The answer is that Congress is one piece – an important one – of the solution to the Mississippi’s woes.  In the UMRR Annual Meeting, we will have an exciting panel of speakers to talk about bills currently in the US Congress that have the potential to greatly affect our river.  We will also explore the idea of a “compact” between river states to protect the river from water diversions.  This session will set the stage for the work that LWV UMRR will tackle in the years to come.  

Join LWV UMRR for this session on May 21 at 10:30.  This meeting will be held in Webinar format on Zoom - pre-registration is required.  Click this link to pre-register!  You will receive the link to the meeting by return email; we will send reminders in May, including on the 21st.   Registration is open until the meeting starts on May 21 at 10:30.  

​We have a great slate of panelists for this session - representatives from other organizations working for the river and leading work on federal bills and big ideas.    We will cover the Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience initiative (MRRRI), the Safeguarding the Mississippi River Together initiative (SMRT), the Farm Bill reauthorization and a big idea - the notion of an Upper Midwest Compact to protect the waters of the Mississippi from diversion.  Our speakers represent organizations that are working to protect the Mississippi.  ​

Foxconn​:  LWV Wisconsin has lead LWV efforts to oppose the withdrawal of more than 7 million gallons per day of Lake Michigan water for this new industrial development near Racine.  LWV Lake Michigan is party to the Petition seeking reconsideration by WI DNR.  LWV Upper Mississippi has made a resolution in opposition, and will continue to find ways to work against this transfer.  You can read the resolution here. 

LWV UMRR will be traveling to southeastern Wisconsin for our February Board meeting.  We will seek to meet with Leagues in the area to talk about the project, get an update and see how the recent change of administration in Wisconsin may affect things.  Once the plans for this meeting are set, we will share them here on our 'Upcoming Events" page.   There are three previous blog posts on Foxconn:  

• Foxconn Update - the scale of the plant is shrinking...
• Foxconn takes Wisconsin by storm
• Update on the Racine diversion

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has an excellent blog post on this subject - check it out here:  http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/2018-midterm-election/.   The change in leadership in the House will definitely affect the Farm Bill, both in content and timing.  

LWV UMRR thanks NSAC for their excellent reporting on this issue, and for their leadership in working for a strong conservation focus in the Farm Bill!  

Here is some added speculation on how things may turn out, from Reuters news agency:

​Stalled farm bill could move fast after House win: senior Democratic lawmaker: “Congress may swiftly resolve a drawn-out impasse on the U.S. Farm Bill now that Democrats are poised to retake control of the legislative body, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee said on Wednesday. Collin Peterson, ranking member and presumptive new chair of committee, said passing the crucial agricultural legislation was going to be his top priority, with a deal possible as soon as next week during the lame-duck session. “That’s going to be the number one goal,” he told reporters on a conference call. “My sense is this is going to get worked out (in the lame-duck session).” The Farm Bill provides funding for an array of programs important to farmers - a crucial constituency for Republican President Donald Trump - including crop subsidies and rural development. But the latest bill, passed in 2014, expired on Sept.30 after talks over its replacement broke down. At issue has been a provision in the new draft of the bill that would impose stricter work requirements for recipients of food stamps. The Republican-led House of Representatives passed the $867 billion bill in June with the tougher requirements, over the objections of Democrats. The Senate, meanwhile, passed its own bipartisan version that excluded the requirements. Now that the Democrats have gained control of the House in Tuesday’s elections, the deadlock could be resolved, Peterson said. “Most of the ideas are out there and drafted. It is a matter of putting them together. If that could get resolved this week, then we’d have a bill ready by next week,” he said. He added that he has held talks about the issue with other Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, seen as a front runner to become House Speaker. “There’s no indication or idea on the Democrat side in the House that we would like to delay this thing,” he said. Food stamps are used by more than 40 million Americans, or about 12 percent of the total U.S. population, and the program’s inclusion in the Farm Bill has long been used as a way to get support from Democrats who represent urban districts.”
[Reuters, 11/8/18] https://goo.gl/wnBYRs

September 28 update - it looks like the 2014 farm bill expire - read more about it here on the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition's very excellent blog update.  We will have more on this site as events transpire... 

(Photo from Minneapolis Star Tribune Dec 17, 2017.  

The 2018 Farm Bill is in the works.  LWV UMRR is following this progress, and has signed on to letters urging Congress to improve the conservation titles in the Bill.  This bill is at a pivotal stage now - read about it here on the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition's blog.   It's a good read, detailed and with clear explanations.    

Timing is critical - conference committee members have been assigned and it is expected that they will meet before the August recess, with a goal of getting a bill to the President for signature before the end of the Federal fiscal year on September 30.  ​

Choices journal focuses on water quality and ecosystem health in the Mississippi River Basin, with a keen eye on agricultural policy.  Their December issue includes four papers presented at a recent conference that examine the political and institutional factors that have governed the design of conservation programs in the US, the design flaws that limit the effectiveness of these programs and the role that emerging technologies can play in leading to science-based conservation policy design.

In his paper, Nexus between Food, Energy and Ecosystem Services in the Mississippi River Basin: Policy Implications and Challenges Madhu Khanna says, “One of the great challenges for the US Corn Belt is increasing the productivity of food and fuel production while reducing nutrient runoff, which is a key contributor to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi–Atchafalya River Basin (MARB) drains about 41% of the conterminous United States and includes the Corn Belt, which is one of the most productive farming regions in the world. The hypoxic zone (Dead Zone) in the Gulf is the second largest in the world; in the summer of 2017 it was equal in size to the state of New Jersey, the largest extent ever recorded. Excess nutrient run-off generated by tillage and fertilizer-intensive agricultural and livestock production in the MARB is estimated to contribute about 80% of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (N) and more than 60% of delivered phosphorus (P) in the Gulf of Mexico (White et al., 2014). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2007) estimates that a 45% reduction in both N and P loadings from the MARB relative to the 1980–1996 average annual level is needed to achieve desired reductions in the size of the hypoxic zone.
 
Citing various sources, this paper makes the point that expanded agricultural use of the land not only impacts water quality but increases greenhouse gas emissions (due to loss of carbon storage) and reduces habitat needed for wildlife and pollinators, many of which are natural enemies of agricultural pests.  Studies found that the expansion of corn production for ethanol has contributed to worsening the dead zone in the Gulf.  Changing farming practices will be expensive, both in the cost of implementing new practices and in the loss of revenue to farmers. This paper cites analysis by  Rabotyagov (2014), stating that the “lowest-cost strategy for achieving the hypoxia goal [reducing the dead zone in the Gulf] is estimated to cost approximately $2.7 billion per year in terms of lost profitability”.  The upfront costs include obtaining equipment, machinery and establishing alternative perennial crops are considerable.  

Expanding these programs, or adding new programs, will take funds from other programs under current budget disciplines being followed by the US Congress, so the stakes are high.  South Dakota Senator John Thune, has proposed an alternative to traditional CRP enrollment. 
“Called the Soil Health and Income Protection Program (SHIPP), his proposal would provide for short-term (3–5 years) reserved acres with a maximum of 15% of the cropland on a farm (Thune, 2017; S.499, 2017). The shorter contract period would make the program more responsive to market conditions. In addition, it permits some harvesting activities on the acres while under contract. From a baseline perspective, the proposal is designed to reduce the costs of enrolling acres. For one, it would limit rental payments to 50% of the average rental rate for the county. Senator Thune’s proposal has some historical precedent as well. Early farm bills used conservation rental payments to rent land out of production for a single crop year, but this policy was part of controversial efforts to control production through limiting acres.” 
 
In his article “Policy Reforms Needed for Better Water Quality and Lower Pollution Control Costs”, James Shortle points out inefficiencies in our current conservation programs.  He “found that prioritizing practices based on their cost-effectiveness along with crude spatial targeting could reduce annualized costs of achieving required agricultural N, P load allocations across the [Chesapeake Bay] watershed state by 27% to 80%... “  He also advocates a fuller blending of approaches for managing point and nonpoint source pollution, specifically through a more robust trading program.  Trading pollution credits allows for spending on practices that result in greater pollution reduction for less cost. 
 
The final article in this series is “Conservation Programs Can Accomplish More with Less by Improving Cost-Effectiveness” by Marc O. Ribaudo.  One way that more can be accomplished with less is through performance-based payments, where actual reductions, rather than theoretical reductions based on changes in practices, are rewarded with payments.  Ribaudo also encourages the use of community conservation principles.  “Community conservation” engages all farmers in an impaired watershed to work on solutions in a group setting. Community recognition of environmental performance and the demonstration of innovativeness and entrepreneurship in managing a farm could increase conservation-oriented thinking on the part of those who were traditionally motivated primarily by profit.  LWV UMRR and other groups providing outreach could have a role in this. 
 
Choices, the magazine of food, farms and resource use, is the principal outreach vehicle of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association.