New $1.95M USDA Grant to Support Training of Diverse Agriculture Professionals

The Covert plant’s 29 workers are expected to become Consumers Energy employees as the transition proceeds.

Consumers Energy recently released its energy forecast for this summer, helping to assure that Michigan has an ample energy supply for nearly 2 million homes and businesses. Covert joins two other natural gas plants in Zeeland and Jackson, along with coal, hydroelectric, pumped storage, wind and solar energy sources that will serve customers as temperatures rise and air conditioners turn on.

That energy mix will continue to be cleaner and more affordable. Consumers Energy will close its final coal-burning power plants by mid-2025. Over 60 percent of the power the company will provide customers will be sourced from renewable energy and help customers save an estimated $600 million through 2040.

“We appreciate that our customers count on us around the clock to power their lives. By adding the Covert plant, we can keep adding wind and solar energy while ensuring we meet the dayto-day needs of our neighbors,” Sparks said.

Committee Passes Stabenow Provision Addressing Canadian Nuclear Waste Storage

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), co-chair of the U.S. Senate Great Lakes Task Force, announced that the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works passed her provision requiring the Biden Administration to work with Canada on an alternative location to permanently store nuclear waste. For years, Stabenow has opposed Canada’s plan to permanently store high-level nuclear waste in the Great Lakes Basin.

Stabenow’s provision, which passed as part of the ADVANCE Act of 2023, requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to provide an update to Congress on engagement between the Commission and the Government of Canada regarding nuclear waste storage in the Great Lakes Basin.

“Placing a nuclear waste facility next to one of the world’s largest supplies of fresh water makes absolutely no sense and is dangerous. Our Great Lakes are central to our Michigan way of life, and any nuclear waste spill would be devastating. This provision requires the Biden our global community, and we need to promote practices that are sustainable long term.” management decisions.

A research team led by Michigan State University soil scientist Bruno Basso has received a $1.95 million U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant to develop and disseminate educational information on soil organic carbon evaluation. The trainings will be geared toward underserved agriculture professionals in Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont.

The project is funded through the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, which is supporting four regional projects around the country aimed at improving soil carbon stock monitoring.

Basso is an expert in sustainable agriculture who serves as John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in the MSU departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, as well as the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station.

Joining him are colleagues from Woods End Laboratories, a soil health analysis company headquartered in Maine, including founder and chief scientist William Brinton, and CEO and analytical chemist Rebecca Harvey.

Basso noted that soils have the ability to sequester more carbon than the atmosphere and vegetation combined. Outside of the obvious environmental benefits, there are growing incentives focused on farmers’ wallets.

Emerging soil carbon markets allow private companies and nonprofits to pay farmers for sequestering carbon and avoiding greenhouse gas emissions, but questions abound. Citing the cost of soil sampling, remote sensing image analysis, modeling and other carbon stock assessment techniques, many farmers are skeptical.

Novel approaches — such as pairing remote sensing with crop modeling — are topics Basso covers in his research, aiming to cultivate solutions that overcome the complexity and cost barriers of sampling across an entire farm.

To share information in an inclusive way, the team is collaborating with several organizations in Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont.

Training opportunities will be available during in-person field days, via printed materials, and online through bulletins, videos, a podcast and a film documentary. Basso said that locations for field days will be selected to complement other regionally relevant activities such as fairs and farm shows.

The content will feature soil carbon science and practical, hands-on learning for the implementation and management of a carbon monitoring program. Information will be presented on how to collect samples such as:

• How many samples to collect.

• What sampling equipment should be used and where to get it.

Administration to work with our Canadian neighbors to stop any plans to store nuclear waste so close to the Great Lakes,” said Senator Stabenow.

Earlier this year, Stabenow reintroduced her bipartisan resolution with Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), Congressman Dan Kildee (MI-08), and Congressman John James (MI-10) opposing Canada’s plan and calling on President Biden and his administration to work with the Canadian government to ensure nuclear waste is not permanently stored in the Great Lakes Basin.

Over 40 million people in the United States and Canada get their drinking water from the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, a nonprofit created by the Canadian government, is proposing to build a permanent nuclear waste repository at South Bruce to store high-level nuclear waste in the Great Lakes Basin. The highly toxic waste could take tens of thousands of years to decompose to safe levels.

“The partnership among academic institutions, private companies, governmental organizations and nonprofits is critical to evaluating the potential steps farmers can take to help soils sequester carbon,” said Basso, whose work is also supported by MSU AgBioResearch. “We need stakeholders from all areas of agriculture to adequately address the multifaceted nature of the problem and its potential solutions. Agriculture is at the foundation of

Basso and Brinton recently published a paper outlining how soil carbon stocks are often inaccurately measured due to a calculation error. They demonstrated how measurements must factor in the changing bulk density of soil over time to gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of sustainable agriculture methods.

For the new project, the team is looking to share these findings and more. The intended audience will be farmers, agronomists and agribusiness professionals in underserved groups such as indigenous peoples, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and those whose religious or cultural beliefs drive land

• How to find a qualified laboratory and how to get samples to it.

• How to interpret and share laboratory results.

• When, where and how to re-sample.

“There is a need for an increased number of field-based measurements to evaluate carbon stocks and gain an improved understanding of the sequestration potential of lands under different management and cropping systems through validated models,” Basso said. “To accomplish this, we need a wide variety of farmers, agribusiness professionals and agronomists to participate, especially those who have historically not had a strong voice in agriculture circles.”

Bill to Strengthen Investment, Opportunity, & Access to Capital Markets Passes House

On Monday, June 5, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed Congressman Huizenga’s Accredited Investor Definition Review Act. This legislation is designed to strengthen small business, investment opportunities, and access to our capital markets for Southwest Michigan residents and individuals across America.

Currently, one of the qualifications the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) uses to determine an accredited investor is an asset threshold of one million dollars. This antiquated view limits funding for small business startups and shuts everyday Americans out of this portion of our capital markets.

Prior to the voice vote, Congressman Huizenga spoke in support of the Accredited Investor Definition Review Act and detailed how it opens doors for both investors and small businesses in Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Benton Harbor, and communities throughout Michigan and across the nation. Video of Congressman Huizenga’s remarks as well as text highlights are available below.

“While investors often turn to their local communities for support, they often lack the ability to reach those investors, those truly accredited investors, who can make a huge impact,” he said.

The current definition the SEC uses to identify accredited investors is outdated and based solely and wrongly on wealth and net income.

“You shouldn’t have to be a millionaire to be an accredited investor,” he said.

According to Huizenga, the ability to participate in a private offering should not be limited to individuals that pass some type of federal government assets test. Instead, participation should be expanded to include all individuals that demonstrate they have a sufficient understanding of the offering.

“My legislation is about leveling the playing field. Whether it’s in Kalamazoo or Portage, Benton Harbor or St Joe, or Battle Creek or Springfield, investors should be able to support small business startups in their local community across Southwest Michigan and around the nation,” he said.

Huizenga led a bipartisan effort, that heard uplifting stories from Americans who inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs.

Omi Bell founded Black Girl Ventures, an organization focused on providing women of color with access to community networks, capital, and capacity building to develop and grow their businesses. Omi does that right here in Washington, DC.

“Omi testified before the Subcommittee on Capital Markets that her mother invested 10,000 dollars of her own retirement to support Omi’s first business venture. Yet her mom was not considered an accredited investor, and despite her desire to support her daughter’s ambitions she could have been disallowed from investing,” he said.

Huizenga’s committee also heard testimony from David Olivencia. the CEO and CoFounder of Angeles Investors, who, while earning his MBA from Notre Dame, learned about startups and how early-stage investments could lead to outsized returns.

“Unfortunately for David, as he said he told his story, he said he did not qualify as an accredited investor, because his immigrant family did not have wealth that he could inherit. That is a horrible way to decide whether someone should or can invest in a dream. I can tell you this, the stories of Omi and David are all too common in the investment world,” he said.