Technology & Innovation

118th Congress: Resilient Agriculture, Society & Environment

01.12.23 | 5 min read | Text byMaeve Skelly和杰西卡·黑带和Vijay Iyer

Over the past several years, instability has been a national and global constant. The COVID-19 pandemic upended supply chains and production systems. Floods, hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, and fires have imposed catastrophic consequences and forced people to reconsider where they can safely live. Russia’s war with Ukraine and other geopolitical conflicts have forced countries around the world to scramble for reliable energy sources.

Congress must act decisively to fortify the United States against these and future destabilizing threats. Priorities include revitalizing U.S. agriculture to ensure a dependable, affordable, and diverse food supply; improving disaster preparation and response; and driving development and oversight of critical environmental technologies.

振兴美国农业。每个社会都需要强大的粮食供应才能生存，壮成长和成长。但粮食价格飞涨and农业供应链破坏表明我们国家的粮食供应可能处于摇摇欲坠的地面。国会可以采取措施来重建一个世界领先的美国农业部门，该部门在不断发展的外部压力中是可持续的。

第一步是投资于农业创新和企业家精神。2018年农业法案创建了农业高级研发局（AGARDA），成为农业变革性进步的驱动力，但未能为该机构配备关键工具：奖品授权。奖品已被证明是force multipliersfor innovation dollars invested by many institutions, including other Advanced Research Projects Agencies (ARPAs). It would be simple for Congress to extend prize authority to AgARDA as well.

如果加上对农业企业家精神的额外支持，阿加达的奖品授权将特别有力。国会应为美国农业部（USDA），小型企业管理局（SBA）和少数族裔企业发展管理局（MBDA）提供五年的2500万美元，以共同开发“Ground Up” program为了帮助美国人创办专注于可持续农业的小型企业。

We must also begin viewing our nation’s soil as a strategic resource. Farmers and ranchers cannot succeed without good places to plant crops and graze livestock. But our nation’s fertile soilis being lost比它快10倍。在这s rate, many parts of the country will run out of arable land in the next 50 years. Some places—such as the Piedmont region of the eastern United States—already have. States including New Mexico, Illinois, and Nebraska have already introduced or passed legislation to preserve and restore soil health; Congress should follow their example. A全面的土壤健康法案could, for instance, create bridge-loan projects for farmers transitioning to soil-protective farm practices, expand the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) program to cover such practices, fund USDA Extension offices to provide related technical assistance, and supportregenerative agriculture in general。

Finally, Congress should extend funding for two programs that are delivering clear benefits to U.S. food systems. With major food production concentrated in五个州，通常远离主要人口中心，该农场到餐桌的途径极易受到干扰。《美国救援计划法》创建了Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Programto help small- and medium-sized enterprises strengthen this pathway, including through “aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storing, transporting, wholesaling or distribution of food.” This program should be continued and resourced going forward. In addition, the生物产品试点计划研究如何将源自农产品衍生的材料用于建筑和消费产品。该计划增加了农村地区的经济活动，同时还降低了与将基于生物的产品推向市场相关的商业化风险。国会应在2028财年结束时以每年至少500万美元的价格扩大该计划的资金（目前将在2023财年之后到期）。

改善灾难的准备和反应。每年，美国人都会损失数十亿美元的自然危害，包括飓风，野火，洪水，热浪和干旱。我们知道这些灾难将会发生……但是只有15％的联邦灾难资金被投资以钝化其影响。特别是，当前的灾难政策和实践缺乏激励地方政府主动降低风险的激励措施。

Congress can address this failure byamending aspects of the Stafford Act of 1988。In particular, Congress should redefine the disaster threshold in ways that factor in local capacity and ability to recover. Congress should also consider (i) reducing the federal cost share for disaster response, (ii) implementing other incentive models that may induce better local hazard-reduction decisions and improve long-term resilience, and (iii) strengthening existing incentive programs. For example, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) could be improved by requiring local governments to take stronger actions to qualify for reduced insurance rates and increasing transparency about how community ratings are calculated.

Disaster management response is not the sole purview of FEMA. For example, the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program positions the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a primary disaster-response funder. To ensure efficiency and prevent duplication of effort, Congress mustclarify the role每个涉及灾难的联邦机构。

国会还应确保足够的研究资金来调查循证和成本效益的缓解灾难和应对策略。有用的第一步是将机构跨度加倍灾难恢复研究补助金（DRRG）计划这已经支持研究人员进行开创性的建模，模拟和解决方案的开发，以保护美国人免受最大的灾难性后果。

推动关键环境技术的发展和监督。环境技术对于确保能源和资源安全至关重要。国会可以使用市场形成机制来提取关键的环境技术，例如碳捕获和储存（CCS）。扭曲速度的操作表明，联邦支持的提前市场承诺（AMC）的突破能力激励了变革技术的快速发展和扩展。在此示例上，国会应授权10亿美元的AMC可扩展的碳解析方法- 提供吸引市场参与者所需的大量需求信号，并帮助推进清洁的全部能源投资组合。然后可以将这种方法扩展到其他与环境相关的应用程序，例如构建infrastructure to enable next-generation transportation。

Congress must also ensure responsible deployment and reasonable oversight of new environmental technologies. For instance, DOE recently launched an ambitious“Carbon Negative Shot”为了促进二氧化碳去除（CDR）技术的突破，并且还领导着机构间CDR工作组，以追求许多CDR方法的进步。但是，我们缺乏国家碳账户标准和工具，以确保CDR计划始终如一，诚实，成功地实施。国会应与能源部和环境保护署合作解决这一评估差距。

同样，IRA在联邦机构中拨款超过4.05亿美元，用于“环境数据或信息系统的开发”等活动。这可以证明有先见之明的投资有效地指导未来的联邦对环境计划的支出，但是只有采取措施确保这些美元不花在重复的努力上（例如，例如，水数据目前由57个数据平台和462种数据类型的25个联邦实体收集). Congress should therefore authorize and direct the creation of aDigital Service for the Planet“具有协调机构之间的环境数据和技术的专业知识和使命”，从而促进数据企业的效率。可以将这项集中式服务作为现有美国数字服务的分支建立，或者是平行但独特的机构。