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Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Immigration drives population growth in Kentucky in 2024
Migration from other states but more so by people from other countries accounts for Kentucky's population growth in 2024. (Getty Images) Thanks to The Daily Yonder's Sarah Melotte for providing Kentucky's Census data to the Lantern. Kentucky's population grew in 2024, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates. And over 80% of that growth was due to the migration of people from other countries. The Census makes yearly estimates of population changes at the state and county level. Here are five items to note from the report on 2024: Kentucky added a net 37,777 people last year, an increase of .8%. At the end of last year, Kentucky had a population of 4,588,372, according to the Census. Kentucky had more deaths (53,140) than births (52,248) in 2024. That loss was made up by a net increase in domestic migration of 7,294 people. (More people moved into Kentucky from other states than moved out.) The largest contributor to Kentucky's population growth was international migration. The state gained 31,430 people in the net exchange of people between Kentucky and other countries. Over 80% of the net gain in Kentucky's population came from international migration. Of Kentucky's 120 counties, 37 lost population in 2024. A large number of these are places that have been dependent on coal mining. The state's two largest counties (Jefferson and Fayette) both had decreases in domestic migration, but gained population overall because of international migration. For example, Jefferson lost just over 4,600 people to domestic migration, but gained 13,807 people from other counties. (Counties surrounding these two metro counties gained from domestic migration; some of that growth likely came from moving out of the large metro counties.) The 2024 report is a snapshot of population trends. And in many ways, Kentucky is like the rest of the nation. For example, most of the population growth in the U.S. in 2024 was due to international migration. Jefferson, 1.3% Fayette, 1.5% Warren, 2.8% Boone, 1.9% Kenton, 1.5% Madison, 2.0% Scott, 1.8% Jessamine, 1.8% Bullitt, 0.9% Nelson, 1.5% Pike, -1.0% Floyd, -1.3% Perry, -1.3% Letcher, -1.3% Harlan, -1.0% McCreary, -1.4% Martin, -2.1% Christian, -0.3% Knott, -1.6% Larue, -1.3% SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
GOP cuts to Medicaid could threaten rural hospitals
Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez, Colorado, received more than 59,000 patient visits last year. That's enough to treat everyone in Cortez and surrounding Montezuma County twice. Staff call the small hospital a bedrock of both medical care and the local economy. But warnings that the Republican-controlled federal government might cut Medicaid funding have community members worried about the facility's future. They are not alone. Nationally, health policy experts warn that any cuts to Medicaid are likely to cause more trouble for rural hospitals than urban ones. That's due in part because rural residents are more likely to be enrolled in Medicaid, The Daily Yonder reports. In Montezuma County, 36% of the population is enrolled in Medicaid, which is publicly supported medical insurance for lower-income Americans. Southwest Memorial Hospital, a nonprofit hospital, expects about $20.5 million to come from the Medicaid reimbursements in 2025. That's nearly a quarter of their expected revenue for the year, according to CEO Joe Theine. If that revenue is threatened, the healthcare system would have a hard time adjusting without affecting the services they can offer. Theine said that the hospital is planning for growth in 2025. But if Medicaid is cut, the hospital would have to consider their level of services, the same way a family would have to revise its spending if it lost a big part of its income. "If [you] had a 25% reduction in household income, you have to make some different decisions other than just around the edges," Theine said. Any such changes could affect the community's level of health services and the local economy. The hospital employs nearly 500 locals, including employees with young families that support Cortez's public schools, Theine said. "The ripples of a hospital in a rural community are many beyond just the health and well-being of the people we serve directly," he said. Medicaid reimbursement is a crucial part of Southwest Memorial's funding, despite reimbursing less at lower rates than private insurance. "If a patient comes in and has Medicaid as a pay source, even though it may pay less than the average cost for that service, it still is contributing to paying for that fixed cost of having the emergency room open," said Theine, "If that same patient no longer has insurance and is unable to pay, we still take care of them. But now there's nothing coming in that's contributing to keeping all of those services available." A March 5 letter from the Congressional Budget Office to two Democratic representatives said that House Republicans won't be able to meet their budget target of $1.5 trillion in cuts without slashing Medicaid and Medicare. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Medicaid was safe under Republican lawmakers, but the math doesn't add up with Trump's determination to drop the national deficit by more than $1 trillion, according to Democrats. "There have been proposals around reducing or eliminating that federal match for [Medicaid] expansion populations," said Carrie Cochran-McClain, chief policy officer of the National Rural Health Association. That match was part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which provides federal funds to states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to families that earn up to 38% above the federal poverty line. A later Supreme Court ruling made Medicaid expansion optional. Currently, all but 10 states have accepted federal funding and expanded Medicaid. According to a 2023 report from the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), an organization that advises Congress on healthcare policy, hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA don't have as many uninsured patients as those that didn't adopt expansion. Medicaid expansion can save hospitals money by increasing the share of its patients who are covered under some form of insurance. An analysis of 600 research papers on Medicaid found that expansion led to drops in the uninsured population and economic improvements for both states and healthcare providers. In the fiscal year 2020, the cost of uninsured care represented 2.7% of the total operating expenses in states that expanded Medicaid, compared to 7.3% in states that haven't expanded. Medicaid expansion under the ACA also means states can spend less money on mental health and substance use treatments because federal matches help pay for them. "States can come up with a number of different ways that they finance their Medicaid programs, and it varies across the board," Cochran-McClain said. "They can use specific kinds of fees or taxes to help support the Medicaid program." Reducing or eliminating that federal match would leave states with the option to either reduce the number of Medicaid enrollees, or to come up with another method of funding care for the expansion population. But some states might not be able to make up the funds. The loss of that federal money would be especially hard on rural healthcare providers, Cochran-McLain said. That's because a greater share of the rural population relies on Medicaid compared to urban and suburban areas. Nonmetropolitan, or rural, counties have slightly higher Medicaid enrollment rates than metropolitan counties. Nationwide, 24% of residents in rural counties received Medicaid either alone or in combination with another health insurance method in 2023, compared to about 20% of the metropolitan population that year. In Colorado, 23% of the nonmetropolitan population and 18% of the metropolitan population received Medicaid in 2023, according to a Daily Yonder analysis of Census data. Of the 47 states that have nonmetropolitan counties, 43 of them have higher Medicaid enrollment rates in rural areas compared to metro ones. "There is a really direct and strong relationship between Medicaid coverage levels and the financial viability of rural hospitals," Cochran-McClain said. "In states that have expanded Medicaid, we saw an improved hospital performance, rural hospital performance and smaller rates of vulnerability for rural hospitals." Expanding Medicaid to include more low-income individuals saves states money by reducing the cost of providing care to the uninsured. States that have not expanded Medicaid leave their rural healthcare systems more vulnerable to financial crises. "Whether it's Medicare or Medicaid, it's a really important revenue source and source of coverage," said Cochran-McClain. Colorado lawmakers voted to expand Medicaid coverage in 2009, ahead of implementation of ACA. The state simultaneously created a hospital provider fee program that funds the state's portion of Medicaid. In Colorado, the federal match rate comes to 63.6%. The hospital provider fees pay the rest. Many states use provider taxes or fees to fund Medicaid programs at the state level. Colorado taxes hospitals and healthcare providers 5.5% of revenue (the fee cannot exceed 6%) with a program called the Colorado Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise (CHASE). That money is then matched by the federal government at 90%, as long as the population falls under the ACA expansion eligibility. Colorado's CHASE funds go to offsetting the difference between Medicaid reimbursement and the actual cost of a service. Medicaid typically reimburses a provider around 50% of cost, said Tom Rennell, senior vice president of financial policy and data analytics for Colorado Hospital Association. Rennell said that CHASE "helps out our rural hospitals more than our urban hospitals. Our rural hospitals pay in less fees and our rural hospitals receive more of the distribution." Increasing taxes and fees from healthcare providers are one funding source that could help bridge the gap if federal funding is cut, said Rennell. In Colorado, the state legislature has a constitutional requirement to have a balanced budget. That budget is currently facing a $1.2 billion deficit, some of which is caused by rising Medicaid costs. Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) restricts government spending to population growth plus inflation, meaning that any additional tax revenue over that formula is returned to taxpayers. This means that even if the state has the revenue to balance the budget, it's incredibly difficult to reallocate those funds to other programs, like Medicaid. Colorado voters have historically been very protective of TABOR refunds. Raising taxes to fund Medicaid is also not an option in Colorado under TABOR. "The state's already wrestling with a billion dollar shortfall in our upcoming year, and then add onto that potential additional shortfall from this federal funding. And those really start to add up to some real sizable impacts that the state is going to have to deal with," said Rennell. The Colorado Hospital Association estimated that federal Medicaid cuts could cost the state $27.2 billion over the next five years, depending on specific cuts. Rennell sees the potential cuts affecting rural hospitals disproportionately. "This funding from the federal government is their lifeline. It is what keeps those rural hospitals operating. And if you cut the lifeline, they will have to make difficult choices." This story was produced with support from the LOR Foundation. LOR works with people in rural places to improve quality of life. This story was produced by The Daily Yonder and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Amid threat of massive funding cuts, rural school administrators work overtime to balance uncertain budgets
On Jan. 27, 2025, the White House issued a late-night directive that paused federal grants and funding in order to locate and eliminate "woke" government spending. The pause seemingly included funding for public schools, such as the Farm to School Program that provided schools with locally sourced food. It wasn't long before Jared Cordon, superintendent of a rural school district in Roseburg, Oregon, started receiving calls from concerned community members. "If kids can't eat, where can I drop a check off?" they asked. On Jan. 29, the White House rescinded the sweeping pause, after a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration's order. One funding crisis was temporarily averted. But with mounting uncertainty and anticipated cuts on the horizon, rural school administrators are working tirelessly to balance next year's budget, The Daily Yonder explains. They do so for the students, families, and faculty who rely on strong public schools—and for their rural communities at large, whose well-being is closely tied to the fate of their local schools. In addition to the Trump administration's chaotic management of federal grants, other funding challenges loom. Some rural districts are already facing steep funding cliffs, as COVID-19 emergency funds phase out over the next few years. Other rural districts are set to lose over $200 million of annual federal funding due to Congress's failure to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act (SRS), which helps support school districts in counties with public lands exempt from local property taxes. Some states experienced underperforming returns on their Public Employees Retirement System, which will require school districts to make higher payments to the system. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled states continue to push for universal school voucher programs, further diverting critical funds away from rural public schools. Beyond these immediate funding challenges, even more drastic shifts in federal education policy are unfolding. On March 20, the president signed an executive order to facilitate the eventual closure of the Department of Education. Congressional action is required to legally close the department or relocate key programs like Title I funding for low-income students or IDEA funding for special education to other departments. However, the administration already took some actions to slow the department's ability to distribute these funds by firing half of its staff. It remains unclear what additional actions Education Secretary Linda McMahon will take to further dissolve the department. A major role of many employees at the education department is to make sure federal dollars reach the right students, said Will Ragland, a former rural public school teacher and former Department of Education employee who now researches for the Center for American Progress, a progressive public policy institute. "[Federal funding] is intended to target, by-and-large, low-income students and students with disabilities. There are also programs that directly target rural areas, including grants to ensure their transportation needs are met and that rural kids can make it to school." Ragland said he worries that programs could meet the same fate as USAID funding, which the White House continues to block, despite numerous federal court orders. The administration has continued to follow the conservative Project 2025 playbook, according to Ragland, which outlines a 10-year phase-out of Title I funding. "Even though [Trump] said that [legally protected education] funding is not going to be touched, I worry they're going to start to phase out this funding," Ragland said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. "I worry that they say what they need to say at any given moment, but the larger plan is to eliminate the federal role in education altogether, including the funding." This growing uncertainty puts rural school districts, which often rely more heavily on federal funding and whose smaller budgets are hit harder by reductions, at greater risk. Rural school leaders, already working at a high capacity, are facing unpredictable finances by working overtime to create multiple contingency budgets. Jamie Green is a superintendent at Trinity Alps Unified School District in rural northern California, which is at risk of losing $3.5 million in SRS funding. He and other rural superintendents he's connected with put in 12- to 16-hour days when creating budgets or filling out federal grant paperwork. "During the day you have to support your kids, your parents, your teachers, and your principals. [Budgets and grant paperwork] have to be worked on after hours," he told the Daily Yonder. "It's difficult, but you signed up to lead, you didn't sign up to be a victim. You don't make excuses to your community. We won't make excuses." Oftentimes, the only way to balance the budget is by delaying essential maintenance or cutting teachers in art, vocational, or special education programs. In states like Oregon and California, this challenge is compounded by the fact that the final budget deadline arrives before schools have a clear picture of the funding they'll have for the upcoming year. Superintendent Cordon highlighted the importance of federal funding at a crowded February school board meeting in Roseburg, Oregon. About 12% to 13% of the district's budget comes from the federal government, Cordon told the crowd. "Not having federal funding would dramatically impact our ability to serve children," he said. Micki Hall, a former Roseburg teacher and school board member who now sits on the board's budget committee was in attendance. For Hall, budget cuts dredge up memories from her time as an educator. "Back in 2001 we faced a lot of budget crunches. The French teacher was laid off and they cut one of the German teachers," she said in an interview. "It's just frightening because it also has a chilling effect in the building. If you're not cut, you might be moved into a different, unfamiliar position." Across the country, rural districts are grappling with similar challenges, forced to make tough decisions that affect not just budgets but the very education and well-being of students and their communities. It's clear that the need for adequate and reliable support from state and federal governments is urgent, but superintendents like Cordon and Green—and the communities they serve—can't afford to focus solely on problems or delay action. The buck, Green said, stops with them. The only option they have is to do the work, put in the time, and find solutions. "Rural schools will not fail," Green said. "We're working as hard as we can for our students. We cannot fail." This story was produced by The Daily Yonder and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Processing deer to eliminate food insecurity
It's been 48 years since Kip Padgelek and his dad launched their custom deer processing business. After a career revolving around all things meat, including an education at the Culinary Institute of America, Padgelek, now almost 70, has no plans to retire, The Daily Yonder reports. That's good news for the many customers of his business, which is located in a suburb west of Pittsburgh (his shop's specialty is a Philly cheesesteak brat). But it's even better news for those who rely on the 40,000 pounds of venison—roughly 160,000 servings—from Pennsylvania's free-roaming deer that Padgelek and his staff butchered, ground, and distributed into the greater Allegheny County charitable food network last year. Food insecurity in Pennsylvania is a big issue—one that impacts rural areas, urban areas, and everywhere in between, Randy Ferguson, executive director of Hunters Sharing the Harvest program, or HSH, a non-profit headed into its 34th year of operation, said. He puts the statewide population of folks who don't know where their next meal will come from at around 1.5 million, or around 12%. That's lower than the nationwide rate of roughly 13.5%, according to the USDA, but not by much. And according to Julia Bancroft, the CEO of Feeding PA, of the 1.5 million food insecure Pennsylvanians, around 400,000 are children. "Hungry people are eating this tremendous protein source that they typically don't see in the charitable food system," Ferguson said. "They're used to peanut butter and canned tuna. So maybe people have never experienced venison before, but they're given it in a meal at a soup kitchen, and they're making a connection with people they don't know who are out there hunting and providing this resource to them." Ferguson and Padgelek cite a memory from a distribution day at Padgelek's shop when a line of people queued up to accept ground venison practically circled the block. But there's something deeper going on here, too, Ferguson said. In states like Pennsylvania, Texas, and Illinois, where the urban-rural divide seems to deepen with every passing election cycle, venison becomes something of a bridge—a show of communal care passed from hunters to their neighbors in need, near and far. "Participation in our program comes from hunters [and food banks] in both metropolitan areas and the rural areas around the state," Ferguson said. "In a roundabout way, you're connecting two very different segments of the population. I don't think the vast majority of the general population has any idea what type of impact the hunting community is having on hunger within their states. And this is happening at a huge scale, not just here in Pennsylvania. As we start to quantify the millions of pounds of venison and other wild game that are being donated each year to help fight hunger, we realize what a tremendous impact it has." In 2024, the venison processed by Padgelek went to food banks, soup kitchens, and even the Salvation Army. Padgelek's shop butchered and processed around 1,300 donated deer—most of them legally hunter-harvested within the principles of fair chase and marked with a tag bought from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, or PGC. Other donated deer came from heavily regulated management culls in suburban and urban parks where deer were overpopulated, but hunting wasn't allowed, Padgelek pointed out. Padgelek's shop is just one of roughly 100 independent processors from across the state who do the messy, tiresome work of turning donated deer into ground meat—work they do on top of their regular custom wild game processing business from September to January. They're compensated for butchering the donated deer through Pennsylvania's HSH program. It compensates participating butchers with money that comes partially from corporate sponsors and non-profit partners of HSH and partially through the USDA's Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP, administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. The USDA allocates TEFAP dollars to each state to be spent directly on stocking food pantry shelves and soup kitchen refrigerators. But there's a little-known piece of language in the law establishing TEFAP that explicitly allows the funding to be spent on "intrastate and interstate transport, storing, handling, repackaging, processing, and distribution of foods (including donated wild game)" in addition to other commodity proteins regulated by the USDA like chicken and beef. This small piece of language is at the heart of many venison donation programs across the country, of which there are almost 60 in 42 states. Many of those organizations are also called "Hunters Sharing the Harvest" even though there is no central body connecting them. However, a few nationwide programs also exist. Deer hunters in Pennsylvania harvested over 430,000 deer during the 2023-2024 season and purchased well over one million antlerless tags alone. The proceeds from all those deer tags, plus excise taxes on the firearms, ammunition, archery equipment, and other gear used to hunt deer, will eventually go back into PGC's operating budget—a feedback loop formed by the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 and known more broadly as part of the North American model of wildlife conservation. In combination with other wildlife management tools like the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act, Pittman-Robertson and its fish-related cousin the Dingell-Johnson Act of 1950 are largely responsible for the recovery of wildlife populations across the nation from near-extinction at the beginning of the 20th century. In other words, the more hunters hunt, the more they fund research and science-backed management of game and nongame wildlife populations—including strict quotas on annual deer harvest. "We manage deer populations by Wildlife Management Unit (WMU)," PGC spokesperson Travis Lau said. There are 22 WMUs in Pennsylvania. "In each WMU, we allocate antlerless licenses at a number that seeks to reach a deer population objective—either to increase, decrease, or hold steady deer numbers." Pennsylvania's deer population is high and, in many places, too high for available habitat, which increases deer crowding and associated risk of disease spread. Pennsylvania's first confirmed case of chronic wasting disease, or CWD, popped up in free-roaming white-tailed deer in 2012. (HSH has a mandatory CWD protocol in place to keep venison from CWD-positive deer out of the charitable food network.) Deer populations in 11 of the state's 23 WMUs actually need to decrease, according to PGC's latest data. "Agricultural damage is a big [issue], but in our large forests, habitat destruction by overbrowsing is a concern, too," Lau said. "In more populated areas, deer conflicts might more often include vehicle collisions or damage to personal property like gardens. These issues exist regardless of the size of the population, but increase in bigger populations." National Deer Association (NDA) chief conservation officer Kip Adams points out that, for many state wildlife agencies across the nation, hunters aren't harvesting enough antlerless deer to reach population quotas because they don't know what to do with the venison. He chalks this hesitation up, at least in part, to a shrinking availability of deer processing services in rural areas. "A lot of state wildlife agencies today are asking hunters to shoot more antlerless deer, but hunters aren't doing it," Adams said. "Not because the opportunity isn't there, not because they don't have the tags, not because the deer aren't there, but they're just choosing to not shoot additional antlerless deer." Hunters who have already filled their freezers don't want to pay for additional butchering services and don't want to take an animal's life just to waste it, which is illegal in most states anyway. So, the NDA is working both at the federal level to increase the availability of TEFAP funding and at the local level to support the knowledge-sharing necessary to get new butchers into the industry. They're also working on a nationwide deer processor map. "Part of the issue here is that deer processors are often hard to find," NDA director of policy Catherine Appling-Pooler said. "NDA is in the middle of this comprehensive mapping effort, that will be made available to the public and to policymakers, to make sure that processing facilities and resources on the landscape are well subscribed and that voids on the map can be filled by entrepreneurs across the country." Once completed, the map would identify every custom wild game processor in the nation, making it easier for hunters to pinpoint their nearest butcher and for aspiring butchers to identify regional gaps where they could provide a necessary service. But ultimately, NDA's goal is to get more butchers paid to process hunter-donated deer, so that hunters don't need to shell out the funds themselves. "We remain committed to ensuring that funds from [TEFAP] continue to be made available for reimbursing venison processors," Appling-Pooler said. "Our local and statewide partners do incredible work in putting these abundant wildlife resources to good use, and we want to support them however we can." Ferguson reiterated the importance of paying butchers to process donated venison. Getting HSH to its current state as one of the nation's leading venison donation programs has been a work in progress since its founding by state legislator Ken Brandt and PGC staffer John Plowman in 1991. "These guys were trying to formalize an activity that, to a certain extent, was already happening with game wardens," Ferguson explained. "If the wardens had confiscated deer [from poachers] or mistaken kills, they would typically find a local family in need and donate the deer to them. The wardens often knew about those folks because they were from those communities. So John and Ken saw a tremendous opportunity to formalize that activity and expand it out to hunters to donate deer to people in their communities that needed food." But Brandt and Plowman knew that the idea would never work if hunters had to fork over processing fees, which start at $60 for skinning and quartering a deer at Padgelek's shop. So they started working with program sponsors to drum up a reimbursement fund. Initially, they asked hunters for a $15 copay, but oil and gas companies taking advantage of the mid-2000s Pennsylvania shale boom came in and took that cost off hunters' plates, too, Ferguson said. Today, hunters harvest, tag, and field dress their deer, bring that deer into their local participating processor, fill out a donor receipt, and go on their way. The processors grind and package every usable portion of meat, then coordinate deliveries with charitable food distribution centers in their area. At the end of the season, they return their donor receipts to HSH for reimbursement. This model has flourished. "Pennsylvania hunters just keep wanting to break the record," Ferguson said. "Last year, they set an all-time record of 262,000 pounds of venison donated in one hunting season … our reimbursement costs were just shy of $500,000. That's up from around $300,000 when I started with the program in 2021." It's rare for any sort of multi-stakeholder system to be without losers today. Maybe that's what has driven the nationwide growth of the venison donation model over the last few decades: the rarity of a win-win-win-win. This story was produced by The Daily Yonder and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Rural New England needs EV chargers. The Trump administration is making it harder to build them.
EV charging stations at Loon Mountain Resort in New Hampshire's White Mountains region. (Photo by Julia Tilton/The Daily Yonder) When Charyl Reardon needs to charge her electric vehicle quickly, she has to leave her home in New Hampshire's White Mountains region and drive 65 miles south on the interstate highway until she reaches the capital city of Concord. For those like Reardon, a resident of the Lincoln-Woodstock community in northern New Hampshire, this kind of routine is not uncommon. Public charging stations for electric vehicles, or EVs, are scarce in rural parts of the state. Compared to the rest of New England, which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, the Granite State has lagged in its rollout of public EV infrastructure. 'They're kind of sprinkled along parts around the White Mountains,' said Reardon. 'You don't often see fast chargers by any means.' Some businesses and municipalities in the state are looking to ramp up the construction of public EV charging stations to meet growing demand. But a recent move by President Donald Trump's administration could make doing so more difficult. On Feb. 6, 2025, the Federal Highway Administration released a memo suspending the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, a resource supporting the construction of public EV infrastructure in states. The two phases of the program, spread over five years, award competitive grants of up to 80% federal funding for EV infrastructure projects along major roadways and in communities across the country. States are required to contribute the other 20% of costs, often through private investment. Reardon is the president of the White Mountains Attractions Association, which operates a visitor center at the entrance to the region in North Woodstock, New Hampshire. Travel and tourism make up the second largest sector in the state's economy, and most visitors arrive by car. But New Hampshire's slow approach to building public EV infrastructure could cost the state more than $1.4 billion in tourism revenue by 2031, Clean Energy NH and Ski NH found in a January 2025 study. The region that will be hardest hit is the White Mountains, which is projected to lose $353 million by 2031, according to the study, which was supported by the Environmental Defense Fund. With EVs projected to approach 30% of the cars on New England roads between now and the early 2030s, the study found that New Hampshire will fall behind neighboring Vermont and Maine — its key competitors in the regional tourism market — should it continue to lag in developing EV infrastructure. For Reardon, the need is already clear. Fast chargers are in the works at the visitor center where Reardon is based, located off Interstate 93, which connects Boston to the White Mountains. The memo from the Federal Highway Administration has caused confusion and concern among states and contractors hired to install projects, said Loren McDonald, chief analyst at Paren, an EV data platform tracking how states use federal funds for EV infrastructure. 'There is no legal basis and authority to do this,' said McDonald. 'It is all about creating havoc.' The NEVI program was established under the Inflation Reduction Act, a piece of legislation passed by Congress in 2022. To fundamentally change the NEVI program, Congress will need to revise the law. McDonald said he expects state attorneys general to prepare lawsuits against the memo in coordination with their departments of transportation and energy, which funnel NEVI funds to projects at the local level. In the meantime, states are pausing parts of their NEVI programs. While New Hampshire has already been awarded $2.8 million in NEVI funding to build charging stations along major EV corridors as part of the program's first phase, it is unclear whether it will see any funding for phase two of the program to build EV infrastructure in communities. A spokesman from New Hampshire's Department of Transportation confirmed to the Daily Yonder that the state will continue with phase one NEVI sites as planned. The spokesman said phase two NEVI development is 'on hold' until the state receives further guidance and direction from its federal partners. Beyond phase one NEVI funding the Granite State has already invested into projects in the White Mountains and other regions, close to $30 million in federal funding has been greenlit for building public charging infrastructure along major roadways and in communities. That funding comes through the rest of the NEVI program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program, which was created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. While the February 6 memo from the Federal Highway Administration says that reimbursement of 'existing obligations' will be allowed, there is uncertainty as to which projects are considered to be 'obligated,' given that the memo also suspends approvals for all plans for all years of the program. This comes as all states that have submitted their annual NEVI plans have received approval and obligation for four out of the program's five years, McDonald said. 'It's a real head scratcher, because on one hand it's saying, we're going to reimburse for existing obligations, but it's also saying we're throwing out the first four years of the plans,' McDonald said. The White Mountain Attraction Association tallies 51 charging stations in the region, most of which are located at restaurants and lodging facilities. Ski areas like Loon Mountain Resort and Cranmore Mountain Resort have also invested in EV infrastructure, which tends to be more open to the public, Reardon said. In a region known for its year-round recreational activities such as skiing, biking, and hiking, this poses a challenge for meeting visitors' needs. 'This is important for our industry because here in New England, people drive,' Keeler said. In 2022, Massachusetts and Connecticut sent more than 4 million tourists to the Granite State out of 14.3 million total overnight visitors that year. Massachusetts sends the most visitors to the state of any place of origin, and in the winter, roughly half of all skiers come from the Bay State. Drivers in Massachusetts and Connecticut are also adopting EVs faster than their New Hampshire counterparts. Compared to New Hampshire's small but growing population of EV drivers, 77% of all EVs in New England were operated by Massachusetts and Connecticut drivers in 2023, according to the study released by Clean Energy NH and Ski NH. By 2033, Massachusetts is expected to have 1.7 million EVs on the road while Connecticut is expected to have 600,000, compared to 200,000 vehicles projected in New Hampshire, the study found. Assuming a 'baseline scenario' where the Granite State installs 30% of the EV chargers needed to support tourism by early next decade, the study found that nearly 4 in 10 EV drivers and would-be tourists might not travel to the state due to 'inadequate' charging infrastructure. This shortfall is behind the projected loss of $1.4 billion in cumulative revenue that the study found could hit the state's economy by 2031. That number is equivalent to losing an entire season of tourism, said Sam Evans-Brown, the executive director of Clean Energy NH. 'Imagine if during one summer, no tourists came to New Hampshire at all,' said Evans-Brown. 'That would be the biggest headline you would see.' Evans-Brown and Keeler agree that at the state's current pace, it will not be prepared to meet the demand for chargers from EV drivers coming from both in and out of state. Both said they are prepared to advocate in favor of state-level policy changes to lower barriers for building the necessary public EV infrastructure for the tourism market. 'When we're talking to our legislators in this state, it's really important to show the business case,' Keeler said. 'When you start talking dollars and cents and the economy and tax revenues and those kinds of things, people listen on both sides of the fence.' In a state known for its purple politics, ideological differences over EVs have slowed the state from adopting policies that would make charging infrastructure more affordable for businesses and small communities, Evans-Brown said. Meanwhile, neighboring states like Massachusetts have expanded incentives to build public charging stations through 'Make-Ready' programs that anticipate a surge in EV drivers over the next decade. Evans-Brown said that Massachusetts justified its program by demonstrating that public EV infrastructure would help the state reach its climate goals. New Hampshire's 2024 Priority Climate Action Plan references financing to support the development of public EV charging stations, though the state has yet to enact a 'Make-Ready' program. If the state were to consider the number of EVs expected to be on the road in the early 2030s — given that adoption rates are projected to continue growing over the next 10 years — Evans-Brown said the financial benefit would become clear. While the tourism impact study that Keeler and Evans-Brown worked on demonstrates how the Granite State's economy could suffer from failing to install public EV infrastructure, a comprehensive look at what the state stands to gain has yet to be done. 'You can justify these programs just on a cost basis if you do that kind of analysis,' Evans-Brown said. 'But we haven't gotten there yet.' Loading alternative fueling station locator… In the state's southwest corner, four spots in the Monadnock Food Co-op's parking lot are now reserved for EV drivers looking to charge. Located in Keene, New Hampshire, some 20 minutes from both the Massachusetts and Vermont borders, the cooperatively owned grocery store installed the chargers with the help of state funding in the spring of 2024. 'It just seemed like a perfect pairing for an EV driver to be able to use these charging stations while doing some grocery shopping or getting lunch or dinner, for example,' said Michael Faber, the co-op's general manager. The approximately $233,000 project to deploy the store's chargers was financed by New Hampshire's $30.9 million share of the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust. That pool of funding was established after Volkswagen settled with the federal government for its violations of the Clean Air Act in the 2010s. Since installing the charging station last year, Faber said the use has continued to grow. Travelers and locals alike have expressed appreciation for them, Faber said, as there are not many fast-charging options in the rural Monadnock region. 'You build it, and they will come,' said James Penfold, director of eMobility Solutions at ReVision Energy, the solar and EV charger installation company that the Monadnock Food Co-op partnered with on the charging station. Penfold, who has worked with organizations across northern New England on EV infrastructure, said that projects are often cost-prohibitive to install without government assistance. Level two chargers, which can fill a car to full charge in several hours, cost thousands of dollars. Level three fast chargers, which let drivers plug in for 20-30 minutes before driving away, start in the tens of thousands of dollars. Labor and installation with the utility adds to the total cost of deployment. 'Even level twos, they're relatively expensive to install, so it's really disappointing for the state right now that there are no incentives to be able to encourage them and help defray some of that cost,' Penfold said. In the northern part of the state, Charyl Reardon expressed a similar sentiment. She said the upfront costs to install public EV chargers are unfeasible for many local businesses and municipalities in the White Mountains, even if they recoup the money later. For New Hampshire's rural communities, uncertainties about the future of federal funding loom over plans to build EV infrastructure. Most of the grants at the state level, like the $2.8 million in NEVI funding or the award from the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust, originate from the federal government. The Trump administration's attempts to freeze federal spending — which continue to be challenged in courts — has left the future of that funding unclear. This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
