Environment & Energy Congressional Round-Up | May 5 - May 9, 2025

Highlights:

The House and Senate reintroduced three bipartisan bills to make precision agriculture equipment more financially accessible to farmers: Reps. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) and Jimmy Panetta’s (D-Calif.) Precision Agriculture Loan Program Act of 2025 (H.R.3211), Sen. Deb. Fischer (R-Neb.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) Producing Responsible Energy and Conservation Incentives and Solutions for the Environment (PRECISE) Act (S.1616), and Sen. Fischer and Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-Ga.) Precision Agriculture Loan (PAL) Act (S.1618).

Reps. Teresa Leger-Fernández (D-N.M.), David Valadao (R-Calif.), and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) introduced the Support Water-Efficient Strategies and Technologies Act (WEST) Act (H.R. 3293). If passed, the bill would incentivize farmers and ranchers to implement water conservation and drought resilience practices under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, create new incentives under the Conservation Stewardship Program, and increase access to soil testing under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s soil health program. Learn more about each of these Farm Bill programs in EESI’s briefing, Conservation Practices from Farms to Forests and Wetlands.

Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) introduced the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) Program Reauthorization Act of 2025 (S.1662). The bill aims to bolster forest and community health and mitigate wildfire risk by reauthorizing and expanding the CFLR program, which was last reauthorized in the 2018 Farm Bill. Check out EESI’s briefing, the Future of Forestry in the Farm Bill, for more on how forest management can support wildfire resilience.

To catch up on all of the recent environmental and energy legislation in Congress, read the pdf here.