Last summer, President Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which is a massive bill that makes historic federal investments to address the climate crisis and aims to reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030. These IRA investments will be made through our existing federal agencies and their programs. We're looking forward to opportunities to inform this spending as agencies decide how they will implement IRA funds. 

For example, last month, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) (an agency under the U.S. Department of Agriculture that provides technical and financial assistance to farmers and landowners) invited the public to comment on their implementation of IRA funds. The NRCS is the primary agency responsible for administering Farm Bill conservation programs that protect habitats and clean water in our Mississippi River basin. 

The Mississippi River Network, the organization that implements the 1 Mississippi program, submitted comments to NRCS on behalf of our Network members and River Citizens. We urged NRCS to be bold and think holistically about our ecosystems as the agency implements this historic funding. We also outlined specific conservation practices that we believe should be prioritized to have the greatest impacts on the health of our River and the communities that depend on it. 

Here is an excerpt from the letter submitted on December 21, 2022:

The Mississippi River Network (MRN) appreciates this opportunity to submit a public comment regarding Docket ID: NRCS-2022-0015 “Request for Public Input About Implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act Funding.” We urge NRCS to implement this historic Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding in a way that is not only impactful for our environment and our communities that depend on it, but also efficient and expeditious. We understand how this may require NRCS to balance its real capacity constraints with the IRA’s stated goals to “improve soil carbon, reduce nitrogen losses, or reduce, capture, avoid, [and] sequester carbon dioxide, methane, or nitrous oxide emissions.” To that end, our comments are focused on specific practices and considerations that maximize benefits to our communities and the environments that sustain them. We are also focused on recommendations that reduce the need to apply nitrogen in the first place. Our hope is that these comments will enable NRCS to be more efficient in its implementation of IRA funds all while maximizing environmental outcomes.