Areawide Integrated Pest Management Act of 2015 or the AIPM Act of 2015
This bill amends the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 to expand the Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Integrated Research, Education, and Extension Competitive Grants Program to include grants to colleges, universities, and other entities for qualified areawide integrated pest management projects to prevent the spread of pests and invasive species.
The bill establishes an areawide integrated pest management committee to consider stakeholder feedback and determine priorities for the projects.
The projects must be implemented on a landscape scale or larger and include collaboration with specified federal, regional, state, and nongovernmental entities. The projects may prevent the spread of pests and invasive species through: prevention, avoidance, monitoring, and suppression; educational programs; and physical, mechanical, cultural biologically-based, or chemical controls.
A qualified project must:
provide for significant benefits for the prevention, eradication, or management of pests and invasive species; provide for economic and environmental benefits to agriculture, individuals, wildlife, and the environment; address the annual priorities established by the integrated pest management committee; last no more than five years; establish a regional advisory committee to oversee the project; and involve the cooperative extension services in translating the results of research into practical information and tools to be shared. USDA must transfer to the National Institute of Food and Agriculture the authority for the Integrated Research, Education, and Extension Competitive Grants Program.