‘‘(1) AUTHORITY.—The Administrator in close 
coordination with the Secretary of Interior shall 
plan, develop, and implement a central coordinating 
and organizing apparatus for the purposes of car-
rying out this Section. The Administrator in agree-
ment and allowance with the Secretary of Interior 
shall carryout this section through close consultation 
with the Federal Leadership Committee of the Mis-
sissippi River as established in subsection (a)(2)(C). 
‘‘(2) 
PURPOSE.—The 
National 
Mississippi 
River Program Office shall be established to con-
struct a Comprehensive Mississippi River Restora-
tion Plan outlined by the Federal Leadership Com-
mittee through the Committee’s broad strategy re-
port as carried out by subsection (a)(2)(C); organize 
and manage the restoration, deployment, and 
sustainment of natural infrastructure at a massive 
scale throughout the Mississippi River Corridor in 
order to— 
‘‘(A) protect critical national infrastruc-
ture; 
‘‘(B) safeguard near-water communities; 
‘‘(C) reestablish the biodiversity of the 
North American mid-continent region; 
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‘‘(D) increase the resilience and overall in-
tegrity of the environmental and hydrological 
services within the Mississippi River Corridor 
that make possible major economic activities 
such as manufacturing, tourism, outdoor recre-
ation, agriculture, navigation, and disaster se-
curity; and 
‘‘(E) make more sustainable the critical 
economies that depend on the environmental 
services of the Mississippi River including but 
not limited to— 
‘‘(i) manufacturing—including drink-
ing water production; 
‘‘(ii) tourism; 
‘‘(iii) outdoor recreation; 
‘‘(iv) agriculture; 
‘‘(v) navigation—integrity of the glob-
al commodity supply chain. 
‘‘(3) ORGANIZATION.—The National Mississippi 
River Program Office shall be managed by the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency through active and on- 
going advice and concurrence from the U.S. Depart-
ment of Interior and be funded through the appro-
priations authorized under this Act obligated 
through a joint agreement between the U.S. EPA 
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and the U.S. Department of Interior annual budgets 
respectively where applicable funds shall be allocated 
to Interior to carry-out scientific support of the Pro-
gram Office and for other cooperative activities with 
the EPA in managing mandates included in this 
Act. 
‘‘(A) The National Mississippi River Pro-
gram Office (Program Office) shall be orga-
nized into three broad divisions with appro-
priate expertise and staff assigned to each divi-
sion including but not necessarily limited to— 
‘‘(i) Infrastructure Repair, Resilience 
and Adaptation (IRRA); 
‘‘(ii) Ecological Restoration and Envi-
ronmental Service Integrity (ERESI); and 
‘‘(iii) Data Analysis and Subject Mat-
ter Investigations Directorate (DASMID). 
‘‘(B) The Program Office shall be led by a 
Chief Executive Officer with appropriate deputy 
officers as needed; and each Program Office di-
vision shall have a director appointed in close 
consultation with the Environmental Protection 
Agency, U.S. Department of Transportation, 
and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 
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‘‘(4) PRIORITIZATION.—The Administrator in 
close coordination with the Secretary of Interior 
shall prioritize the activities of the Program Office 
in participating States for projects that— 
‘‘(A) deploy, restore, expand, and/or aug-
ment natural infrastructure assets such as wet-
lands, 
marshes, 
forests, 
streams, 
natural 
catchment basins, freshwater estuaries, and ri-
parian areas; 
‘‘(B) restore and/or increase the biodiver-
sity and habitat of wildlife throughout the Mis-
sissippi River Corridor; 
‘‘(C) increase the disaster resilience of en-
vironmental services, critical national infra-
structure, near-water communities, and the 
major economies dependent on the Mississippi 
River Corridor; 
‘‘(D) seek to monitor, study, understand, 
and expand knowledge of how the environ-
mental assets of the Mississippi River Corridor 
function, support economic development, protect 
population centers, and sustain impacts from 
climate changes, nutrient loading, human- 
caused toxification, major storm events both in 
tear-term and long-term scales; 
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‘‘(E) improve the water quality of the main 
stem Mississippi River including a decrease in 
errand nutrient load; and 
‘‘(F) ensure communities disproportion-
ately vulnerable to disaster impacts, abject pov-
erty, and historic lack of access including Na-
tive American Tribes and much of the Mis-
sissippi River Delta are given priority consider-
ation and benefit of the services, resources, and 
capacity provided through this Act; and such 
consideration be made systemic throughout all 
operations and divisions of the National Mis-
sissippi River Program Office. 
‘‘(5) PROCEDURE.—In carrying out subsection 
(b), the Administrator in close coordination with the 
Secretary of Interior shall engage in the following 
procedure to locate and develop the Program Office. 
‘‘(A) One hundred and twenty days after 
enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall 
establish a narrowly tailored temporary version 
of the Program Office in order to immediately 
assist and coordinate the early activities of the 
Administrator and the Federal Leadership 
Committee prescribed by subsection (d) until a 
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