§3151b Veterinary Services Grant Program

Summary

Provides competitive grants to qualifying U.S. groups to build and keep up veterinary services in rural areas that the Secretary has called veterinarian shortage situations. Qualified entities include clinics or individuals running rural clinics, veterinary schools and departments, research or veterinary foundations, State agricultural experiment stations, veterinary organizations, and government agencies. A "veterinarian shortage situation" means whatever the Secretary has identified under section 3151a. Grants can pay for things like recruiting and keeping veterinarians and vet techs, covering some training costs for vet students and tech students, growing veterinary education and residency programs, continuing education (including telemedicine), helping prepare applications for shortage designation, and outreach to 11th and 12th graders about food animal medicine. Clinics may use money to buy equipment, share reasonable overhead costs, or set up mobile units that also do education or extension work. Grants are awarded competitively, and the Secretary must use an application and review process, ask for public input, prefer applicants that coordinate with others, and consider how much money is available. Clinic grants must include a service agreement based only on the grant amount and purpose; if the agreement is broken, repayment with interest can be required, though the Secretary may waive repayment for extreme hardship. Recovered money goes back into the program and stays available until spent. Funds cannot be used to build, buy, enlarge, or remodel buildings. Regulations were required within one year after February 7, 2014. The law authorizes $10,000,000 each fiscal year starting in 2014, available until spent, and gives priority to programs focused on food animal medicine.