Bill Text: IL HB4155 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Creates the Agricultural Drought and Climate Resilience Office Act. Establishes the Agricultural Drought and Climate Resilience Office. Provides that the Office may provide voluntary technical assistance, nonregulatory programs, and incentives, including grants, that increase the ability to anticipate, prepare for, mitigate, adapt to, and respond to hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to drought or the climate. Provides that the Director of Agriculture may promulgate rules necessary for the administration of the Office's assistance, programs, and incentives, including grants. Requires the Director or the Director's designee to conduct a study to examine greenhouse gas reduction and carbon sequestration opportunities in the agricultural sector and in agricultural land management in the State. Includes provisions regarding Office assistance, programs, and incentives; grants; a greenhouse gas offset program; rules; and other Office studies. Defines terms. Effective immediately.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-04-19 - House Floor Amendment No. 1 Rule 19(c) / Re-referred to Rules Committee [HB4155 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2023-HB4155-Introduced.html

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103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY State of Illinois 2023 and 2024 HB4155 Introduced , by Rep. Sonya M. Harper SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:
New Act
Creates the Agricultural Drought and Climate Resilience Office Act. Establishes the Agricultural Drought and Climate Resilience Office. Provides that the Office may provide voluntary technical assistance, nonregulatory programs, and incentives, including grants, that increase the ability to anticipate, prepare for, mitigate, adapt to, and respond to hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to drought or the climate. Provides that the Director of Agriculture may promulgate rules necessary for the administration of the Office's assistance, programs, and incentives, including grants. Requires the Director or the Director's designee to conduct a study to examine greenhouse gas reduction and carbon sequestration opportunities in the agricultural sector and in agricultural land management in the State. Includes provisions regarding Office assistance, programs, and incentives; grants; a greenhouse gas offset program; rules; and other Office studies. Defines terms. Effective immediately.
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A BILL FOR
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AN ACT concerning State government.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the
Agricultural Drought and Climate Resilience Office Act.
Section 5. Findings. The General Assembly finds that
creating a Agricultural Drought and Climate Resilience Office
can best address and mitigate agricultural climate-related
issues on a wide scale by providing support to and assisting
bona fide agricultural producers in implementing practices
that minimize the impacts of climate change.
Section 10. Definitions. As used in this Act:
"Agrivoltaics" means one or more solar energy generation
facility directly integrated with agricultural activities,
including crop production, grazing, animal husbandry,
apiaries, cover cropping, or production of agricultural
commodities for sale in the retail or wholesale market.
"Anaerobic digester" means a sealed, oxygen-free tank into
which feedstock, such as food waste, animal manure, or
wastewater sludge, is placed for anaerobic digestion by
microorganisms.
"Bona fide agricultural producer" means an agricultural

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producer that receives a majority of the producer's annual
income from agriculture, an agricultural producer that spends
more than 1,040 hours per year engaged in agricultural
production, or an Illinois business that processes
agricultural products and solutions from the solar energy
development industry on providing feasible solutions for
producing electricity on agricultural lands while contributing
ecological and agricultural benefits.
"Department" means the Department of Agriculture.
"Disproportionately impacted area" means a census tract or
comparable geographic area that satisfies the following
criteria, as determined by the Department of Commerce and
Economic Opportunity that meets one or more of the following
criteria:
(1) at least 20% of households in the area fall below
the poverty guidelines updated periodically in the Federal
Register by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services under the authority of 42 U.S.C. 9902(2);
(2) 75% or more of the children in the area
participate in the National School Lunch Program according
to reported statistics from the State Board of Education;
(3) at least 20% of the households in the area receive
assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program; or
(4) the area has an average unemployment rate, as
determined by the Illinois Department of Employment

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Security, that is more than 120% of the national
unemployment, as determined by the United States
Department of Labor, for a period of at least 2
consecutive calendar years preceding the date of when rule
goes into effect.
"Dry digester" means an anaerobic digester that processes
feedstock with a low moisture content.
"Floatovoltaics" means one or more solar energy generation
facilities placed over, near, or floating on irrigation canals
or reservoirs.
"Office" means the Agricultural Drought and Climate
Resilience Office created in this Act.
"Solar energy device" means a device or a structural
design feature of a structure that provides for the collection
of sunlight and that comprises part of a system for the
conversion of the sun's radiant energy into thermal, chemical,
mechanical, or electrical energy.
"Solar energy facility" means a facility that uses real
and personal property, including, but not limited to, one or
more solar energy devices, agrivoltaics, float leaseholds, and
easements, to generate and deliver to the interconnection
meter any source of electrical, thermal, or mechanical energy
in excess of 2 megawatts by harnessing the radiant energy of
the sun, including any connected device for which the primary
purpose is to store energy, and that is not primarily designed
to supply electricity for consumption on site.

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Section 15. Agricultural Drought and Climate Resilience
Office; creation.
There is created in the Department the Agricultural
Drought and Climate Resilience Office. The Office may provide
voluntary technical assistance, nonregulatory programs, and
incentives, including grants, that increase the ability to
anticipate, prepare for, mitigate, adapt to, and respond to
hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to drought
or the climate. The Office shall advise the Director of
Agriculture, other State agencies, and the Governor on the
impact to agriculture of drought and climate policies and
programs. The Director shall appoint the head of the Office.
Section 20. Assistance, programs, and incentives; rules.
(a) The Department shall adopt rules for the
administration of the Office's assistance, programs, and
incentives, including grants. Before adopting the rules, the
Director shall convene a stakeholder group, including
representatives of organizations whose membership consists of
agricultural producers engaged in the production of the top 10
agricultural commodities produced in Illinois, members of the
Department of Natural Resources Conservation Reserve
Enhancement Program, and representatives of the solar energy
development industry. The stakeholder group shall advise the
Director as to the needs of the agriculture industry to

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respond to and mitigate the impacts of climate change on
agricultural production.
(b) Except for a program, assistance, incentive, or
support administered by the Office to address immediate needs
as a result of disaster, including wildfire and drought, a
program, assistance, incentive, or support administered by the
Office must include new or ongoing demonstration or research
projects to demonstrate or study the use of agrivoltaics to:
(1) help prepare for and mitigate the impacts that
climate change or drought have on agriculture;
(2) reduce energy costs in agriculture;
(3) improve the economic resilience of agricultural
producers;
(4) minimize negative environmental impacts of
photovoltaic energy production facilities on soil health,
native vegetation, State and federal listed species,
wildlife migration corridors, and the species, habitats,
and ecosystems that are of the greatest conservation need;
and
(5) provide other statewide environmental benefits, as
identified by the Office.
(c) In awarding grants, the Office shall give preference
to grant applications that propose using grant money to
conduct a new or ongoing demonstration or research project as
a means to study the potential, benefits, and tradeoffs of
agrivoltaics in the State.

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Any agrivoltaic study awarded as a grant pursuant to this
Section must include findings on the additional costs,
including the additional capital and ongoing maintenance
costs, for the use of agrivoltaics as compared to traditional
photovoltaics. The additional costs must be quantified on both
a dollar-per-megawatt and a dollar-per-megawatt-hour basis.
Grants awarded by the Office must pay for implementation
of practices to address and mitigate the impacts of climate
change or drought on agriculture or provide direct adaptation
support for impacted agricultural communities, including
mental health resources, conflict resolution assistance, and
risk-management guidance. A grant award may pay no more than
5% of administrative expenses incurred by an agricultural
producer to implement the practices.
(d) The Office shall, at least 30 days before opening the
grant application process, make available, on its website or
the Department's website, information related to the grant
program agricultural producers.
(e) A grant authorized pursuant to this Section must
receive final approval by the head of the Office before a final
award can be issued.
(f) The Office shall post on its website or the
Department's website all applications for grant awards. Within
15 days after awarding a grant, the Office shall post on its
website or the Department's website the name of the individual
or entity receiving a grant, the amount of the grant awarded,

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the project or projects to be funded by the grant, and the
duration of the grant award.
Section 25. Greenhouse gas reduction and carbon
sequestration study; greenhouse gas offset program.
(a) The Director or the Director's designee shall conduct
a study to examine greenhouse gas reduction and carbon
sequestration opportunities in the agricultural sector and in
agricultural land management in the State, including:
(1) soil health management practices, including cover
cropping, manure management, soil amendments, rotational
grazing, rangeland management, low-till and no-till
practices, and hedge grows;
(2) the use of dry digesters; and
(3) the potential for creating and offering a
certified greenhouse gas offset program and credit
instruments to provide fungible greenhouse gas offsets for
agricultural producers and in agricultural land
management.
The Director or Director's designee shall conduct the
study in consultation with the Illinois Environmental
Protection Agency, the Illinois Department of Natural
Resources and an institution of higher education with
expertise in climate change mitigation, adaptation benefits,
and other environmental benefits related to agricultural
research.

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The study must identify policy mechanisms to avoid the
impacts that the use of greenhouse gas offsets by regulated
sources could have on disproportionately impacted areas.
The Director or the Director's designee shall submit to
the General Assembly:
(1) a report summarizing the progress on the study on
or before October 1, 2024; and
(2) a final report on the study on or before October 1,
2025. The final report must include any legislative,
regulatory, or other recommendations for designing and
implementing greenhouse gas reduction and carbon
sequestration opportunities for the agricultural sector
and in agricultural land management in the State.
(b) After conclusion of the study under subsection (a),
the Office may create a certified greenhouse gas offset
program. Credit instruments offered under the program must
reflect real, additional, quantifiable, permanent, verifiable,
and enforceable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that
are equivalent to the offsets provided and must not require
agricultural producers' participation.
Greenhouse gas offsets developed for agricultural
producers and in agricultural land management may be used as
compliance instruments with the emission reduction obligations
established by the Bureau of Air to ensure that the annual,
overall, absolute emissions from the source, sector, or group
of sources decline consistent with the statewide greenhouse

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gas emission reduction goals; except that, if the source is
located in a disproportionately impacted area, the Department
shall establish by rule an annual, absolute emission reduction
obligation specific to the source.
Section 30. Post-Study Rules.
(a) Upon conclusion of the study conducted under Section
25, with regard to any recommendations in the study that do not
require legislative changes, the Department may adopt joint
rules with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's
Office of Energy and the Illinois Pollution Control Board, may
adopt rules to implement the recommendations. Any rules
adopted pursuant to this subsection may not mandate
participation by agricultural producers in any greenhouse gas
offset program or any other greenhouse gas reduction and
carbon sequestration programs or mechanisms developed in rule,
but the rules may provide incentives to agricultural producers
for the producer's voluntary participation in a program or
mechanism developed in rule pursuant to this subsection and
establish procedures for coordination with other states.
(b) Nothing in this Section requires the adoption of rules
for greenhouse gas emission offsets or credit mechanisms or to
accept any greenhouse gas emission offsets or credit
mechanisms as compliance instruments for emission reduction
compliance or verification.

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Section 35. Other studies. The Office shall also conduct
the following studies:
(1) A study examining the effectiveness of grants
awarded pursuant to Section 15.
(2) A feasibility study that examines the use of
floatovoltaics in State waterways.