1.
United States Department of Agriculture
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Approximately 80% of USDAs $140 billion budget goes to the Food and Nutrition Service program. The largest component of the FNS budget is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, after the resignation of Thomas Vilsack on January 13,2017 and the departure of President Barack Obama from office on January 20,2017, the acting Secretary of Agriculture is Michael Young. Activities in this include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides healthy food to over 40 million low-income. The USDA also is concerned with assisting farmers and food producers with the sale of crops and it plays a role in overseas aid programs by providing surplus foods to developing countries. This aid can go through USAID, foreign governments, international bodies such as World Food Program, the Agricultural Act of 1949, section 416 and Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, also known as Food for Peace, provides the legal basis of such actions. The USDA is a partner of the World Cocoa Foundation, early in its history, the economy of the United States was largely agrarian. Officials in the government had long sought new and improved varieties of seeds, plants. In 1837 Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, a Yale-educated attorney interested in improving agriculture, became Commissioner of Patents and he began collecting and distributing new varieties of seeds and plants through members of the Congress and agricultural societies. In 1839, Congress established the Agricultural Division within the Patent Office and allotted $1,000 for the collection of agricultural statistics, Ellsworth was called the Father of the Department of Agriculture. In 1849, the Patent Office was transferred to the newly created Department of the Interior, in the ensuing years, agitation for a separate bureau of agriculture within the department or a separate department devoted to agriculture kept recurring. Lincoln called it the peoples department, in the 1880s, varied advocacy groups were lobbying for Cabinet representation. Business interests sought a Department of Commerce and Industry, and farmers tried to raise the Department of Agriculture to Cabinet rank, finally, on February 9,1889, President Grover Cleveland signed a bill into law elevating the Department of Agriculture to Cabinet level. In 1887, the Hatch Act provided for the funding of agricultural experiment stations in each state. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 then funded cooperative extension services in each state to teach agriculture, home economics, with these and similar provisions, the USDA reached out to every county of every state. During the Great Depression, farming remained a way of life for millions of Americans. The Department of Agricultures Bureau of Home Economics, established in 1923, published shopping advice and recipes to stretch family budgets and make food go farther. USDA helped ensure that continued to be produced and distributed to those who needed it, assisted with loans for small landowners. The Department of Agriculture was authorized a budget for Fiscal Year 2015 of $139.7 billion, the Washington Post reports that he said There are days when I have literally nothing to do, he recalled thinking as he weighed his decision to quit
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Agricultural extension
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Agricultural extension is the application of scientific research and new knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education. Extension practitioners can be throughout the world, usually working for government agencies. They are represented by professional organizations, networks and extension journals. Modern extension began in Dublin, Ireland in 1847 with Lord Clarendons itinerant instructors during the great famine and it expanded in Germany in the 1850s, through the itinerant agricultural teachers Wanderlehrer and later in the USA via the cooperative extension system authorized by the Smith-Lever Act in 1914. The term was adopted in the United States of America. Another program area provided by extension agents is 4-H and youth activities, many extension agents work for cooperative extension service programs at land-grant universities. They are sometimes referred to as county agents, or extension educators, subjects range from agriculture, life sciences, economics, engineering, food safety, pest management, veterinary medicine, and various other allied disciplines. These subject matter specialists work with agents to support programs within the extension system. Extension is constantly evolving and the ability to share information online has prompted the development of new platforms like Digital Green. There is no accepted definition of agricultural extension. 1965, Agricultural extension has been described as a system of education for rural people. 1966, Extension personnel have the task of bringing knowledge to farm families in the farms. The object of the task is to improve the efficiency of agriculture,1974, Extension involves the conscious use of communication of information to help people form sound opinions and make good decisions. 1982, Agricultural Extension, Assistance to farmers to help identify and analyze their production problems. 1988, Extension is a professional communication intervention deployed by an institution to change in voluntary behaviors with a presumed public or collective utility. 1997, Extension is the exchange of information and the deliberate transfer of skills. 2004, Extension is a series of embedded communicative interventions that are meant, among other goals,2006, Extension is the process of enabling change in individuals, communities and industries involved in the primary industry sector and in natural resource management. It is not known where or when the first extension took place
3.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
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Farmer
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A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry. However, in the not so distant past a farmer was a person who promotes or improves the growth of by labor and attention, farming has been dated back as far as the Neolithic era. By the Bronze Age, the Sumerians had an agriculture specialized labour force by 5000–4000 BCE and they relied on three-person teams when harvesting in the spring. The Ancient Egypt farmers farmed and relied and irrigated their water from the Nile, animal husbandry, the practice of rearing animals specifically for farming purposes, has existed for thousands of years. Dogs were domesticated in East Asia about 15,000 years ago, goats and sheep were domesticated around 8000 BCE in Asia. Swine or pigs were domesticated by 7000 BCE in the Middle East, the earliest evidence of horse domestication dates to around 4000 BCE. In the U. S. of the 1930s, one farmer fed only himself, the same farmer now feeds well over a hundred people. More distinct terms are used to denote farmers who raise specific domesticated animals. For example, those who raise grazing livestock, such as cattle, sheep, goats, sheep, goat, and cattle farmers might also be referred to respectively as shepherds, goatherds, and cowherds. The term dairy farmer is applied to those primarily in milk production, whether from cattle, goats, sheep. A poultry farmer is one who concentrates on raising chickens, turkeys, ducks, or geese, for meat, egg, or feather production, or commonly. A person who raises a variety of vegetables for market may be called a truck farmer or market gardener, dirt farmer is an American colloquial term for a practical farmer, or one who farms his own land. In developed nations, a farmer is usually defined as someone with an ownership interest in crops or livestock, and those who provide only labor are most often called farmhands. Alternatively, growers who manage farmland for a landowner, sharing the harvest are known as sharecroppers or sharefarmers. Historically, one subsisting in this way may have known as a peasant. In developed nations, however, a person using such techniques on small patches of land might be called a gardener, Farmers are often members of local, regional, or national farmers unions or agricultural producers organizations and can exert significant political influence. The Grange movement in the United States was effective in advancing farmers agendas, especially against railroad, the FNSEA is very politically active in France, especially pertaining to genetically modified food
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Presidency of Bill Clinton
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The presidency of Bill Clinton began on January 20,1993 at noon Eastern Standard Time, when Bill Clinton was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on January 20,2001. His running mate, Al Gore, took office as Vice President on the same day, Clinton, a Democrat, took office after defeating Republican incumbent President George H. W. Bush and Independent businessman Ross Perot in the 1992 presidential election. Four years later, he defeated Republican Bob Dole and Ross Perot to win a term of office. During both elections, Clinton ran as a New Democrat, and many of many of his administrations policy proposals reflected his centrist, Third Way thinking. He was succeeded in office by Republican George W. Bush, months into his first term, he signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which raised taxes and set the stage for future budget surpluses. He also signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trade pact negotiated by President George H. W. Bush among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. His most ambitious legislative initiative, a plan to provide health care. Clintons party suffered a strong rebuke in the 1994 elections, the Republican Revolution, as the 1994 elections came to be known, empowered Congressional Republicans led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to propose several conservative policies. While Clinton vetoed many of these policies, he signed some, including the Personal Responsibility. After disagreements with Congressional Republicans led to two shutdowns of the government between 1995 and 1996. In foreign policy, Clintons first term saw American interventions in Haiti and the Balkans, Clinton also appointed two Supreme Court Justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Clintons second term saw the first federal budget surpluses since the 1960s and his impeachment arose after he denied having an affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Though the House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton, he was acquitted of all charges by the Senate, in 1997, Clinton signed into law a bill creating the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, which was to help provide health care coverage for millions of children. In 1999, he signed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which allowed for the consolidation of investment banks, commercial banks, in foreign policy, Clinton launched a major bombing campaign in the Balkans, which led to the creation of a United Nations protectorate in Kosovo. Clinton also pursued trade agreements, most notably with China. Since the end of his presidency, historians and political scientists have tended to rank Clinton as an average to above average president. In the 1992 presidential election, Clinton defeated incumbent Republican president George H. W. Bush to become the first Democratic president since Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, Clinton took office with Democratic majorities in both houses, and attempted to pass an ambitious health care reform bill. Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in 1994 and retained control throughout Clintons presidency, but Clinton won reelection in 1996
6.
Local government in the United States
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Local government in the United States refers to governmental jurisdictions below the level of the state. Most states have at least two tiers of government, counties and municipalities. In some states, counties are divided into townships, there are several different types of jurisdictions at the municipal level, including the city, town, borough, and village. The types and nature of municipal entities varies from state to state. Many rural areas and even suburban areas of many states have no municipal government below the county level. In other places consolidated city-county jurisdictions exist, in city and county functions are managed by a single municipal government. In some New England states, towns are the unit of local government and counties have no governmental function. Such special purpose districts often encompass areas in multiple municipalities, as of 2012, using the Census Bureaus definition, there were 89,055 local government units in the United States. When North America was settled by Europeans from the 17th century onward, small towns in Massachusetts were compared to city-states in a somewhat oligarchic form, but an oligarchy based on perceived virtue rather than wealth or birth. Voting was established as a precedent early on, in fact, women were prevented from voting and African-Americans were excluded. The colonists never thought of themselves as subservient but rather as having an association with authorities in London. Representative government sprung up spontaneously in various colonies, and during the colonial years, office holders tended to serve from a sense of duty and prestige, and not for financial benefit. After the American Revolution, the electorate chose the governing councils in almost every American municipality, during the 19th century, many municipalities were granted charters by the state governments and became technically municipal corporations. Townships and county governments and city councils shared much of the responsibility for decision-making which varied from state to state, the concept of zoning originated in the U. S. Zoning legitimacy was upheld by the Supreme Court in its Euclid v. Ambler decision, the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution makes local government a matter of state rather than federal law, with special cases for territories and the District of Columbia. As a result, the states have adopted a variety of systems of local government. The United States Census Bureau conducts the Census of Governments every five years to compile statistics on government organization, public employment, the categories of local government established in this Census of Governments is a convenient basis for understanding local government in the United States. Counties and county-equivalents form the administrative division of the states
7.
Agriculture
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Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology, genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts, the major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils, meats, fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo, other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, field, Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use resources to produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops. This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry, Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 15,000 years ago, rice was domesticated in China between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia at an unknown time
8.
Soil classification
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Soil classification deals with the systematic categorization of soils based on distinguishing characteristics as well as criteria that dictate choices in use. Soil classification is a subject, from the structure of the system itself, to the definitions of classes. Soil classification can be approached from the perspective of soil as a material, engineers, typically geotechnical engineers, classify soils according to their engineering properties as they relate to use for foundation support or building material. Modern engineering classification systems are designed to allow a transition from field observations to basic predictions of soil engineering properties. The most common engineering classification system for soils in North America is the Unified Soil Classification System, the USCS has three major classification groups, coarse-grained soils, fine-grained soils, and highly organic soils. The USCS further subdivides the three major soil classes for clarification and it distinguishes sands from gravels by grain size, and further classifying some as well-graded and the rest as poorly-graded. Silts and clays are distinguished by the soils Atterberg limits, moderately organic soils are considered subdivisions of silts and clays, and are distinguished from inorganic soils by changes in their plasticity properties on drying. The European soil classification system is similar, differing primarily in coding and in adding an intermediate-plasticity classification for silts and clays. The USCS and additional engineering description is standardized in ASTM D2487, differing concepts of pedogenesis, and differences in the significance of morphological features to various land uses can affect the classification approach. Despite these differences, in a system, classification criteria group similar concepts so that interpretations do not vary widely. This is in contrast to a system approach to soil classification. Natural system approaches to classification, such as the French Soil Reference System are based on presumed soil genesis. Another approach is numerical classification, also called ordination, where individuals are grouped by multivariate statistical methods such as cluster analysis. This produces natural groupings without requiring any inference about soil genesis, in soil survey, as practiced in the United States, soil classification usually means criteria based on soil morphology in addition to characteristics developed during soil formation. Criteria are designed to guide choices in use and soil management. As indicated, this is a system that is a hybrid of both natural and objective criteria. USDA soil taxonomy provides the criteria for differentiating soil map units. This is a revision of the 1938 USDA soil taxonomy which was a strictly natural system
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Water quality
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Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological characteristics of water. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one or more biotic species and it is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance can be assessed. The most common used to assess water quality relate to health of ecosystems, safety of human contact. In the setting of standards, agencies make political and technical/scientific decisions about how the water will be used, in the case of natural water bodies, they also make some reasonable estimate of pristine conditions. Natural water bodies will vary in response to environmental conditions, Environmental scientists work to understand how these systems function, which in turn helps to identify the sources and fates of contaminants. Environmental lawyers and policymakers work to define legislation with the intention that water is maintained at a quality for its identified use. The vast majority of water on the Earth is neither potable nor toxic. This remains true when seawater in the oceans is not counted, another general perception of water quality is that of a simple property that tells whether water is polluted or not. In fact, water quality is a subject, in part because water is a complex medium intrinsically tied to the ecology of the Earth. Industrial and commercial activities are a cause of water pollution as are runoff from agricultural areas, urban runoff. The parameters for water quality are determined by the intended use, work in the area of water quality tends to be focused on water that is treated for human consumption, industrial use, or in the environment. Water quality depends on the geology and ecosystem, as well as human uses such as sewage dispersion, industrial pollution, use of water bodies as a heat sink. The United States Environmental Protection Agency limits the amounts of contaminants in tap water provided by US public water systems. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration regulations establish limits for contaminants in bottled water that must provide the protection for public health. Drinking water, including bottled water, may reasonably be expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminants, the presence of these contaminants does not necessarily indicate that the water poses a health risk. Water drawn directly from a stream, lake, or aquifer, dissolved minerals may affect suitability of water for a range of industrial and domestic purposes. Hard water may be softened to remove these ions, the softening process often substitutes sodium cations. Hard water may be preferable to soft water for consumption, since health problems have been associated with excess sodium
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Conservation Effects Assessment Project
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The Conservation Effects Assessment Project was established in 2002 to quantify the environmental impact of the United States Department of Agricultures conservation program. The project focuses on how watersheds are affected, CEAP monitored 14 benchmark watershed sites. The CEAPs vision is to natural resources and healthier ecosystems through improved conservation effectiveness. The Soil Water Assessment Tool is supported by the USDA Agricultural Research Service and it is a river basin scale model used to quantify the impact of land management practices in large watersheds. This tool is located in Grassland, Soil and Research Laboratory in Temple, sustaining the Earths Watershed-Agricultural Research Data Systems was created by a group called the Watershed Assessment Studies a team within the CEAP. STEWARDS is a system consists of a database to allow users to search. The anticipated benefits include data preservation, faster access. Agricultural Research Service which is the United States Department of Agriculture s research department, national Institute of Food and Agriculture another section of the USDA. Farm Service Agency, a government agency that equal serves farmers, ranchers, U. S. Geological Survey is an impartial science organization that provides the public with information on the ecosystems and environment. United States Fish and Wildlife Service a bureau within the Department of the Interior their goal is to conserve and enhance fish, wildlife, USDA Economic Research Service is the primary source for economic information and research within the USDA. USDA Forest Service manages national forests and public grasslands, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency s mission is to protect the environment as well as human health. They ensure that laws to ensure human and environmental health are implemented and enforced. U. S. Bureau of Land Management, makes sure that the water in the watersheds is clean, national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, focuses on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere, it is a federal agency. Additional partners International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies is the point place for state fish, the represent the state agencies on Capitol Hill on important conservation and management policies. Soil and Water Conservation Society is a scientific and educational organization. They advocate for science-based practice, programs, and policy and conservation professionals, the Nature Conservancy protects the land and water in order to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities. The Wildlife Society addresses national and international issues that effect current, the society is made up of professional wildlife conservationists
11.
Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002
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The act directs approximately 16.5 billion dollars of funding toward agricultural subsidies each year. These subsidies have an effect on the production of grains, oilseeds. The specialized nature of the bill, as well as the size and timing of the bill. Debated in the U. S. House of Representatives during the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in 2001. The amendment, which failed by a margin, was proposed by Rep. Ron Kind. Public debate over the farm continued, and the Senate proposed sweeping amendments to the bill. As a result, the current farm bill was not passed until May 2002 and this act has been superseded by the 2007 U. S. Provisions included, Country of Origin Labeling for fresh beef, pork, source USDA2006 Fiscal Year Budget Lets push the pedal to the metal and try to get something done this year. Rep. Larry Combest, chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, drafts and his proposal would spend the equivalent of the entire federal budget surplus for FY2001, and included $76 billion in new spending on top of the previous bills spending, for a total of $171 billion. Credited with prioritizing the Senate version of the farm bill and this is the first farm bill to be proposed in the current cycle, and may form the foundation of the 2008 farm bill. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert co-sponsored the Kind amendment and he looked to Florida fruit and vegetable growers for support, because they received no subsidies in 2001. The inability to persuade more Florida members to vote yes was a key to its defeat, Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest also co-sponsored the Kind amendment. After the passage of the House version, he told reporters about his ideas for green payments rewarding conservation methods, Rep. Voicing concerns that millionaire farmers were reaping all the benefits of the farm bill legislation, a coalition of farm-state Senators pushed for these limits. Sen. Charles Grassley was vehement about lowering subsidy caps from $500,000 to $225,000 we dont want 10 percent of the farmers getting 60 percent of the farm bill, Sen. Byron Dorgan cosponsored the subsidy cap amendment. Sen. Ben Nelson supported subsidy caps I believe, along with most Nebraskans and these enormous payments do exactly the opposite. Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Sen. Thad Cochran opposed capping subidies, Lincoln was the only Democrat in opposition. Cochran said the caps would be catastrophic for southern farm interests After September 11, first, it would neither receive nor deserve the careful attention necessary during the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Second, its expenditures would consume the entire budget surplus, money that could be necessary for the American invasion of Afghanistan, finally, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman opposed the new farm bill
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Hugh Hammond Bennett
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Hugh Hammond Bennett was a pioneer in the field of soil conservation in the United States of America. He founded and headed the Soil Conservation Service, a federal agency now referred to as the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Bennett was born near Wadesboro in Anson County, North Carolina and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1903. By the 1920s, Bennett was actively writing about soil erosion for popular magazines and scientific journals, with works appearing in publications like Country Gentleman and he found his opinions opposed by some colleagues, a supervisor stating, The soil is the one indestructible. It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted, buchanan, who was a member of the United States House Committee on Appropriations, helped obtain funding in 1929 for soil erosion studies in the United States. Bennett was also instrumental in the formation of the Soil Conservation Society of America, when the Soil Erosion Service was established as part of the United States Department of the Interior in September 1933, Bennett became the director. He remained at the head of organization until he retired in 1951. Finnell set up north of Dalhart. Areas where the soil was not suitable for cultivation were turned back to grassland, thirteen other demonstration projects, manned by CCC and WPA workers, put Finnell’s moisture-conserving ideas to the test, with great success. By May of 1936, nearly 40,000 farmers had joined him, at the end of 1937, despite the persistent dust storms, the amount of dangerously eroded land had been reduced by more than half. The Coon Creek Watershed Project, in southwestern Wisconsin, was the first of many watershed-based projects initiated to demonstrate soil conservation practices to farmers. Bennett received many awards and honors for his work during his lifetime, including, during his lifetime, Bennett received many honors, including serving as president of the Association of American Geographers in 1943, receiving the Frances K. He was a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, the American Geographical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, works by or about Hugh Hammond Bennett at Internet Archive Biography of Hugh Hammond Bennett
13.
Soil conservation
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Soil conservation is the preventing of soil loss from erosion or reduced fertility caused by over usage, or other chemical soil contamination. Slash-and-burn and other methods of subsistence farming are practiced in some lesser developed areas. A sequel to the deforestation is typically large scale erosion, loss of soil nutrients, techniques for improved soil conservation include crop rotation, cover crops, conservation tillage and planted windbreaks and affect both erosion and fertility. When plants, especially trees, die, they decay and become part of the soil, code 330 defines standard methods recommended by the US Natural Resources Conservation Service. Farmers have practiced soil conservation for millennia, Conservation practices fall in multiple categories, Contour plowing orients crop furrows following the contour lines of the farmed area. Furrows move left and right to maintain a constant altitude, which reduces runoff, Contour plowing was practiced by the ancient Phoenicians, and is effective for slopes between two and ten percent. Contour plowing can increase crop yields from 10 to 50 percent, terracing is the practice of creating nearly level areas in a hillside area. The terraces form a series of steps, each at a higher level than the previous, terraces are protected from erosion by other soil barriers. Terraced farming is common on small farms and in underdeveloped countries. It protects the soil from its erosion and it is one of the way by which soil erosion can be stopped. Windbreaks are sufficiently dense rows of trees at the exposure of an agricultural field subject to wind erosion. Evergreen species provide protection, however, as long as foliage is present in the seasons of bare soil surfaces. Cover crops also help suppress weeds, soil-conservation farming involves no-till farming, “green manures” and other soil-enhancing practices. Such farming methods attempt to mimic the biology of virgin land, the result is less labor and lower costs that increase farmers’ profits. No-till farming and cover crops act as sinks for nitrogen and other nutrients and this increases the amount of soil organic matter. Repeated plowing/tilling degrades soil, killing its beneficial fungi and earthworms, once damaged, soil may take multiple seasons to fully recover, even in optimal circumstances. Critics argue that no-till and related methods are impractical and too expensive for many growers and they cite advantages for conventional tilling depending on the geography, crops and soil conditions. Some farmers claimed that no-till complicates weed control, delays planting, salinity in soil is caused by irrigating with salty water
14.
Soil erosion
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Soil erosion is the displacement of upper layer of soil. The erosion of soil is a naturally occurring process on all land, the agents of soil erosion are water and wind, each contributing a significant amount of soil loss each year. Soil erosion may be a process that continues relatively unnoticed. The loss of soil from farmland may be reflected in reduced crop production potential, lower water quality. While erosion is a process, human activities have increased by 10–40 times the rate at which erosion is occurring globally. Excessive erosion causes both on-site and off-site problems, on-site impacts include decreases in agricultural productivity and ecological collapse, both because of loss of the nutrient-rich upper soil layers. In some cases, the end result is desertification. Off-site effects include sedimentation of waterways and eutrophication of bodies, as well as sediment-related damage to roads. Intensive agriculture, deforestation, roads, anthropogenic climate change and urban sprawl are amongst the most significant human activities in regard to their effect on stimulating erosion, however, there are many prevention and remediation practices that can curtail or limit erosion of vulnerable soils. Rainfall, and the surface runoff which may result from rainfall, produces four types of soil erosion, splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill erosion. Splash erosion is generally seen as the first and least severe stage in the erosion process. In splash erosion, the impact of a falling raindrop creates a crater in the soil. The distance these soil particles travel can be as much as 0.6 m vertically and 1.5 m horizontally on level ground. If the soil is saturated, or if the rate is greater than the rate at which water can infiltrate into the soil. If the runoff has sufficient flow energy, it will transport loosened soil particles down the slope, sheet erosion is the transport of loosened soil particles by overland flow. Rill erosion refers to the development of small, ephemeral concentrated flow paths which function as both sediment source and sediment delivery systems for erosion on hillslopes, generally, where water erosion rates on disturbed upland areas are greatest, rills are active. Flow depths in rills are typically of the order of a few centimeters or less and this means that rills exhibit hydraulic physics very different from water flowing through the deeper, wider channels of streams and rivers. Gully erosion occurs when water accumulates and rapidly flows in narrow channels during or immediately after heavy rains or melting snow
15.
Dust Bowl
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The drought came in three waves,1934,1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust, which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust – named black blizzards or black rollers – traveled cross country, reaching as far as the East Coast and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, on the Plains, they often reduced visibility to 1 metre or less. While the term the Dust Bowl was originally a reference to the area affected by the dust, today it is usually used to refer to the event. The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres that centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, the Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of families to abandon their farms. The Dust Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, elevation ranges from 2,500 feet in the east to 6,000 feet at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The area is semiarid, receiving less than 20 inches of rain annually, the region is also prone to extended drought, alternating with unusual wetness of equivalent duration. During wet years, the soil provides bountiful agricultural output. The region is subject to high winds. During early European and American exploration of the Great Plains, this region was thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture, the lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture. The federal government encouraged settlement and development of the Plains for agriculture via the Homestead Act of 1862, an unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers and the federal government to believe that rain follows the plow and that the climate of the region had changed permanently. Waves of European settlers arrived in the plains at the beginning of the 20th century, a return of unusually wet weather seemingly confirmed a previously held opinion that the formerly semiarid area could support large-scale agriculture. At the same time, technological improvements such as mechanized plowing, for example, in the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas, the area of farmland was doubled between 1900 and 1920, then tripled again between 1925 and 1930. The agricultural methods favored by farmers during this period created the conditions for large-scale erosion under certain environmental conditions, when severe drought struck the Great Plains region in the 1930s, it resulted in erosion and loss of topsoil because of farming practices at the time. The drought dried the topsoil and over time it became friable, without the indigenous grasses in place, the high winds that occur on the plains picked up the topsoil and created the massive dust storms that marked the Dust Bowl period. The persistent dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion, the fine soil of the Great Plains was easily eroded and carried east by strong continental winds. On November 11,1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota farmlands in just one of a series of severe dust storms that year. Beginning on May 9,1934, a strong, two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl, the dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited 12 million pounds of dust
16.
United States Department of the Interior
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The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U. S. About 75% of federal land is managed by the department. The Department is administered by the United States Secretary of the Interior, the current Secretary is Ryan Zinke. The Inspector General position is vacant, with Mary Kendall serving as acting Inspector General. Despite its name, the Department of the Interior has a different role from that of the ministries of other nations. In the United States, national security and immigration functions are performed by the Department of Homeland Security primarily, the Department of the Interior has often been humorously called The Department of Everything Else because of its broad range of responsibilities. A department for domestic concern was first considered by the 1st United States Congress in 1789, the idea of a separate domestic department continued to percolate for a half-century and was supported by Presidents from James Madison to James Polk. The 1846–48 Mexican–American War gave the new steam as the responsibilities of federal government grew. Polks Secretary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker, became a champion of creating the new department. In 1849, Walker stated in his report that several federal offices were placed in departments with which they had little to do. Walker argued that these and other bureaus should be together in a new Department of the Interior. A bill authorizing its creation of the Department passed the House of Representatives on February 15,1849, the Department was established on March 3,1849, the eve of President Zachary Taylors inauguration, when the Senate voted 31 to 25 to create the Department. Its passage was delayed by Democrats in Congress who were reluctant to create more patronage posts for the incoming Whig administration to fill, the first Secretary of the Interior was Thomas Ewing. Many of the concerns the Department originally dealt with were gradually transferred to other Departments. Other agencies became separate Departments, such as the Bureau of Agriculture, however, land and natural resource management, American Indian affairs, wildlife conservation, and territorial affairs remain the responsibilities of the Department of the Interior. As of mid-2004, the Department managed 507 million acres of surface land, energy projects on federally managed lands and offshore areas supply about 28% of the nations energy production. Within the Interior Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs handles some federal relations with Native Americans, the current acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs is Lawrence S. Roberts, an enrolled member of the Oneida Tribe in Wisconsin. Several cases have sought accounting of such funds from the departments of Interior, in addition, some Native American nations have sued the government over water-rights issues and their treaties with the US
17.
Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act
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The Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act Pub. L. 74–461, enacted February 29, 1936) is a United States federal law allowed the government to pay farmers to reduce production so as to conserve soil. The Act was passed in response to the Supreme Courts declaration that the Agricultural Adjustment Act was unconstitutional and these two acts were passed as legislation in an attempt to cut crop and livestock surplus. Originally, Congress enacted the Soil Conservation Act of 1935 Pub. L, 74–46,49 Stat.163 on April 27,1935 in an attempt to address farm erosion problems by bringing within its policy and purposes, the improvements and preservation of national soil resources. During the second session of the 74th Congress, the U. S, congressional session amended the Soil Conservation Act of 1935 by passing Pub. L. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Act into law on February 29,1936 and it meant to help with some of the problems with the previous Act, most notably its failure to protect sharecroppers and tenant farmers. Landlords were now required to share the payments received from the government for cutting back production with those who worked on their land. The Act also gave directives to conserve the soil in the high plains - soil that was being raised into huge dust bowls during the 1930s and this period, known as the Dust Bowl, coupled with the economic hardships of the Great Depression, hit farmers particularly hard. The act attempted to correct earlier government policy that encouraged farmers to use their land without concern to the repercussions, the result of these agricultural methods made it vulnerable to the winds. The dry ground, now exposed, rose up to create the black storms, the Act both educated farmers on how to use their lands without damaging them, and took immediate action to contain the dust bowls effects - notably by planting trees and native grass. Three years after the Act was adopted, soil erosion had dropped 21. 7%, agriculture in the United States Timeline of environmental events Brinkley, Alan. American History, A Survey, Tenth Edition
18.
Civilian Conservation Corps
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The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families as part of the New Deal. Originally for young men ages 18–25, it was expanded to young men ages 17–28. Robert Fechner was the head of the agency, the CCC was designed to provide jobs for young men, and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States. At the same time, it implemented a general natural resource conservation program in every state, maximum enrollment at any one time was 300,000. Over the course of its nine years in operation,3 million young men participated in the CCC, which provided them shelter, clothing. The American public made the CCC the most popular of all the New Deal programs, principal benefits of an individuals enrollment in the CCC included improved physical condition, heightened morale, and increased employability. The CCC operated separate programs for veterans and Native Americans, approximately 15,000 Native Americans participated in the program, helping them weather the Great Depression. Despite its popular support, the CCC was never a permanent agency and it depended on emergency and temporary Congressional legislation and funding to operate. By 1942, with World War II and the draft in operation, the need for work relief declined, as governor of New York, Roosevelt had run a similar program on a much smaller scale. He promised this law would provide 250,000 young men with meals, housing, uniforms, the Emergency Conservation Work Act was introduced to Congress the same day and enacted by voice vote on March 31. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6101 on April 5,1933 which established the CCC organization and appointed a director, Robert Fechner, the organization and administration of the CCC was a new experiment in operations for a federal government agency. A CCC Advisory Council was composed of a representative each of the supervising departments. In addition, the Office of Education and Veterans Administration participated in the program, to end the opposition from labor unions Roosevelt chose Robert Fechner, vice president of the American Machinists Union, as director of the corps. William Green, head of the American Federation of Labor, was taken to the first camp to demonstrate that there would be no job training involved beyond simple manual labor. Reserve officers from the U. S. Army were in charge of the camps, General Douglas MacArthur was placed in charge of the program but said that the number of Army officers and soldiers assigned to the camps was affecting the readiness of the Regular Army. But the Army also found benefits in the program. When the draft began in 1940, the policy was to make CCC alumni corporals, CCC also provided command experience to Organized Reserve Corps officers. Through the CCC, the Regular Army could assess the performance of both Regular and Reserve Officers
19.
Erosion control
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Erosion control is the practice of preventing or controlling wind or water erosion in agriculture, land development, coastal areas, river banks and construction. Effective erosion controls handle surface runoff and are important techniques in preventing water pollution, soil loss, wildlife habitat loss, erosion controls are used in natural areas, agricultural settings or urban environments. In urban areas erosion controls are part of stormwater runoff management programs required by local governments. The controls often involve the creation of a barrier, such as vegetation or rock. They also involve building and maintaining storm drains, on construction sites they are often implemented in conjunction with sediment controls such as sediment basins and silt fences. Bank erosion is a process, without it, rivers would not meander. However, land management patterns that change the hydrograph and/or vegetation cover can act to increase or decrease channel migration rates, in many places, whether or not the banks are unstable due to human activities, people try to keep a river in a single place. This can be done for environmental reclamation or to prevent a river from changing course into land that is being used by people, one way that this is done is by placing riprap or gabions along the bank. These models have addressed both gully and sheet erosion, earliest models were a simple set of linked equations which could be employed by manual calculation. By the 1970s the models had expanded to complex computer models addressing nonpoint source pollution with thousands of lines of computer code, the more complex models were able to address nuances in micrometerology, soil particle size distributions and micro-terrain variation
20.
Nitrate
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Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the molecular formula NO−3 and a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. Nitrates also describe the functional group RONO2. These nitrate esters are a class of explosives. The anion is the base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement. The nitrate ion carries a charge of −1. This arrangement is used as an example of resonance. Like the isoelectronic carbonate ion, the ion can be represented by resonance structures. A common example of a nitrate salt is potassium nitrate. A rich source of nitrate in the human body comes from diets rich in leafy green foods, such as spinach. NO3- is the active component within beetroot juice and other vegetables. Nitrite and water are converted in the body to nitric oxide, nitrate salts are found naturally on earth as large deposits, particularly of nitratine, a major source of sodium nitrate. Nitrates are found in man-made fertilizers, as a byproduct of lightning strikes in earths nitrogen-oxygen rich atmosphere, nitric acid is produced when nitrogen dioxide reacts with water vapor. Nitrates are mainly produced for use as fertilizers in agriculture because of their solubility and biodegradability. The main nitrate fertilizers are ammonium, sodium, potassium, several million kilograms are produced annually for this purpose. The second major application of nitrates is as oxidizing agents, most notably in explosives where the oxidation of carbon compounds liberates large volumes of gases. Sodium nitrate is used to air bubbles from molten glass. Mixtures of the salt are used to harden some metals. Explosives and table tennis balls are made from celluloid, although nitrites are the nitrogen compound chiefly used in meat curing, nitrates are used in certain specialty curing processes where a long release of nitrite from parent nitrate stores is needed
21.
Soil health
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Soil health is a state of a soil meeting its range of ecosystem functions as appropriate to its environment. Soil health testing is an assessment of this status, Soil health depends on soil biodiversity, and it can be improved via soil conditioning. Soil Health has partly if not largely replaced the expression Soil Quality that was extant in the 1990s, the addition of the word health shifted the perception to be integrative, holistic and systematic. The two expressions still overlap considerably and it turns out that soils highly fertile from the point of view of crop productivity are also lively from a biological point of view. It is now recognized that soil microbial biomass is large, in temperate grassland soil the bacterial and fungal biomass have been documented to be 1–2 t /hectare and 2–5 t /ha. Some microbiologists now believe that 80% of soil nutrient functions are controlled by microbes. If this is true, than the prevailing Liebig nutrient theory model. Soil health is the condition of the soil in a defined space and it would not be appropriate to refer to soil health for soil-roadbed preparation, as in the analogy of soil quality in a functional class. The definition of health may vary between users of the term as alternative users may place differing priorities upon the multiple functions of a soil. Therefore, the soil health can only be understood within the context of the user of the term. Different soils will have different benchmarks of health depending on the “inherited” qualities, on the basis of the above, soil health will be measured in terms of individual ecosystem services provided relative to the benchmark. Specific benchmarks used to evaluate soil health include CO2 release, humus levels, microbial activity, Soil health testing is spreading in the USA, Australia and S. Africa. Cornell University has had a Soil Health Test since 2006 and offers many types of soil health tests as well as three different soil health testing packages. The approach is to add into common chemical nutrient testing a set of factors not normally included in routine soil testing. The best example is adding biological soil respiration as a test procedure and these soil test methods have evolved slowly over the past 40 years and are backed by considerable effort. However, in same time USA soils have also lost up to 75% of their carbon. Many critics of the current system say this is sufficient evidence that the old soil testing models have failed us and these older models have stressed maximum yield and yield calibration to such an extent that related factors have been overlooked
22.
Fallon, Nevada
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Fallon is a city in Churchill County, Nevada, United States. The population was 8,606 at time of the 2010 census, Fallon is the county seat of Churchill County and is located in the Lahontan Valley. Fallon and Churchill County are mostly agricultural areas, although the area is arid, approximately 50,000 acres of its pastureland are irrigated with water from the Truckee–Carson Irrigation District. The principal crop grown is alfalfa for livestock feed, the Heart O Gold cantaloupes of Churchill County were once distributed across the United States, but are now grown mostly for consumption in Nevada. U. S. Highway 50 and US95 intersect in Fallon and it is one of the towns on the so-called Loneliest Highway in America, the stretch of US50 across most of Nevada that is known for its remoteness. Eastbound travelers from Fallon must drive 110 miles to find the next town, the town and post office were established July 24,1896 in a little shack of Michael Fallon. Fallon is located in western Churchill County at the geographic coordinates 39°28′22″N 118°46′44″W and it is in the Lahontan Valley, a former lakebed into which flows the Carson River, which passes north of the city. According to the United States Census Bureau, Fallon has an area of 3.65 square miles, of which 3.63 square miles is land and 0.02 square miles. Fallon experiences a desert climate, with hot summers and cold winters. Due to Fallons altitude and aridity, the Diurnal temperature variation is quite substantial, Fallons climate is quite dry, due to its location in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada. Summer days can be hot, but temperatures are cooler than in such as the Mojave, Sonoran. In the winter, daytime temperatures are usually above freezing, Fallon can experience heavy fog in winter, known as pogonip. As of the census of 2000, there were 7,536 people,3,004 households, the population density was 2,474.1 people per square mile. There were 3,336 housing units at a density of 1,095.2 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 76. 50% White,2. 00% African American,3. 00% Native American,4. 70% Asian,0. 3% Pacific Islander,0. 3% from other races, and 3. 3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9. 9% of the population,30. 7% of all households were made up of individuals and 11. 4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the family size was 3.06. In the city, the population was out with 28. 4% under the age of 18,10. 3% from 18 to 24,29. 7% from 25 to 44,19. 4% from 45 to 64
23.
Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31,1864, as the second of two added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws, in 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century, Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
24.
Honey Hollow Watershed
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Honey Hollow Watershed is a 650-acre watershed on the south side of the Delaware River a few miles north of New Hope, Pennsylvania. The Honey Hollow Watershed Conservation Area was created in 1939 and was the first agricultural area in a watershed to show the benefits of soil, water. The project was a model of conservation efforts by farmers. By 1941 terraces and diversion ditches were built to control runoff on steep slopes and hedges were planted to control erosion, the project attracted national attention when Vice President Henry Wallace visited the first time in 1944. Conservationist Louis Bromfield also became associated with the project, P. Alton Waring, one of six farmers involved in the project, wrote about the project in the United States Department of Agriculture publication Team Work to Save Soil and Increase Production. And in the magazine The Land, the watershed was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1969
25.
National Cooperative Soil Survey
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The National Cooperative Soil Survey in the United States is a nationwide partnership of federal, regional, state, and local agencies and institutions. The activities of the NCSS are carried out on national, regional, while the National Cooperative Soil Survey has involved multiple partners since its inception in 1896, Federal responsibility for coordinating partner efforts has resided within the USDA. However, soil survey responsibilities have moved several times within the USDA,1894 Division of Agricultural Soil within the USDA Weather Bureau,1899 Name changed to Division of Soils. 1901 Division moved up in status to Bureau of Soils,1927 Merged with the Bureau of Chemistry, forming the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. 1938 Soils unit transferred to the Bureau of Plant Industry,1942 Changed name to Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering, becoming part of the Agricultural Research Administration. 1952 Soil survey program transferred to the Soil Conservation Service,1994 Name changed to Natural Resources Conservation Service. The original Federal authority for the survey of the United States is contained in the record of the 53rd Congress, chapter 169. Milton Whitney was the first Chief of the Division of Agricultural Soil, the early vision of soil survey was a survey that combined geography with soil chemistry. The men conducting the surveys were geologists or chemists, none had training in agronomy, on May 3,1899 with an appropriation of $16,000 Whitney began field operations. In four separate soil surveys about 720,000 acres were mapped that first year, cecil County, Maryland, and Connecticut Valley, Connecticut, concentrated on tobacco lands. Survey of the Salt Lake Valley of Utah and the Pecos River Valley of New Mexico concentrated on alkali soil areas where irrigation, Soil surveys focused on cropland or interpretations for cropland until the 1970s when the scope of the NCSS was expanded to focus on urban lands. Of the four survey areas initiated in 1899, three were published the next year and these first surveys cost about 3/10ths of a cent per acre. As of 1999, soil surveys cost about $3/acre, Soil texture was the main differentiating soil characteristic used in the early survey process. Soil series were soon to follow as groupings of soil types, by 1906 Miami soil series included 16 soil types from the glaciated regions and Norfolk series included 12 soil types from the coastal plains. Several other characteristics were added by that time and they were soil color, organic content, soil structure, drainage, erodibility, and nature of subsoil. Soil provinces were established and soil series were confined to their area, work for soil surveys was done at a mapping scale 1 inch to the mile. Scale as of 1999 is pretty well standardized at 1,12000 or 1,24000,6 different scales have been used in published soil surveys. In 1913 Curtis F. Marbut was appointed Scientist in Charge of the Soil Survey, Marbut was Professor of Geology and Physiography at the University of Missouri from 1895 until 1910
26.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
27.
United States Statutes at Large
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Each act and resolution of Congress is called a slip law, which is classified as either public law or private law, and designated and numbered accordingly. At the end of a Congress session, slip laws are compiled into Statutes at Large and they are part of a three-part model for publication of federal statutes consisting of slip laws, session laws, and codification. Today, large portions of slip laws denominated as public laws are now drafted as amendments to the United States Code. Once enacted into law, an Act will be published in the Statutes at Large and will add to, modify, provisions of a public law that contains only enacting clauses, effective dates, and similar matters are not generally codified. Private laws also are not generally codified, some portions of the United States Code have been enacted as positive law and other portions have not been so enacted. Publication of the United States Statutes at Large began in 1845 by the firm of Little, Brown. During Little, Brown and Companys time as publisher, Richard Peters, George Minot, in 1874, Congress transferred the authority to publish the Statutes at Large to the Government Printing Office under the direction of the Secretary of State. 633, was enacted July 30,1947 and directed the Secretary of State to compile, edit, index,980, was enacted September 23,1950 and directed the Administrator of General Services to compile, edit, index, and publish the Statutes at Large. Since 1985 the Statutes at Large have been prepared and published by the Office of the Federal Register of the National Archives, sometimes very large or long Acts of Congress are published as their own volume of the Statutes at Large. For example, the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 was published as volume 68A of the Statutes at Large. Volumes 1 to 18 of the Statutes at Large made available by the Library of Congress Volumes 1 to 64 of the Statutes at Large made available by the Congressional Data Coalition via LEGISWORKS
28.
National Archives and Records Administration
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The NARA also transmits votes of the Electoral College to Congress. The chief administrator of NARA is the Archivist of the United States, the Archivist of the United States is the chief official overseeing the operation of the National Archives and Records Administration. The Archivist not only maintains the official documentation of the passage of amendments to the U. S, Constitution by state legislatures, but has the authority to declare when the constitutional threshold for passage has been reached, and therefore when an act has become an amendment. The Office of the Federal Register publishes the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations and it also administers the Electoral College. Since 1964, the NHPRC has awarded some 4,500 grants, the Office of Government Information Services is a Freedom of Information Act resource for the public and the government. Congress has charged NARA with reviewing FOIA policies, procedures and compliance of Federal agencies, NARAs mission also includes resolving FOIA disputes between Federal agencies and requesters. Originally, each branch and agency of the U. S. government was responsible for maintaining its own documents, Congress established the National Archives Establishment in 1934 to centralize federal record keeping, with the Archivist of the United States as chief administrator. The National Archives was incorporated with GSA in 1949, in 1985 it became an independent agency as NARA, connor, began serving in 1934, when the National Archives was established by Congress. As a result of a first Hoover Commission recommendation, in 1949 the National Archives was placed within the newly formed General Services Administration. The Archivist served as an official to the GSA Administrator until the National Archives. An audit indicated that more than one third withdrawn since 1999 did not contain sensitive information, the program was originally scheduled to end in 2007. In 2011, a retired employee pleaded guilty to stealing original sound recordings from the archives, Archival Recovery Teams investigate the theft of records. NARAs holdings are classed into record groups reflecting the governmental department or agency from which they originated, Records include paper documents, microfilm, still pictures, motion pictures, and electronic media. Archival descriptions of the permanent holdings of the government in the custody of NARA are stored in the National Archives Catalog. The archival descriptions include information on traditional paper holdings, electronic records, as of December 2012, the catalog consisted of about 10 billion logical data records describing 527,000 artifacts and encompassing 81% of NARAs records. There are also 922,000 digital copies of already digitized materials, most records at NARA are in the public domain, as works of the federal government are excluded from copyright protection. However, records from other sources may still be protected by copyright or donor agreements and its Information Security Oversight Office monitors and sets policy for the U. S. governments security classification system. Many of NARAs most requested records are used for genealogy research
29.
Environmental science
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Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical, biological and information sciences to the study of the environment, and the solution of environmental problems. Environmental science emerged from the fields of history and medicine during the Enlightenment. Today it provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems, related areas of study include environmental studies and environmental engineering. Environmental studies incorporates more of the sciences for understanding human relationships, perceptions. Environmental engineering focuses on design and technology for improving environmental quality in every aspect, Environmental issues almost always include an interaction of physical, chemical, and biological processes. Environmental scientists bring a systems approach to the analysis of environmental problems, key elements of an effective environmental scientist include the ability to relate space, and time relationships as well as quantitative analysis. Ecology could be considered a subset of science, which also could involve purely chemical or public health issues ecologists would be unlikely to study. In practice, there is overlap between the work of ecologists and other environmental scientists. Includes instruction in biology, chemistry, physics, geosciences, climatology, statistics, atmospheric sciences focus on the Earths atmosphere, with an emphasis upon its interrelation to other systems. Ecology is the study of the interactions between organisms and their environment, for example, an interdisciplinary analysis of an ecological system which is being impacted by one or more stressors might include several related environmental science fields. Environmental chemistry is the study of chemical alterations in the environment, principal areas of study include soil contamination and water pollution. The topics of analysis include chemical degradation in the environment, multi-phase transport of chemicals, as an example study, consider the case of a leaking solvent tank which has entered the habitat soil of an endangered species of amphibian. As a method to resolve or understand the extent of contamination and subsurface transport of solvent. Geosciences include environmental geology, environmental science, volcanic phenomena. In some classification systems this can also include hydrology, including oceanography, as an example study of soils erosion, calculations would be made of surface runoff by soil scientists. Fluvial geomorphologists would assist in examining sediment transport in overland flow, physicists would contribute by assessing the changes in light transmission in the receiving waters. Biologists would analyze subsequent impacts to aquatic flora and fauna from increases in water turbidity, in the U. S. the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 set forth requirements for analysis of major projects in terms of specific environmental criteria. Numerous state laws have echoed these mandates, applying the principles to local-scale actions, the upshot has been an explosion of documentation and study of environmental consequences before the fact of development actions
30.
United States Environmental Protection Agency
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The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2,1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House, the agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Scott Pruitt, the EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D. C. regional offices for each of the ten regions. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education and it has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U. S. states, EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs. In 2016, the agency had 15,376 full-time employees, more than half of EPAs employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists, other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment. Senator James E. Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act of 1959, the 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson alerted the public about the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. In the years following, similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment, in the colloquium, some members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 was modeled on RCA, President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1,1970. The law created the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The detailed statement would ultimately be referred to as an impact statement. On July 9,1970, Nixon proposed a reorganization that consolidated many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency. After conducting hearings during that summer, the House and Senate approved the proposal, the agency’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, took the oath of office on December 4,1970. In May 2013, Congress renamed the EPA headquarters as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, the EPA is led by an Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As of 2017 Scott Pruitt is the 14th administrator, each EPA regional office is responsible within its states for implementing the Agencys programs, except those programs that have been specifically delegated to states
31.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
32.
National Science Foundation
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The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health, with an annual budget of about US$7.0 billion, the NSF funds approximately 24% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States colleges and universities. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics, and the social sciences, the current NSF director, confirmed in March 2014, is astronomer France A. Córdova, former president of Purdue University. The NSF seeks to fulfill its mission chiefly by issuing competitive, the NSF also makes some contracts. Some proposals are solicited, and some are not, the NSF funds both kinds, the NSF does not operate its own laboratories, unlike other federal research agencies, notable examples being the NASA and the National Institutes of Health. The NSF receives over 50,000 such proposals each year and those funded are typically projects that are ranked highest in a merit review process, the current version of which was introduced in 1997. For example, reviewers cannot work at the NSF itself, nor for the institution that employs the proposing researchers, all proposal evaluations are confidential, the proposing researchers may see them, but they do not see the names of the reviewers. However, both already had been mandated for all NSF merit review procedures in the 2010 re-authorization of the America COMPETES Act. The Act also includes an emphasis on promoting potentially transformative research, most NSF grants go to individuals or small groups of investigators, who carry out research at their home campuses. Other grants provide funding for research centers, instruments. Still, others fund national-scale facilities that are shared by the community as a whole. In addition to researchers and research facilities, NSF grants also support science, engineering, Undergraduates can receive funding through Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer programs. K-12 and some community college instructors are eligible to participate in compensated Research Experiences for Teachers programs, the NSFs workforce numbers about 1,700, nearly all working at its Arlington headquarters. In June 2013 it was announced that the NSF would relocate its headquarters to Alexandria, Virginia in 2017. S, examples include initiatives in, Nanotechnology The science of learning Digital libraries The ecology of infectious diseases The NSF was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950. Its stated mission is To promote the progress of science, to advance the health, prosperity, and welfare. Some historians of science have argued that the result was a compromise between too many clashing visions of the purpose and scope of the federal government. The NSF was certainly not the government agency for the funding of basic science. By 1950, support for areas of research had already become dominated by specialized agencies such as the National Institutes of Health
33.
Smithsonian Institution
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The Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. Originally organized as the United States National Museum, that ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967. Additional facilities are located in Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York City, Texas, Virginia, more than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. The Institutions thirty million annual visitors are admitted without charge and its annual budget is around $1.2 billion with 2/3 coming from annual federal appropriations. Other funding comes from the Institutions endowment, private and corporate contributions, membership dues, and earned retail, concession, Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. The British scientist James Smithson left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford, Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation, and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1,1836. The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest, Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns. Once the money was in hand, eight years of Congressional haggling ensued over how to interpret Smithsons rather vague mandate for the increase, unfortunately, the money was invested by the US Treasury in bonds issued by the state of Arkansas which soon defaulted. The United States Exploring Expedition by the U. S. Navy circumnavigated the globe between 1838 and 1842, in 1846, the regents developed a plan for weather observation, in 1847, money was appropriated for meteorological research. The Institution became a magnet for young scientists from 1857 to 1866, the Smithsonian played a critical role as the U. S. partner institution in early bilateral scientific exchanges with the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. The Smithsonian Institution Building began construction in 1849, designed by architect James Renwick Jr. its interiors were completed by general contract Gilbert Cameron and the building opened in 1855. The Smithsonians first expansion came with construction of the Arts and Industries Building in 1881, Congress had promised to build a new structure for the museum if the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition generated enough income. It did, and the building was designed by architects Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze, meigs of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The National Zoological Park opened in 1889 to accommodate the Smithsonians Department of Living Animals and this structure was designed by the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall. More than 40 years would pass before the museum, the Museum of History. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. That same year, the Smithsonian signed an agreement to take over the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened in the Old Patent Office Building on October 7,1968. The first new building to open since the National Museum of Natural History was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
34.
Bureau of Indian Affairs
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The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the U. S. Department of the Interior. The BIA’s responsibilities include providing health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives, located at 1849 C Street, NW, in Washington, D. C. the BIA is headed by a bureau director who reports to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. The current director is Michael S. Black, the current assistant secretary is Lawrence S. Roberts, an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. On January 1,2016, Roberts succeeded Kevin K. Washburn, a member of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma. The Office of Justice Services, directly operates or funds law enforcement, tribal courts, OJS funded 208 law enforcement agencies, consisting of 43 BIA-operated police agencies, and 165 tribally operated agencies under contract, or compact with the OJS. The OJS also provides oversight and technical assistance to law enforcement programs when. It operates four divisions, Corrections, Drug Enforcement, the Indian Police Academy, the Office of Trust Services, works with tribes and individual American Indians and Alaska Natives in the management of their trust lands, assets, and resources. Agencies to relate to Native Americans had existed in the U. S. government since 1775, benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry were appointed among the early commissioners to negotiate treaties with Native Americans to obtain their neutrality during the American Revolutionary War. In 1789, the U. S. Congress placed Native American relations within the newly formed War Department. By 1806 the Congress had created a Superintendent of Indian Trade, or Office of Indian Trade within the War Department, the post was held by Thomas L. McKenney from 1816 until the abolition of the factory system in 1822. The government licensed traders to have control in Indian territories. The abolition of the system left a vacuum within the U. S. government regarding Native American relations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was formed on March 11,1824, Calhoun, who created the agency as a division within his department, without authorization from the United States Congress. He appointed McKenney as the first head of the office, which went by several names, McKenney preferred to call it the Indian Office, whereas the current name was preferred by Calhoun. In 1832 Congress established the position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in 1849 Indian Affairs was transferred to the U. S. Department of the Interior. In 1869, Ely Samuel Parker was the first Native American to be appointed as commissioner of Indian affairs and it emphasized being educated to European-American culture. Some were beaten for praying to their own creator god, the bureau was renamed from Office of Indian Affairs to Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947. The rise of activist groups such as the American Indian Movement worried the U. S. government and they intended to bring attention to American Indian issues, including their demands for renewed negotiation of treaties, enforcement of treaty rights and improvement in living standards
35.
Bureau of Land Management
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President Harry S. Truman created the BLM in 1946 by combining two existing agencies, the General Land Office and the Grazing Service. Most BLM public lands are located in these 12 western states, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The mission of the BLM is to sustain the health, diversity, originally BLM holdings were described as land nobody wanted because homesteaders had passed them by. All the same, ranchers hold nearly 18,000 permits, the agency manages 221 wilderness areas,23 national monuments and some 636 other protected areas as part of the National Landscape Conservation System totaling about 30 million acres. There are more than 63,000 oil and gas wells on BLM public lands, total energy leases generated approximately $5.4 billion in 2013, an amount divided among the Treasury, the states, and Native American groups. The BLMs roots go back to the Land Ordinance of 1785 and these laws provided for the survey and settlement of the lands that the original 13 colonies ceded to the federal government after the American Revolution. As additional lands were acquired by the United States from Spain, France and other countries, the United States Congress directed that they be explored, surveyed, during the Revolutionary War, military bounty land was promised to soldiers who fought for the colonies. After the war, the Treaty of Paris of 1783, signed by the United States, England, France, in the 1780s, other states relinquished their own claims to land in modern-day Ohio. By this time, the United States needed revenue to function, Land was sold so that the government would have money to survive. In order to sell the land, surveys needed to be conducted, the Land Ordinance of 1785 instructed a geographer to oversee this work as undertaken by a group of surveyors. The first years of surveying were completed by trial and error, once the territory of Ohio had been surveyed, in 1812, Congress established the General Land Office as part of the Department of the Treasury to oversee the disposition of these federal lands. By the early 1800s, promised bounty land claims were finally fulfilled, over the years, other bounty land and homestead laws were enacted to dispose of federal land. Several different types of patents existed and these include cash entry, credit, homestead, Indian, military warrants, mineral certificates, private land claims, railroads, state selections, swamps, town sites, and town lots. A system of land offices spread throughout the territories, patenting land that was surveyed via the corresponding Office of the Surveyor General of a particular territory. This pattern gradually spread across the entire United States, the laws that spurred this system with the exception of the General Mining Law of 1872 and the Desert Land Act of 1877 have since been repealed or superseded. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowed leasing, exploration, and production of selected commodities, such as coal, oil, gas, the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 established the United States Grazing Service to manage the public rangelands by establishment of advisory boards that set grazing fees. The Oregon and California Revested Lands Sustained Yield Management Act of 1937, commonly referred as the O&C Act, in 1946, the Grazing Service was merged with the General Land Office to form the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior. It took several years for new agency to integrate and reorganize
36.
Minerals Management Service
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The Minerals Management Service was an agency of the United States Department of the Interior that managed the nations natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf. MMS was temporarily renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, headquartered in Washington, DC, the Agency received most of its revenue from leasing federal lands and waters to oil and natural gas companies with a profit margin of 98%. It was among the top five revenue sources to the federal government, with respect to enforcement of regulations and safety, this same publication indicated that the MMS also funds advanced scientific studies and enforces the highest safety and environmental standards. The Minerals Management Service was created on January 19,1982, the Secretary of the Interior at the time, James G. Watt, designated MMS as the administrative agency responsible for execution of activities under the Act. With the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, MMS was given authority to develop renewable energy such as wave, wind. As of 2010, the Agency was composed of two operating units, the MRM and OEMM, Minerals Revenue Management – Through the MRM program, the Agency collected, accounted for, and disbursed mineral revenues from Federal and American Indian leases. The Agencys offshore renewable energy program included development of energy such as wind, wave. Since its inception in 1982 through FY2008, the Agency had disbursed approximately $200 million to Federal, state, on June 21,2010, the Minerals Management Service was renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and reorganized. As of 2009, the Agency employed about 1,600 people, the BOEMRE was reorganized in May 2010 under the direction of Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement – Responsible for ensuring comprehensive oversight, safety, office of Natural Resources Revenue – Responsible for royalty and revenue management, including collection and distribution of revenue, auditing and compliance, and asset management. Since the inception of the MMS, and in particular since the 1990s, from the 1950s to at least 2002, drilling for oil and gas on federal lands and waters produced the second largest source of revenue for the federal government other than taxes. The Minerals Revenue Management division of MMS was responsible for managing all royalties associated with both onshore and offshore oil and gas production from federal mineral leases, in response to that rule-making, industry proposed an alternative—royalty-in-kind meaning in the form of actual oil or gas production. In fact, the industry opposed cash payments and planned legal challenges to government efforts to establish regulations for fair market-based royalty payments, a pilot test of the RIK concept was conducted. The Bush administration allowed the pilot to expand to a program, with industry support. In FY2008, the RIK program accounted for more than 50% of the Agencys revenue collections. When MRM collected royalties-in-kind, the oil or gas received from producers was offered for sale by the U. S. Government on the open market, the RIK program within MRM was responsible for managing these in-kind sales. Deficits in accounting practices, policies and procedures, and information used by the MMS led to concerns that the industry was significantly underpaying on their royalty obligations. Computer systems in use by the Agency were considered to be sufficiently inadequate that a failure to report revenue or provide RIK by a member could not be reliably detected
37.
United States Bureau of Reclamation
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On June 17th 1902, in accordance with the Reclamation Act, Secretary of the Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock established the U. S. Reclamation Service within the U. S. Geological Survey. The new Reclamation Service studied potential water development projects in each state with federal lands—revenue from sale of federal lands was the initial source of the programs funding. Because Texas had no lands, it did not become a Reclamation state until 1906. From 1902 to 1907, Reclamation began about 30 projects in Western states, then, in 1907, the Secretary of the Interior separated the Reclamation Service from the USGS and created an independent bureau within the Department of the Interior. Frederick Haynes Newell was appointed the first director of the new bureau, in 1923 the agency was renamed the Bureau of Reclamation. In 1928 Congress authorized the Boulder Canyon Project, and large appropriations began, for the first time, the authorization came only after a hard-fought debate about the pros and cons of public power versus private power. The heyday of Reclamation construction of water facilities occurred during the Depression, from 1941 to 1947, Civilian Public Service labor was used to carry on projects otherwise interrupted by the war effort. Even the 1976 failure of Teton Dam as it filled for the first time did not diminish Reclamations strong international reputation in water development circles, however, this first and only failure of a major Reclamation Bureau dam led to subsequent strengthening of its dam-safety program to avoid similar problems. Reclamation operates about 180 projects in the 17 western states, the total Reclamation investment for completed project facilities in September 1992 was about $11 billion. Reclamation projects provide agricultural, household, and industrial water to about one‑third of the population of the American West. About 5% of the area of the West is irrigated. Reclamation is a major American generator of electricity, as of 2007, Reclamation had 58 power plants on‑line and generated 125,000 GJ of electricity. From 1988 to 1994, Reclamation underwent major reorganization as construction on projects authorized in the 1960s, Reclamation wrote that The arid West essentially has been reclaimed. The major rivers have been harnessed and facilities are in place or are being completed to meet the most pressing current water demands, emphasis in Reclamation programs shifted from construction to operation and maintenance of existing facilities. Reclamations redefined official mission is to manage, develop, and protect water, in redirecting its programs and responsibilities, Reclamation substantially reduced its staff levels and budgets but remains a significant federal agency in the West. Mead guided the bureau during the development, planning, and construction of the Hoover Dam, since his confirmation in December of 2014, Estevan Lopez of New Mexico has been serving as commissioner of the bureau. “‘The Wilderness and the Dry Land Will Be Glad, and the Desert Will Rejoice and Blossom like a Rose’, The Origins of the Bureau of Reclamation, ” Journal of the West 50, marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert, The American West and Its Disappearing Water
38.
National Park Service
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It was created on August 25,1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. As of 2014, the NPS employs 21,651 employees who oversee 417 units, the National Park Service celebrated its centennial in 2016. National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior, the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior and they wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service, Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3,1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933, the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasnt until later that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt agreed and issued two Executive orders to make it happen. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service, the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery, Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and then National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States national parks, Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no government to manage it. Yosemite National Park began as a park, the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state of California in 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yosemite was later returned to federal ownership, at first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. Later, the agency was given authority over other protected areas, the National Park System includes all properties managed by the National Park Service
39.
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
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The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is an agency of the federal government within the U. S. Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The leader of the FWS is the director of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Daniel M. Ashe, of Maryland, bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory Landscape Conservation Cooperatives The vast majority of fish and wildlife habitat is on non-federal lands. The FWS employs approximately 9,000 people and is organized into an administrative office, eight regional offices. Spencer Fullerton Baird was appointed its first commissioner, in 1903, the Fish Commission was reorganized as the United States Bureau of Fisheries. In 1885–1886, the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy was established within the United States Department of Agriculture, in 1896 it became the Division of Biological Survey. Its early work focused on the effect of birds in controlling pests and mapping the geographical distribution of plants. Clinton Hart Merriam headed the Bureau for 25 years and became a figure for improving the scientific understanding of birds. Under Darlings guidance, the Bureau began a legacy of protecting vital natural habitat throughout the country. The USFWS was finally created in 1940, when the Bureaus of Fisheries, however, these exceptions often only apply to Native Americans that are registered with the federal government and are enrolled with a federally recognized tribe. Therefore, many people that wish to practice their religion continue to face persecution. This has become a source of conflict between many tribes and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the USFWS began to incorporate the research of scientists into conservation decisions. Additionally, other natural resource agencies within the United States government, such as the USDA, have taken steps to be inclusive of tribes, native people. This has marked a transition to a relationship of more cooperation rather than the tension between tribes and government agencies seen historically, today, these agencies work closely with tribal governments to ensure the best conservation decisions are made and that tribes retain their sovereignty
40.
United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
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