A bill to amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to create permanent payments within the environmental quality incentives program for soil health practices and carbon sequestration monitoring, and for other purposes.
About This Bill
Committee
Latest Action · October 23, 2020
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
Healthy Soils Healthy Climate Act of 2020
This bill modifies the Environmental Quality Incentives Program of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide permanent incentive payments to producers to adopt practices designed to improve soil health through increasing carbon levels in soil.
USDA must
conduct a study regarding changes in soil health and soil organic carbon levels as a result of the adopted practices to improve soil health; develop ranking and scoring criteria under the program that prioritize practices that score highest in soil carbon sequestration on eligible land; create a soil organic carbon conservation activity plan under the program to measure and monitor sequestration and mitigation improvement levels from the practices; provide for streamlined and coordinated procedures for the program and the conservation stewardship program, including contracting, conservation planning, conservation practices, and related administrative procedures; and establish a program to provide grants to land-grant colleges and universities to conduct research relating to soil health and carbon science, and conduct research relating to soil health and carbon science at its agricultural research stations.
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