Mayors of towns along the Mississippi River are proposing improvements to national drought policy as they battle the worst drought in thirty years.
Greenville, Mississippi Mayor Errick Simmons is co-chair of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (MRCTI). He says the group has developed seven policy proposals to be considered by the national drought resilience partnership:
- Award federal disaster declarations to states for drought
- Allow cities to spend FEMA funds addressing drought impacts
- Make drought mitigation a spending priority for Jobs Act grants
- Develop national incentives for manufacturers to build-out water recycling
- Allow for more adaptive multi-watershed management so river systems can be managed at basin scale to mitigate for climate impact
- Allow farmers and land owners to be compensates for voluntarily rotating acreage out of irrigation to alleviate drought
- Make agricultural credits for climate mitigation available under TITLE II, Subtitle C of the Inflation Reduction Act available for drought resilience activities.