RCPP State of Play—October 2024
The 2024 Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) competition closed on July 2, 2024. While we wait for NRCS to make the 2024 RCPP award announcement, let’s explore a few questions about the state of RCPP here in early October 2024:
1) How competitive is the 2024 competition?
All signs are pointing to 2024 as the most competitive RCPP cycle in the program’s history. In recent years, 40-50% of proposals have been funded. I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure dips down into the 25-35% range for 2024. 322 proposals were submitted, by far the all-time record and almost exactly double the number submitted in 2023. While a record $1.5 billion was made available by NRCS, the 322 proposals submitted by partners requested $5.3 billion. If you do the math, that averages out to an average of almost $16.5 million, which is stunning when you consider that until 2022, the per project cap was $10 million and very few requests came in at $10 million.
Dividing the available $1.5 billion by the average proposal submission of $16.5 million, one could assume that roughly 91 proposals would be funded in 2024, which would represent a 28% acceptance rate. Compare that to the 81 awards announced in 2023, which represented an almost 50% acceptance rate. The number of awards and acceptance rate could go up or down a bit, depending on the exact funding requests of the highest ranked proposals, but all signs are pointing to a lot of quality proposals being left on the cutting room floor.
NRCS could fund more proposals by negotiating down high dollar requests. There is precedent for the agency negotiating with partners to fund more proposals, though it hasn’t in recent years. One could argue that with the overwhelming demand from applicants in 2024 and no track record for either NRCS through Classic projects or partners through AFA projects spending $20+ million over 5-6 years, NRCS should at least consider negotiating the highest funding request to a lower figure to fund more proposals.
As always, the competitiveness encountered by any individual applicant is largely dependent on the competitiveness of the state identified as a proposal’s lead state. In 2024, California led the way with 35 proposal submissions, by far a single-state record. Texas was second with 17, then South Dakota(!) with 16, Iowa with 14 and Minnesota and Washington with 12. At the bottom of the list are Delaware (which finally received a proposal after many years without one), Indiana, Rhode Iland, South Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia, all of which received a single lead state proposal. Only Nevada and Alaska did not receive any proposals this year.
After 2023 in which the competitiveness of the two fund pools (State/Multistate and Critical Conservation Areas or CCA) was not that different, 2024 reverted to form with almost 2/3 of proposals submitted in the State/Multistate pool. Since half of the available funding must be spent in the CCAs, that fund pool necessarily will be less competitive in 2024.
Finally, for the first time in RCPP history, there were more Alternative Funding Arrangements (AFA) proposals submitted (168) than Classic proposals (154). I had previously speculated that NRCS would have to fund an increasing number of AFA proposals using IRA funding since RCPP is the only IRA-funded program through which the agency can fully foist the responsibility for implementing conservation onto partners. Judging by the state-by-state breakdown, it is clear that several NRCS states encouraged the submission of AFA proposals over Classics.
NRCS previously stated that the RCPP award announcement is scheduled for October, so stay tuned for a post-announcement analysis.
2) When will NRCS post the 2025 RCPP funding announcement?
The Magic 8 Ball says—“outlook is hazy.” Depending on how events unfold in the next three months, the next announcement could conceivably come out in January 2025, in the fall of 2025, or sometime in between.
The first critical factor is the November 2024 elections. One could foresee an early 2025 announcement if Kamala Harris wins the Presidency as Democrats continue their push to spend the remaining IRA funds. If Donald Trump wins, the forecast is murkier.
The second critical factor is the Farm Bill. If the House and Senate buck the odds and pass a new Farm Bill during a lame duck session, that could push the next RCPP funding announcement back into summer or fall 2025, depending how quickly NRCS is able to develop a new RCPP rule and incorporate any Farm Bill changes into the program. If another Farm Bill extension is passed, then the Farm Bill becomes a less important factor for 2025 RCPP timing.
How much funding will be made available in the 2025 RCPP competition is an open question. Once NRCS announces the 2024 awards, all fiscal year 2023-2025 RCPP IRA funds will have been committed to projects, leaving just the $2.4 billion available for fiscal year 2026. There remains for FY 2025 the Farm Bill’s $300 million unless NRCS folds that into the 2024 announcement. If Democrats retain the Presidency, the $2.4 billion in 2026 IRA funding could be pushed forward and made available (but not be obligated into projects until after October 1, 2025) in a 2025 announcement.
By the end of the calendar year, we should have more information to allow for (slightly) more informed speculation on the timing of the next RCPP funding announcement.
