[imgbelt img=5189626415_6c57e25717_o.jpg]The Senate is about read to cut off funding for biomass. A funding bill awaiting a Senate vote would zero out the Biomass Crop Assistance Program — just two months after the Obama administration unveiled rules for it. Congress created the biomass program in ’08 to help speed the development of biofuels that would not depend on corn as a feedstock.• When people choose to come to rural communities, they may not be looking for jobs, but for a way of life.Wisconsin demographers find that the way to build local economies in rural places is by attracting people who want the amenities they find there. Sure, Portland may attract more people, but a number of young college graduates would rather live in small towns — if the amenities are right. The state of Michigan recently surveyed 13,500 college graduates. More than a third said they wanted to live in a rural area. • Every year, one of every six Americans gets sick from eating food, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The leading cause of illness is salmonella.Oh, this means that 48 million Americans get sick from what they eat. • China will end its limitations on the importation of U.S. beef and lower restrictions on the importation of wind turbines. • “Unfortunately, fixing rural Alabama will neither be quick or easy,” writes former Alabama State Sen. Kim Benefield of Randolph County. “The world is vastly different that the world of decades ago when anyone in rural Alabama, regardless of how little education they had, could find a job in a cotton mill or sewing factory.”The full column can be found in the Tuskegee News.