This bill requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create a simplified grant application form specifically for rural communities within 180 days of the law's enactment. The short form application is intended to reduce the burden on smaller communities seeking USDA grant funding by eliminating questions and requirements that do not apply to rural applicants while retaining essential information needed for all applications. Rural communities are defined as incorporated municipalities, tribal areas, or territories with populations of 10,000 or fewer, or those outside metropolitan areas, including water districts, irrigation districts, and fire districts. Before developing the form, the USDA must gather input from representatives of rural communities about the challenges they face in finding and applying for grants, including concerns about application length and relevance of requested information. Once the form is created, the USDA has 90 days to identify which grant programs qualify for the simplified application and 180 days after that to begin accepting it for those programs, with exceptions only for programs where changing the application process would require new federal regulations.
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