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H.R. 4458: Upper Mississippi River Basin Protection Act

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H.R. 4458: Upper Mississippi River Basin Protection Act

112th Congress · introduced 2012-04-19 · Water Resources Development · Latest: Referred to the Subcommittee on Water and Power.

federal

Follow this bill, step by step

  1. Where it came from: introduced 2012-04-19 · official record
  2. Who proposed it: Rep. Kind, Ron [D-WI-3] · what a sponsor is
  3. What happened next: no floor votes in our records yet. Why?
  4. Where it stands now: Referred to the Subcommittee on Water and Power. Not final yet: this can still change. We check for updates every day.
  5. If it becomes law and spends money: follow the money to money laws, then agencies and contracts and grants.

What does this mean?

Official title

Upper Mississippi River Basin Protection Act

Plain summary

Upper Mississippi River Basin Protection Act - Requires federal investments in the Upper Mississippi River Basin to be guided by accepted and documented scientific methods and to take into account the results of studies using such methods to identify and quantify the sources, transport, and fate of nutrients and sediment and to quantify the effect of treatment methods or conservation measures on nutrient and sediment management. Directs the Secretary of the Interior, as part of an Upper Mississippi River Stewardship Initiative and acting through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), to establish a nutrient and sediment monitoring network for the Basin. Directs the Secretary to: (1) establish guidelines for related data collection and storage activities; (2) inventory the sediment and monitoring efforts of governmental, tribal, and nongovernmental entities for the purpose of creating a baseline understanding of overlap, data gaps, and redundancies; (3) integrate such monitoring efforts into the sediment and nutrient monitoring network; and (4) collaborate with other public, tribal, and private monitoring and assessment programs in establishing the monitoring network. Directs the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a water resources assessment of the Basin. Requires the Director of the USGS: (1) as part of the Initiative, to develop and implement a plan to improve existing water-quality models to identify and quantify significant sources of sediment and nutrients in the Basin at the subwatershed scale; (2) to establish a communication plan that includes use of the Internet to provide information on accomplishments of public and private programs designed to manage sediment and nutrients in the Basin and on seasonal and annual concentrations and loads of sediment and nutrients in the Upper Mississippi River and its tributaries; and (3) provide an annual report that includes information on concentrations and loads of nutrients and sediment derived from monitoring activities conducted in the Basin.

Congressional Research Service summary (Introduced in House), quoted unchanged (nonpartisan). Read the source.

What a vote does

A “Yea” vote

If it passes both chambers and is signed, it becomes law.

A “Nay” vote

If it is not passed, current law stays as it is.

PSI Sci description of the legislative step (not an opinion).

What does this mean? (plain words)

Official text

Upper Mississippi River Basin Protection Act

Source: Congressional Research Service summary (Introduced in House)

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The strongest published arguments

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Alternatives

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How did my representative vote? · This bill's floor votes

Officials and money

Sponsor: Rep. Kind, Ron [D-WI-3] · 0 cosponsors

Cost estimate: No cost estimate published yet.

No linked floor roll calls in our collected records yet. This does not mean the bill has never had a vote. Check the official bill history.

Words on this page, explained (1)
Ballot initiative
A proposed law or constitutional amendment that citizens place on the ballot by gathering enough voter signatures, so voters decide it directly. About half the states allow some form of it.

Plain meanings written from linked sources. All words.

Sources

Record fed-us-cong112-hr4458 · catalog fed-us-congress-bills-cong112 · updated 2026-11-15 by psicol fed-bills-cong112