WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Representatives Bobby Scott (D-Va.-03), John Sarbanes (D-Md.-03) and Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.-07) led fellow Chesapeake Bay-area lawmakers from both the Senate and House of Representatives in a recent letter urging U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to replenish the resilient farms initiative established administratively thanks to their efforts last year with available Inflation Reduction Act and other funds. The Chesapeake Bay States’ Partnership Initiative (C-SPI) provides additional financial and technical assistance to farmers to implement conservation practices in the Bay watershed region.
“As you distribute Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) funding provided in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to states for climate-smart agriculture, we encourage you to leverage the C-SPI framework to deli