The Clark Group, LLC (TCG) supported the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities project (Climate-Smart), a funding opportunity created by the USDA to form partnerships with a diverse range of agricultural and under-served producers to finance climate-smart projects. These projects included sustainable agricultural and business practices and methods to verify the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
TCG provided extensive NEPA support to the USDA by offering our technical expertise to evaluate the impact of Climate-Smart pilot programs on the ecological and human environments. Our services included environmental consultation and managing the NEPA compliance process by triaging and reviewing grantees’ project descriptions.
Beyond reviewing select Climate-Smart pilot programs, TCG took responsibility for reviewing grantee Environmental Evaluations (EEs), technical documents that the client uses to describe their project and the ecological and human environment surrounding the project site. Our service reduced implementation delays for grant funding and ensured compliance with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service regulations.
TCG streamlined the EE review and acceptance process by developing a data management system that ensured consistent, secure, and usable EE data for all organizations and partners.
In total, TCG reviewed 1281 Environmental Evaluations across 36 states and one territory. See the map below for the range and count of Environmental Evaluations per state and territory.
Alongside our environmental work, TCG provided cultural resource compliance services to the USDA, including the development of a NHPA Section 106 consultation letter template and a database of SHPO requirements for each state. TCG also acted in a managerial capacity for cultural resource contractors and wrote a total of 20 desktop cultural resource reports.