Sponsors (2)
The bill creates standardized measurement, data, research, and support that can improve soil health, climate accounting, and farmer decision-making, but it imposes recurring federal costs and new technical, administrative, and equity challenges for producers and smaller institutions.
Farmers and land managers gain a uniform, science-based method and modeling tools to measure and estimate soil carbon and greenhouse gas impacts, improving on-farm decision-making and enabling more comparable, credible participation in carbon markets and conservation programs.
Researchers, universities, and partner organizations receive new and sustained funding and partnership opportunities (methodology maintenance, AFRI grants, inventory contracts), expanding applied research, technology transfer, and support for minority-serving institutions.
Producers who voluntarily report or participate get technical assistance, multilingual guidance, demonstrations, and extension support to adopt soil health practices and measurement protocols.
All taxpayers bear ongoing federal costs from multiple authorizations and program expansions (methodology maintenance, inventory, modeling, AFRI support and demonstrations), potentially diverting funds from other priorities.
Producers face new administrative and technical burdens — sampling, testing, standardized measurement depths/calibration, mandated data sources, and site access requests — creating time and cost burdens for participating farmers.
Smaller or resource-limited producers and smaller research institutions may be excluded in practice because of costs, application competition, or demonstration selection favoring larger operations.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Establishes standardized soil carbon measurement methods, a national soil carbon inventory network, and predictive modeling tools, with modest annual funding and integration into USDA programs.
Introduced July 31, 2025 by Tina Smith · Last progress July 31, 2025
Creates a national effort to measure, track, and model soil carbon across U.S. farmland and other eligible lands. It requires the Secretary of Agriculture to develop a standardized, interoperable methodology for directly measuring soil carbon, build a Soil Carbon Inventory and Analysis Network of monitored sites, and produce modeling tools to predict greenhouse gas and soil carbon outcomes from land-management and conservation practices. The bill provides modest annual authorizations for implementation, requires stakeholder consultation and multilingual guidance, and ties the measurement standards into existing research and conservation grant programs and voluntary reporting.