Our Plate Is Full — Don’t Believe the Noise 

Key Takeaways

A to Z. That’s how we describe NACo’s federal policy agenda these days — AI to zoning, and everything in between. Counties touch it all. 

Nearly 4,000 county officials and partners proved that at our Annual Conference, where members shaped the American County Platform — NACo’s policy playbook, built from the ground up through ten steering committees and more than 1,200 county officials. 

While the national media and pundits focus on the election horse race, we’re fighting for the policies that matter to America’s county governments. And we’re operating in a landscape where status quo isn’t an option. Every program is under review. Every regulation is subject to change. 

Here’s what’s on the front burner: 

Medicaid and SNAP: H.R. 1, now law, pushes over $1 trillion in potential costs to states and counties over the next decade. County hospitals, jails, and indigent care systems will feel it first, along with the ten states where counties administer SNAP nutrition benefits. 

Elections: The SAVE America Act would impose substantial, immediate unfunded mandates — and real legal exposure — onto county election officials. 

FEMA reform: We already secured a new transparency dashboard for Public Assistance reimbursements. Now we’re pushing for faster, streamlined and predictable disaster assistance. 

Housing: The biggest housing package in decades is now law. We’re educating county officials on implementation and talking with administration officials about our priorities and perspectives on implementation. 

Transportation: The bipartisan BUILD America 250 Act would nearly double the federal bridge formula program to $9 billion a year, with an increased set-aside for locally owned bridges. 

Permitting reform: As AI drives immense energy and natural resource demand, we’re pushing for counties to be granted “cooperating agency” status in federal environmental reviews — fighting aggressive attempts at federal and state preemption. 

Nearly 40 congressional staffers recently joined a NACo tour in Loudoun County, Va. — ground zero for America’s data center boom — to see firsthand what these large-scale computing facilities mean for a host county: the benefits, burdens and everything in between. 

The list goes on: the farm bill, behavioral health reforms, federal payments to public lands counties, closeout compliance for American Rescue Plan assistance and cybersecurity funding reauthorization.

But one issue demands every county’s attention right now:OMB’s rewrite of the Uniform Guidance, 2 CFR Part 200. It touches $1.1 trillion in federal grant funding a year. It hands federal agencies sweeping new termination power. It mandates extensive new subrecipient monitoring duties for states and counties. It adds viewpoint-neutrality rules that would extend to all county property — even county assets with no federal investment at all. 

We filed extensive comments by the July 13 deadline. That was step one. Thanks to county advocacy, the Senate’s funding bill includes language pausing the rule until Dec. 11 — a win, but not a fix. We still need county leaders pressing for a permanent solution. Our next steps: more insights from county attorneys, and continued work with the administration and Congress to secure significant revisions, through real intergovernmental consultation or a postponement of this government-wide rule.

None of this happens without county leaders and our state association partners in the fight. 

In recent months alone, we’ve held more than a half-dozen member fly-ins — not just meeting with federal counterparts, but drafting bills and amendments, hosting briefings with frontline county perspectives, and building intergovernmental relationships that outlast any single bill. 

States are moving just as fast, often hitting counties harder. That’s why we launched our State Policy Tracker, analyzing preemption bills and revenue restrictions statehouse by statehouse. 

Federal and state decisions are intertwined and cascade up and down — so when the same policy proposals show up in Washington and across the country, we treat it as one national trend, not separate fights. That’s why our partnership with state associations is so embedded in our culture. 

Our advocacy plate is full because counties’ plates are full. Every disaster, every bridge, every data center starts at the county level. NACo’s job is making sure our intergovernmental counterparts understand that — respectfully, persistently, and backed by real stories and data. 

From A to Z, don’t believe the noise that says nothing is happening in Washington. It couldn’t be further from the truth.