By end of 2035, the U.S. Department of the Interior will redirect existing USDA Conservation Reserve Program funding to restore 25 million acres of Midwestern corn ethanol and HFCS cropland to native tallgrass prairie and wetland ecosystems. The project will sequester 125 million metric tons of CO₂ annually by project close. Transitioning farm families will be compensated at current CRP county rental rates, averaging $55K to $225K per family. There will be zero reduction in human food-crop acres or domestic animal feed supply, substituting soybean meal for displaced distillers grains,. The project will be verified annually through NASA GEDI satellite biomass mapping and USDA crop acreage reporting.
This is what a morally ordered society looks like.
No new money, no new agencies, no reduction in the food supply. Just a decision and a will.
What this Could Mean
~$6 billion/year in federal ethanol subsidies, gone.
No more boom-bust cycles. Stable, guaranteed payments.
Corn prices decrease for those who buy feed corn, lowering input costs for poultry, pork, dairy.
Runoff intercepted from enrolled acres directly reducing downstream water treatment costs and improving drinking water quality.
A major industrial input into the processed food supply, removed.
~$300 million/year in hunting, birding, and ecotourism on restored prairie land.
The Original Precedent
On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy stood before 35,000 people at Rice University and made a declaration that had no engineering precedent and no guarantee of success. He did not ask whether it was affordable. He did not commission a study. He named the goal, set the deadline, and told the country what kind of people it would have to become to get there.
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
— President John F. Kennedy, Rice University, September 12, 1962