation practices and improve water quality.

Bob Casey knows that Pennsylvania’s rural communities are on the frontlines of the opioid epidemic. Of the top 30 counties in Pennsylvania with the most overdoses, 23 of them are rural. Bob is working to tackle the fentanyl crisis that is devastating too many Pennsylvania families and communities by stopping the flow of fentanyl into America. He worked with Republicans to pass the STOP Act to detect fentanyl smuggling through the U.S. Postal Service and he is fighting to implement sanctions on Chinese chemical companies and Mexican cartels who produce fentanyl and to increase funding for technology to detect fentanyl at the border. He also successfully helped pass the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which hits fentanyl traffickers where it hurts — their bottom line, by sanctioning Chinese producers of opioid precursors and international crime cartels who bring opioids over the border.

Across Pennsylvania’s 48 rural counties, roads and bridges are being fixed, water systems are being improved, and the Commonwealth’s natural beauty is being conserved thanks to record investments Bob Casey brought home.