Soil and Water Conservation: An Overview

Congressional research reportMay 6, 2008

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Order Code RL33556

Soil and Water Conservation: An Overview

Updated May 6, 2008

Tadlock Cowan

Analyst in Natural Resources and Rural Development Policy

Resources, Science, and Industry Division

Renée Johnson

Analyst in Agricultural Policy

Resources, Science, and Industry Division

Soil and Water Conservation: An Overview

Summary

Soil and water conservation topics are prominent in discussions of policy

options for the next farm bill, which the 110th Congress is considering. Major

conservation topics include where to set overall funding levels and levels for each

program; what should be the priorities for the conservation effort; and deciding

whether any existing programs or activities should be modified or eliminated and

whether new programs or activities should be added to the effort. Addressing these

topics often pits supporters of commodity programs and the traditional farm program

benefits against those who would like to see an expanded conservation effort.

The House passed its version of the farm bill on July 27, 2007 (H.R. 2419) by

a vote of 231 to 191. Numerous options for conservation provisions were offered as

the legislation moved through the House, but the conservation title was passed

largely as reported by the Agriculture Committee and modified by a chairman’s

mark. This legislation would increase funding for many conservation programs and

add a number of small new programs to the conservation portfolio while delaying

further implementation of the Conservation Security Program until FY2012. The

Senate passed its version of this legislation on December 14 (H.R. 2419, amended)

by a vote of 79 to 14, after adopting a wide-ranging manager’s amendment. This

legislation would create a new Conservation Stewardship Program that combines

features of the Conservation Security and Environmental Quality Incentives

Programs. It would provide level funding for most existing conservation programs

and create several new programs within existing programs.

The House- and Senate-passed versions differ in numerous ways that will have

to be resolved by the conference committee; the most significant of these differences

is that the House version allows no new signups in the Conservation Security

Program (CSP) until FY2012 while the Senate version replaces the CSP with a new

Conservation Stewardship Program and requires that more than 13 million acres be

enrolled annually. While the House bill would increase conservation funding by

more than $4.5 billion and the Senate bill would increase it by almost $4.8 billion,

the differences in which programs would be increased, and by how much, must also

be resolved.

Congressional appropriators influence the scope and scale of conservation

programs annually. The President signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008,

on December 26, 2007. It provides funding for the rest of FY2008. It makes several

adjustments to funding for conservation programs (for example, limiting funding for

the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to $1.0 billion), extends funding for

three farm bill programs that expired at the end of FY2007 through March 15, 2008,

and includes a 0.7% across-the-board rescission.

Contents

Most Recent Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Evolution of Federal Resource Conservation Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Current Major Conservation Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Wetlands and Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Conservation Security Program (CSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Technical Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Selected Other Conservation Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Watershed Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Conservation Compliance and Sodbuster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Farmland Protection Program (FPP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Emergency Conservation Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Water Quality Programs and Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Private Grazing Lands Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Grasslands Reserve Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Healthy Forests Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Air Quality Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Research and Technical Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Program Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Other Conservation Programs and Provisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Conservation Funding

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

FY2008 Appropriations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Pending Omnibus Farm Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The Senate Farm Bill Conservation Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

The House Farm Bill Conservation Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Bush Administration and Other Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Soil and Water Conservation: An Overview

Most Recent Developments1

The House and Senate completed action on their respective versions of a new

farm bill in 2007 (H.R. 2419). However, conference action was initially delayed in

part because of differences between committee leadership and the Administration

over the inclusion of tax provisions in the bill, and the Administration’s demand for

additional reform of commodity programs. Consequently, Congress temporarily

extended portions of the expiring 2002 farm bill until March 15, 2008, as part of the

Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2008 (P.L. 110-161). Since March,

Congress has approved a one-month extension, followed by three consecutive shortterm extensions lasting through May 16.2 Both the House and Senate have named

conferees. Conferees began official meetings in April 2008, and have been working

to resolve approaches to finance new spending above baseline using tax provisions

not usually associated with farm bills.

The House and Senate versions of the pending omnibus farm bill differ in

numerous ways that will have to be resolved by the conference committee. In

conservation, the most significant difference is that the House version allows no new

signups in the Conservation Security Program (CSP) until FY2012, while the Senate

version replaces the CSP with a new Conservation Stewardship Program that

combines features of the existing CSP and Environmental Quality Incentives

Program, requiring that more than 13 million acres be enrolled annually. The Senate

bill provides level funding for most existing conservation programs while increasing

overall conservation funding by almost $4.8 billion between FY2008 and FY2012,

and creates several new programs (mostly within existing programs). The House bill

increases overall funding for conservation by more than $4.5 billion between FY2008

and FY2012 and adds several small new programs to the conservation portfolio,

while eliminating very little of the current effort beyond delaying further enrollment

in the CSP until FY2012.

Congress completed action on FY2008 funding for agriculture when it passed

the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 (H.R. 2764). The President signed this

bill on December 26, 2007. It makes several adjustments to funding for conservation

programs (for example, limiting funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives

Program to $1.0 billion and providing $30 million for Watershed Operations),

This report is an updated and revised version of a report originally written by former CRS

specialist Jeffrey A. Zinn.

March 12 (P.L. 110-196), April 17 (P.L. 110-200), April 24 (P.L. 110-205), and May 1

(P.L. 110-208).

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extends funding for three farm bill programs that expired at the end of FY2007

through March 15, 2008, and includes a 0.7% across-the-board rescission.

Evolution of Federal Resource Conservation Issues

Conservation of soil and water resources has been a public policy issue for more

than 60 years, an issue repeatedly recast as new problems have emerged or old

problems have resurfaced. Two themes — reducing high levels of soil erosion and

providing water to agriculture in quantities and quality that enhance farm production

— dominated public policy debates about conservation until 1985.

Congress responded repeatedly to these themes before 1985 by creating or

revising programs designed to reduce resource problems on the farm. They

combined voluntary participation with technical, educational, and financial assistance

incentives. By the early 1980s, however, concern was growing, especially among

environmentalists, that these programs were not adequately dealing with

environmental problems resulting from agricultural activities (especially off the

farm). Publicized instances of significant problems, especially high soil erosion rates

said to rival the dust bowl era, increased awareness and intensified the policy debate.

Congress responded, in a watershed event, by enacting four major new

conservation programs in the conservation title of the Food Security Act of 1985

(P.L. 99-198). One of these programs, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP),

greatly increased the federal financial commitment to conservation and targeted

federal funds at some of the most severe problems by retiring land under multi-year

contracts. The other three, Sodbuster, conservation compliance, and Swampbuster,

created a new approach to conservation by halting producer access to many federal

farm program benefits if they did not meet conservation program requirements for

highly erodible lands and wetlands. Three of these four programs (all except

Swampbuster) addressed soil erosion.

Provisions enacted in the next farm bill, the Food Agriculture, Conservation and

Trade Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-624), reflected a rapid evolution of the conservation

agenda, including the growing influence of environmentalists and other nonagricultural interests in the formulation of conservation policy, and a recognition that

agriculture was not treated like other business sectors in many environmental laws.

Congress expanded this agenda to address groundwater pollution, water quality, and

sustainable agriculture, and allowed for the use of easements, as well as amending

existing programs. Amendments to the CRP reflect these changes; its earlier focus

on highly erodible land (and on stabilizing land prices) has been adjusted, especially

in the 1990 farm bill, to give greater emphasis to environmental concerns.

After congressional party control switched in 1994, conservation policy

discussions turned to identifying ways to make the conservation compliance and

Swampbuster programs less intrusive on farmer activities. This switch also appeared

to reduce the influence of environmental interests in developing conservation policy.

However, the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104127) included a wide-ranging conservation title. The enacted bill gave considerable

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attention to wildlife, and enacted new programs dealing with farmland protection,

grasslands, and other topics. It also funded many of these new programs as

mandatory for the first time, using the Commodity Credit Corporation as the funding

mechanism.3

The nature of the conservation effort continued to evolve after 1996, as reflected

in the provisions of the most recent farm bill, the Farm Security and Rural Investment

Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-171). Conservation themes in this farm bill included (1)

increasing overall funding; (2) creating new programs and addressing new issues; and

(3) providing more conservation on lands in production (called working lands),

primarily through the new Conservation Security Program. One factor that influenced

the decision to provide more funding was the large backlog of interested and

qualified applicants who could not participate because of insufficient funds. A new

factor in this farm bill was considering how funding for farm programs generally, and

conservation specifically, could be used to meet world trade obligations.4 Themes

for conservation and the broader context within which the farm bill is being debated

have continued to change, and are described below in the section on the 2007 farm

bill.

Current Major Conservation Activities

USDA’s conservation efforts have centered in recent years on implementing the

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), wetland protection programs, the

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and the Conservation Security

Program (CSP), and on providing technical assistance. Funding for the overall

conservation effort will have grown much larger by the end of FY2007, when many

of the farm bill programs authorized in the 2002 law expired. General trends in

policy for the suite of conservation programs between 2002 and 2007 included less

emphasis on land retirement and on land producing row crops, and more attention to

conservation on land in other agricultural uses and to livestock producers.

Recognizing this expanding effort, Congress in the 2002 farm bill required the

Secretary to submit a report to both agriculture committees about how to better

coordinate and consolidate conservation programs, including implementing

recommendations. That report was delivered in July 2006.5

Lead conservation agencies are the Natural Resources Conservation Service

(NRCS), which provides technical assistance and administers most programs, and the

Farm Service Agency (FSA), which administers the most expensive current program,

For an overview of conservation provisions in the 1996 farm bill, see CRS Report 96-330,

Conservation Provisions in the Farm Bill: A Summary, by Jeffrey A. Zinn.

For detailed information about the enacted provisions in the farm bill’s conservation title,

including how they compare with prior law, see CRS Report RL31486, Resource

Conservation Title of the 2002 Farm Bill: A Comparison of New Law with Bills Passed by

the House and Senate, and Prior Law, by Jeffrey A. Zinn.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Reform and Assessment of Conservation Programs: A

Report to Congress, submitted July 10, 2006.

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the CRP. These agencies are supported by others in USDA that supply research and

educational assistance, including the Agricultural Research Service, the Forest

Service, and the Economic Research Service.6 In addition, the conservation effort

involves a very large array of partners, including other federal agencies, state and

local governments, and private organizations, among others, who provide funds,

expertise, and other forms of assistance to the conservation effort.7

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)

Under the CRP, producers can bid to enroll highly erodible or environmentally

sensitive lands into the reserve during signup periods, retiring it from production for

10 years in almost all instances. Successful bidders receive annual rental payments

and cost-sharing and technical assistance. Enrollment can total up to 39.2 million

acres. However, enrollment (in combination with land enrolled in the Wetland

Reserve Program, discussed below) is limited to 25% of the crop land in a county.

Funding is mandatory spending.8 FSA’s summary of participation through February

2007 shows almost 36.8 million acres were enrolled, with more than 4 million acres

in Texas and almost 3.5 million acres in Montana.9 Only land that was cropped in

four of six years preceding enactment is eligible, thus making it more difficult to

bring land into production primarily to gain access to the program. A sub-program

can enroll up to 1 million acres of small, isolated farmable wetlands. Since 2002,

some economic uses of enrolled lands have been permitted in return for a reduction

in annual rental payments.

In August 2005, Secretary of Agriculture Johanns announced that USDA would

offer opportunities to reenroll or extend contracts involving more than 28 million

acres of land where current contracts expire between 2007 and 2010. Priority for

reenrollment was based on the relative ranking of the land using the Environmental

Benefits Index, with additional credit being given for land located in any of five

national priority areas or areas of significant adverse water quality or habitat impacts.

Contracts were offered in five groups. Land in the highest ranked group was

reenrolled for 10 years (with 15 years for restored wetlands), using updated market

rental rates to reflect changes in local market conditions. Land in the other four

groups received contract extensions at existing rental rates, with the second highest

group receiving five-year extensions and the lowest group receiving two-year

For background information on the suite of current conservation programs administered

by NRCS and FSA, see CRS Report RL32940, Agriculture Conservation Programs: A

Scorecard, by Jeffrey A. Zinn and Tadlock Cowan.

One of many recent examples of such partnerships is the November 8, 2006 announcement

of a partnership with the Defense Department to promote land conservation near military

bases.

Mandatory spending means that funding levels (or for this program, acreage enrollment

levels) are authorized for each year in the 2002 farm bill and provided through the

borrowing authority of the Commodity Credit Corporation, with no annual appropriation

required.

Information on the CRP, including announcements and enrollment statistics, can be found

at [http://www.fsa.usda.gov/daft/cepd/crp.htm].

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extensions. On March 8, 2007, FSA announced that 23.2 million acres would

reenroll or extend their contracts out of the 27.8 million set to expire between 2007

and 2010; the other 4.6 million acres will exit the program when contracts expire.

Some of these acres will be planted to meet the growing demand for corn to produce

ethanol, and FSA also stated that approximately 1.4 million of the 4.6 million acres

are located in major corn producing areas. More recently, USDA announced with its

FY2008 budget request that it does not anticipate holding a general sign-up in 2007

or 2008. More recently, interest has grown in providing producers with the option

to leave the program without penalty because of high market prices for corn, wheat,

and soybeans; and the Department has repeatedly responded that it does not see any

justification for such an option at this time.

USDA has estimated that the average erosion rate on enrolled acres has been

reduced from 21 to less than 2 tons per acre per year. Retiring these lands also

expanded wildlife habitat, enhanced water quality, and restored soil quality. The

annual value of these benefits has been estimated from less than $1 billion to more

than $1.5 billion; in some regions where participation is most concentrated, estimated

benefits exceed annual program costs, which have averaged about $50 per acre per

year. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others have

criticized the potentially ephemeral nature of these benefits, because the landowner

is under no obligation to retain them after contracts expire, although they must follow

a conservation plan on any previously enrolled highly erodible land to retain

eligibility for many types of farm program payments.

In addition to general signups, FSA has enrolled more than 3.7 million acres

under several more targeted options. These acres, which count against the overall

enrollment cap of 39.2 million acres, can be enrolled continuously because they are

presumed to provide large environmental benefits. The three largest and oldest

options, all authorized in legislation, are:

Continuously enrolling portions of fields with especially high

environmental values. Through February 2007, more than 2.6

million acres had been enrolled, with more than 465,000 acres in

Iowa. The most common conservation practice at these sites is

buffer strips along water bodies.

A state-initiated enhancement program (Conservation Reserve

Enhancement Program, or CREP) under which states contribute

funds so that higher rents can be offered to potential participants in

specified areas where benefits will be concentrated. For example,

Maryland, the first state to implement a CREP, is enrolling stream

buffers, restored wetlands, and highly erodible lands along streams

in a portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Currently, 29 states

have one or more approved enhancement programs (3 states have

more than one program), and requests are pending from several

additional states. FSA data show that almost 920,000 acres had been

enrolled through February 2007.

A program to enroll up to 1 million acres of small, isolated farmable

wetlands. USDA offers signup bonuses to attract participation.

More than 162,000 acres had been enrolled through February 2007,

with more than 71,000 of those acres in Iowa.

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Other newer options, all established through administrative actions by USDA,

include enrolling up to 500,000 acres of floodplains to be planted to hardwood trees,

with allotments specified for states; enrolling up to 250,000 acres of field boarders

for northern bobwhite quail habitat; creating up to 250,000 acres of wetlands in nonfloodplain areas; and restoring up to 250,000 acres of long leaf pine, 100,000 acres

of duck nesting habitat, and 500,000 acres to meet priority needs in all states (with

allocations to each state). Finally, a new emergency forestry conservation program

was enacted in supplemental appropriations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005

under which FSA estimates that 700,000 acres will be restored.

NRCS provides technical assistance in support of CRP, but the 1996 farm bill

placed a cap on funding from the CCC that can be used to reimburse agencies for

services provided to deliver CCC programs. These funds have been insufficient to

pay all related technical assistance costs at times in recent years, and in FY1999,

NRCS briefly suspended CRP-related activities. NRCS now has a line item in its

budget for this purpose and received $76.4 million for FY2006. Congressional

efforts to provide adequate technical assistance funding are discussed in the

subsection titled “Technical Assistance,” below.10

Wetlands and Agriculture

Swampbuster and the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) have been the main

agricultural wetland protection programs. (A 1 million acre program for small,

isolated farmable wetlands, added to the CRP in the 2002 farm bill, is discussed

above.) Under Swampbuster, farmers who convert wetlands to produce crops lose

many federal farm program benefits until the wetland is restored. Swampbuster

includes several exemptions from loss of benefits, such as any wetland conversion

that was initiated prior to December 23, 1985 (the date of enactment), or a wetland

that is created as a result of adjacent development. It allows a partial penalty,

meaning that fewer benefits are lost, once a decade.

Swampbuster has been controversial since it was first enacted in 1985. Some

from the farm community view wetland protection efforts on agricultural lands as too

extensive or overzealous. They observe that it protects some sites that appear to

provide few of the values attributed to wetlands. A portion of this group also view

these efforts as an unacceptable intrusion of government into the rights of private

property owners, or “takings.” Environmental and other groups counter that the

Swampbuster program has been enforced weakly and inconsistently, with few

violators losing farm program benefits. Controversies also arise over inconsistencies,

such as when adjoining states use different interpretations of rules that lead to

different determinations.

A wetland issue for agriculture was raised in January 2001 after the Supreme

Court determined, in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (531 U.S. 159 (2001)), that the Clean Water Act’s

For more information on CRP, see CRS Report RS21613, Conservation Reserve

Program: Status and Current Issues, by Tadlock Cowan.

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Section 404 regulatory wetland permit program should not apply to certain “isolated

waters.” One result is that an estimated 8 million acres of agricultural wetlands that

had been subject to the Section 404 program is now subject only to Swampbuster.

Up to 1 million of these acres may be enrolled in the farmable wetland component

of the CRP.11 The Supreme Court issued subsequent decisions on two cases that

continue to alter the reach of the Section 404 program.12

The second wetlands program, the WRP, was established in the 1990 farm bill.

It uses permanent and temporary easements and long-term agreements to protect

farmed wetlands. Enrollment reached almost 1.9 million acres by September 30,

2006. Permanent easements account for more than 80% of the total, and have been

perfected on almost 1.5 million acres. The Secretary has the option of delegating the

administration of easements to other federal or state agencies with the necessary

expertise. It currently has an enrollment cap of 2,275,000 acres, and annual

enrollment is limited to 250,000 acres. Funding is mandatory through the CCC. The

Office of Inspector General released an audit report in 2006 which found that

“unwarranted payments” had been made because of lax controls and poor appraisals.

On June 29, 2004, USDA announced a partnership initiative in Nebraska,

modeled after the CREP component of the CRP, to enroll almost 19,000 acres. This

may be a prototype for future initiatives. Another recent initiative taken

administratively will be used to create 250,000 acres of wetlands in non-floodplain

areas (see the CRP discussion, above).13 During FY2006, NRCS used a “reverse

auction” to enroll more than 3,500 acres under 16 new easements, at a savings to the

federal government that it calculated to be more than $800,000.

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)

EQIP encourages farmers to participate in conservation efforts by paying a

portion of the cost of installing or constructing approved conservation practices.

EQIP is a mandatory spending program which supports structural, vegetative, and

land management practices. Each year, 60% of the funds are to be used to address

the needs of livestock producers. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171)

extended the authorization through 2010, and delays funding it at $1.3 billion until

2010 (with somewhat lower levels through FY2009) to create savings in the

intervening years. The total of all EQIP payments that a single entity can receive,

combined, is $450,000 during any six-year period. Contracts can be 1 to 10 years in

length. A conservation plan is required to participate. Producers with

comprehensive nutrient management plans (one type of conservation plan) are

eligible for incentive payments, and producers receiving funding for animal waste

For more information on this decision, see CRS Report RL30849, The Supreme Court

Addresses Corps of Engineers Jurisdiction Over “Isolated Waters”: The SWANCC

Decision, by Robert Meltz and Claudia Copeland.

For background on these two cases, see CRS Report RL33263, The Wetlands Coverage

of the Clean Water Act Revisited: Rapanos and Carabell, by Robert Meltz and Claudia

Copeland.

For more information about wetlands, see CRS Report RL33483, Wetlands: An Overview

of Issues, by Claudia Copeland and Jeffrey A. Zinn.

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manure systems must have these plans. Beginning and limited resource producers

are eligible for additional cost-sharing assistance. The implementing regulations list

four national priorities that guide decisions about which producers will receive

assistance and help optimize environmental benefits from this program. NRCS

gathered public comments about whether these priorities should be altered at a

national listening session on May 5, 2005 (and at state listening sessions).14

Three subprograms were authorized in 2002. First, a portion of EQIP funds in

FY2003 through FY2006 can be used to make grants for innovative efforts, such as

fostering markets for nutrient trading. NRCS first awarded grants in FY2004, and

most recently, in FY2006, it awarded almost $25 million to more than 150 recipients.

Awards for FY2007 will be announced later in the year. Second, additional funds,

starting at $25 million in FY2002 and growing to $60 million annually between

FY2004 and FY2007, are authorized for a new ground and surface water

conservation subprogram. In FY2002, funds were provided to eight states that are

located on top of the high plains aquifer. The program has expanded each year since,

primarily to areas suffering from drought and water shortages. According to the

NRCS, it has been used to enroll more than 1.5 million acres under more than 5,000

contracts, and obligations have totaled more than $130 million.15 Third, an additional

$50 million was earmarked for the Klamath River basin in Oregon and California,

and was to be provided as soon as possible. Since the program began, irrigation

water management has been applied on more than 62,000 acres and conservation

practices on almost 110,000 acres.

Interest in participating in EQIP continues to far exceed available funds, even

with the large increases in authorized amounts. For FY2006, NRCS reported that it

received almost 78,000 approved applications, but was only able to sign some 41,000

contracts, which provided a total of $788 million in financial assistance. The

remaining almost 33,000 applications that would have provided $636 million in

financial assistance could not be funded.16

Conservation Security Program (CSP)

Section 2001 of the 2002 farm bill authorized the new Conservation Security

Program (CSP) to provide payments to producers on all agricultural land that was

This process has been criticized, especially by those from states who believe they should

be receiving a higher allocation. The Government Accountability Office reviewed how

EQIP funds are allocated among states in a recent report; Agricultural Conservation: USDA

Should Improve Its Process for Allocating Funds to States for the Environmental Quality

Incentives Program, September 2006, GAO-06-969.

NRCS and FSA produce fact sheets that briefly describe their programs; these fact sheets,

reached on the “programs” page on the NRCS website and on the “conservation” page on

the FSA website, are written primarily to inform potential program participants. The NRCS

website for programs is [http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs], and the website for FSA

programs is [http://www.fsa.usda.gov/dafp/cepd/epd].

Unfunded applications include those that were preapproved, deferred, eligible, pending,

and disapproved. For further information on EQIP, see CRS Report RS22040,

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP): Status and Issues, by Jeffrey A. Zinn

and Carol Canada.

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cropped in four of six years before 2002. Payments are based on which of three

levels of conservation is planned for and practiced. The lowest level allows contracts

of five years and annual payments up to $20,000; the middle level allows contracts

of 5 to 10 years and annual payments up to $35,000; the top level allows contracts

of 5 to 10 years and annual payments up to $45,000. The lowest level requires a plan

that addresses at least one resource concern on part of a farm; the middle level

requires a plan that addresses at least one resource concern on the entire operation,

and the top level requires a plan to address all resource concerns on the entire

operation.

Implementation has proven controversial, as the authorizing legislation created

this program as a true entitlement, but appropriators prohibited funding in FY2003,

then limited available funding each year subsequently. As a result, CSP has been

growing, but much more slowly than proponents would like. NRCS has responded

to these funding constraints in the way that it has implemented the program, limiting

signups to producers in designated watersheds. After three years of implementation,

the program has more that 19,000 participants in 280 watersheds. In these

watersheds, about 15.7 million acres has been enrolled in the program. Requested

funding for FY2008 was $316 million, an increase of $57 million from FY2007.

However, this increase only will be enough to support contracts on land that is

currently enrolled. This program has another component new to the conservation

effort; it requires interested producers to complete an extensive self-assessment to

determine their eligibility, the first time it has required this amount of work from

producers interested in enrolling in conservation programs, as a prerequisite to

determining whether they will be accepted.17

The most recent congressional action to cap CSP funding was in reconciliation

legislation enacted February 8, 2006 (P.L. 109-171), where it was capped at a total

of $1.954 billion from FY2006 through FY2010, and at $5.65 billion from FY2006

through FY2015. The budget resolution that set FY2007 spending provides only

enough funding to support existing contracts. These actions generated complaints

from program supporters, who view the current funding situation as being at odds

with the entitlement that was envisioned in 2002 and are looking for alternatives to

gain additional funding.18 Earlier actions related to CSP funding include the

following:

In FY2002, CBO scored CSP at $2 billion over 10 years.

In 2003, CBO revised this estimate to $6.8 billion.

In FY2003 appropriations, Congress limited CSP funding to $3.7

billion through FY2013 to pay for emergency drought assistance.

In FY2004 appropriations, Congress eliminated the 10-year cap, but

limited FY2004 funding to $41.4 million.

The GAO issued a report in April 2006 in which it found that some producers were

receiving payments through multiple conservation programs for a practice. The program is

titled Conservation Security Program: Despite Cost Controls, Improved USDA Management

is Needed to Ensure Proper Payments and Reduce Duplication with other Programs (GAO06-312).

For more information, see CRS Report RS21740, Implementing the Conservation Security

Program, by Tadlock Cowan.

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In 2004, CBO revised its estimate to $8.9 billion through FY2014.

In FY2005 supplemental appropriations, Congress limited CSP to

$6.37 billion to provide $2.9 billion for agriculture disaster

assistance.

Congress limited FY2005 funding to $202 million; FY2006 funding

to $259 million, and FY2007 funding to $259 million.

Technical Assistance

NRCS provides technical assistance (TA) at the request of the landowner to

conserve and improve natural resources. TA includes professional advice on how to

design, install, and maintain land management, vegetative, and structural practices

that provide conservation benefits. NRCS combines that advice with knowledge of

local conditions. TA is a component of most conservation programs, and NRCS

estimates that the cost of providing it in FY2005 amounted to about $1.45 billion.19

Almost $1.0 billion of this total came from discretionary accounts. Two issues

associated with technical assistance have been whether NRCS has the capacity to

meet the growing demand as funding for programs increases, and how technical

assistance costs should be funded for mandatory programs.

NRCS is permitted to augment the technical assistance capacity of the agency

by allowing producers to use approved third parties to provide this assistance. In the

June 7, 2006, oversight hearing, NRCS Chief Bruce Knight testified that more than

2,500 applications to perform these services had been approved. These people had

provided the equivalent of 520 staff years of support between 2003 and 2006, at a

cost of $163.5 million to the agency.

A subsection of Section 2701 of the 2002 farm bill provided that technical

assistance in support of each mandatory program come from the funding provided by

the CCC for that program. However, the Office of Management and Budget,

supported by the Department of Justice, issued an opinion in late 2002 that technical

assistance funding for mandatory programs remains limited under a cap that has been

placed in Section 11 of the CCC charter under prior law. Many in Congress had

thought that the language in the 2002 farm bill had resolved this issue, and they were

supported in this conclusion by a GAO opinion.

The Administration proposed in its FY2003, FY2004, and FY2005 budget

requests to address this limit by creating a new farm bill technical assistance account,

to be funded through annual appropriations. Congress rejected these proposals. In

FY2003 and FY2004, Congress prohibited using any of the discretionary funds from

Conservation Operations for technical assistance to implement any mandatory

programs. This prohibition, combined with a retention of the cap on CCC funds that

can be spent on administrative expenses, meant that some of the mandatory programs

donated funding for technical assistance to other programs, thereby leaving less

For more information on how funds for technical assistance (and financial assistance) are

allocated, see Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

FY2007 Program Allocation Formulas and Methodologies. December, 2006, 41 p.

CRS-11

money available to implement “donor program” activities.20 In P.L. 108-498 (S.

2856), enacted December 23, 2004, Congress amended the 1985 farm bill to require

that technical assistance for each mandatory program be paid from funds provided

for that program annually, and that funding for technical assistance cannot be

transferred among the mandatory funded programs, starting in FY2005.

Other actions related to technical assistance may also attract congressional

interest. A GAO report, released in November 2004, might contribute to discussions

about the cost of providing technical assistance, which critics state is too high and

reduces the amount of money available for program participants.21 Second, in

February 2005, NRCS announced new policy guidance for technical assistance that

will establish national priorities. For FY2007, as for FY2006, these priorities

centered on helping producers comply more easily with environmental regulatory

requirements. Third, in September 2005, NRCS initiated a new pilot program for

conservation planning in nine states, using a land-owner self-assessment process.

This assessment process appears to follow the process developed for producers who

are interested in participating in the CSP, and wish to determine their eligibility.

Selected Other Conservation Activities

Federal conservation efforts include many additional activities and programs.

The list below includes only selected conservation activities in USDA that are

administered by NRCS and FSA.22 Other USDA agencies that make significant

contributions to the conservation effort include the Agricultural Research Service,

the Economic Research Service, and the Forest Service. Also, none of the many

other conservation programs that Congress has authorized but that are not being

implemented (in some cases, they have never been implemented) are included here.

(Please note that any recent funding issues associated with these programs are

discussed below in the “Conservation Funding” section.)

Watershed Programs. NRCS has worked with local sponsors for more than

50 years to construct more than 10,500 structures to prevent floods, protect

watersheds, and control erosion and sediments, among other things, under two

authorities, P.L. 534 and P.L. 566. Projects continue to be constructed under both

authorities, although at a slower pace, as appropriations have remained relatively

constant or declined in recent years. An Emergency Watershed Program responds

to emergencies created by natural disasters (see discussion of “Emergency

For example, in FY2003, the EQIP was authorized at $695 million. Of that total, $145

million was to be spent on TA, leaving $550 million for cost-sharing assistance to

producers. But EQIP was a donor program because an additional $107 million was diverted

from the program to pay for TA in other mandatory conservation programs, leaving $442

million for cost-sharing assistance for producers. Other donor programs in FY2003 included

the Farmland Protection Program, the Grasslands Reserve Program, and the Wildlife Habitat

Incentives Program; they contributed a total of just over $50 million.

Government Accountability Office, USDA Should Improve Its Methods for Estimating

Technical Assistance Costs, November 2004 (GAO-05-58).

General program information for the NRCS programs can be found at [http://www.nrcs.

usda.gov/programs], and for the FSA programs, general program information can be found

at [http://www.fsa.usda.gov/dafp/cepd/epd].

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Conservation Programs,” below). Funding varies greatly from year to year, and is

provided in supplemental appropriations. Over the past decade, funding has averaged

$131 million per year, but in FY2005 it was $354.5 million, while in FY2007, no

funding was provided. The FY2008 omnibus appropriations legislation provides $30

million.

A rehabilitation program for aging small watershed structures that are reaching

or have exceeded their design life was enacted in the Small Watershed Rehabilitation

Amendments of 2000 (Section 313 of P.L. 106-472). Both mandatory and

discretionary funding are authorized each year; mandatory funding rises from $45

million in FY2003 to $65 million in FY2007, and discretionary funding can be as

large as $45 million in FY2003 and grow up to $85 million in FY2007. To date,

appropriators have not provided any of the mandatory funds and have provided only

a portion of the discretionary funds. The law permits federal funds to pay for 65%

of rehabilitation projects, with the remainder coming from local sponsors. Through

FY2005, 132 rehabilitation projects in 22 states had been initiated and 47 dams had

been rehabilitated.

Conservation Compliance and Sodbuster. Under conservation

compliance and Sodbuster provisions, established in the 1985 farm bill, producers

who cultivate highly erodible land (HEL) are ineligible for most major farm program

benefits, including price supports and related payments. These benefits are lost for

all the land the farmer operates. A smaller penalty can be imposed on producers once

every five years if circumstances warrant. Producers who cultivate highly erodible

land using an approved conservation plan are not subject to conservation compliance.

Section 2002 of the 2002 farm bill prohibited USDA from delegating authority to

other parties to make highly erodible land determinations. Any person who had HEL

enrolled in the CRP has two years after a contract expires to be fully in compliance.

According to 1997 data compiled by NRCS, producers were actively applying

plans on more than 97% of the tracts of land that were reviewed. NRCS estimates

that soil erosion on these acres is being reduced from an average of 17 tons per year

to 6 tons per year. Critics, primarily from the environmental community, have

contended that USDA staff has not vigorously enforced these requirements, and cite

a recent GAO report to support some of their contentions.23 Others, primarily from

the agriculture community, have countered that the department has been too vigorous

at times.

Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D). RC&D provides

a framework for local interests to work together to improve the economy,

environment, and living standard in multi-county areas through RC&D Councils that

develop and implement plans. USDA provides technical and financial assistance to

councils, and helps them secure funding and services from other sources. Projects

are implemented to improve natural resources, address waste disposal needs, foster

economic development, and address other similar needs. According to NRCS, 375

areas encompassing more than 85% of the counties in the country have been

designated. This total includes the 7 most recent additions that were accepted from

Government Accountability Office, USDA Needs to Better Ensure Protection of Highly

Erodible Cropland and Wetlands, April 2003 (GAO-03-418).

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28 applications during the summer of 2003; at the start of FY2006, an additional 32

applications were pending.

Farmland Protection Program (FPP).24 The 1996 farm bill authorized

USDA to assist state and local governments to acquire easements to limit conversion

of agricultural lands to nonagricultural uses. Funding was authorized at $97 million

for FY2007. The definition of eligible land includes not only farmland, but

rangeland, pastureland, grassland, certain forest land, and land containing historic or

archeological resources as well. Land enrolled in the program is subject to

conservation compliance. Certain private nonprofit organizations are eligible to

receive these funds. Eligible lands must be subject to a pending offer. Through

FY2006, almost $452 million had been obligated to acquire 1,561 easements on

almost 312,000 acres in 42 states. An additional 909 easements were pending on

more than 169,000 acres. States where the most funds have been obligated include

Maryland ($29.1 million), New Jersey ($25.7 million), and Pennsylvania ($25.2

million).25

Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP). WHIP was authorized in

1996 to provide cost-sharing and technical assistance for conservation practices that

primarily benefit wildlife. Funding was authorized at $85 million in FY2007. Up

to 15% of the funding each year may be used for higher cost-sharing payments to

producers who protect and restore essential plant and animal habitat under

agreements of at least five years. Through FY2005, almost 3.7 million acres had

been enrolled under more than 24,000 agreements.

Emergency Conservation Programs. The two emergency conservation

programs are the Emergency Watershed Program (EWP) administered by the NRCS,

and the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) administered by the FSA. The

EWP provides technical and cost-sharing assistance for projects that restore land after

flooding and help to protect it from future damage. The ECP provides cost-sharing

and technical assistance to rehabilitate farmland damaged by natural disasters, and

to carry out emergency water conservation measures during severe drought.

Emergency programs are implemented most years when funding is provided in

response to natural disasters.

In the wake of a very busy hurricane season in 2005, and especially Hurricane

Katrina, Congress provided $300 million to the EWP and $199.8 million to the ECP

in Division B, Title I, of FY2006 Defense appropriations (P.L. 109-148, enacted

December 30, 2005). It also created a new Emergency Forestry Conservation Reserve

Program (EFCRP), modeled after the CRP and to be administered within it, and

appropriated $404 million for this effort. In June 2006, Congress passed additional

emergency supplemental funding (P.L. 109-234, enacted June 15, 2006), which

provided an additional $51 million to the EWP and $100 million to the new EFCRP,

as well as making several other changes to improve access to these emergency

programs. Emergency legislation, including additional funding for these two

programs, was attached to the FY2006 appropriation. After that legislation was not

USDA calls this program the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program.

For more information, see CRS Report RS22565, Farm Protection Program, by Renée

Johnson.

CRS-14

enacted, supporters have attempted to attach this funding to other legislation.

Currently, it is included in the pending bill that would provide supplemental funding

for the war in Iraq.

Water Quality Programs and Initiatives. Pollution in ground and surface

waters has emerged as a major issue for conservation policy as more instances of

contamination in which agricultural sources play major roles have been identified.

Specific occurrences that have driven public interest and concern in recent years

range from a very large hog farm waste spill in North Carolina to the Pfiesteria

outbreak and fish kills in portions of the Chesapeake Bay, hypoxic conditions

creating a large “dead zone” in the central Gulf of Mexico, and less extensive ones

in other coastal sites such as Chesapeake Bay. Questions are being raised about the

extent of the problems, the severity of the potential threat to human health, the

adequacy of government programs, and the contribution of agriculture. In some

cases, producers may have contributed to contamination even though they followed

accepted agricultural practices. Current agricultural conservation programs that

address water quality concerns center on EQIP, plus the Enhancement Program

(CREP) and the continuous enrollment option under CRP.

EPA announced a final revised rule for managing nutrient wastes from animal

feeding operations, as required under court order, on December 12, 2002. Large

operators are required to develop comprehensive nutrient management plans while

smaller operators are encouraged to develop them.26 Farm interests were generally

pleased because the rule affects fewer producers and costs less when compared with

earlier proposals. On February 27, 2004, NRCS released its National Animal

Agriculture Conservation Framework, which it describes as a blueprint for assisting

livestock and poultry producers with their voluntary efforts to deal with

environmental issues.27

Water quality problems are being addressed not only through the programs

discussed above, including the CSP and the Ground and Surface Water Conservation

Program under EQIP, but also through other farm bill programs, including:

the Small Watershed Rehabilitation Program (discussed above);

the Agricultural Management Assistance Program, which provides

$20 million annually between FY2003 and FY2007 and $10 million

annually thereafter to 15 specified states that have been chronically

underserved by risk management programs (subsequent amendments

limited conservation funding to $14 million annually until FY2007);

a program for the Great Lakes Basin states;

a Grassroots Source Water Protection Program; and

a program for the Delmarva Peninsula.

This rule was published in the February 12, 2003, Federal Register, effective April 14,

2003.

For more information on this rule, see CRS Report RL31851, Animal Waste and Water

Quality: EPA Regulation of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), by Claudia

Copeland.

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In addition, USDA released a draft framework for addressing animal agriculture

conservation on September 9, 2003. The framework discusses how USDA can help

producers meet environmental regulatory requirements and promote new

opportunities while sharing knowledge and increasing accountability.

The 108th Congress enacted legislation (P.L. 108-328) authorizing funding for

the New York City Watershed Protection Program through FY2010. This program,

funded primarily by New York City, intensively installs conservation practices on

farms (and funds other actions in response to other types of land use) in watersheds

that provide drinking water to New York City to maintain a level of water quality that

precludes the need to build a very expensive new water treatment plant. The program

requires participation by at least 85% of the farms in the watershed. If that

participation level is not maintained, the city would be required to build a treatment

system, estimated to cost between $5 billion and $8 billion to construct and $200

million to $500 million annually to operate. In April, 2007, the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency announced that it would continue the exemption from having to

build a treatment plant to 2017, an additional 10 years.

Private Grazing Lands Program. This voluntary coordinated technical and

educational assistance program was initially enacted in the 1996 farm bill to maintain

and improve resource conditions on private grazing lands. Appropriations of $60

million annually through FY2007 were authorized, and appropriators have funded

this program by earmarking a portion of NRCS’s Conservation Operations funds,

providing $27.2 million in FY2006.

Grasslands Reserve Program. A new land retirement and rehabilitation

program, Grasslands Reserve Program, was authorized to retire 2 million acres under

arrangements ranging from 10-year agreements to permanent easements. Easements

can be delegated to certain private organizations and state agencies. The enacted

funding cap of $254 million was reached in FY2006. Through FY2006, 3,166

participants had enrolled slightly more than 1 million acres. Applications have

greatly exceeded available funding; in FY2005, 1,219 applications to enroll almost

385,000 acres were approved; this was 16% of the applications received.

Healthy Forests Reserve. Title V of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act

of 2003 (P.L. 108-148) established a program from 2004 through 2008 to help

landowners to restore and enhance forest ecosystems using 10-year agreements, 30year easements, and easements up to 99 years. Participants are to be able to show

that participation will improve the likelihood that threatened or endangered species

will recover, biological diversity will improve, or additional carbon will be

sequestered. An interim final rule became effective on May 17, 2006. In FY2006,

11 applications were approved to enroll almost 500,000 acres in pilot projects in

Arkansas, Maine, and Mississippi. An additional 60 applications were processed but

could not be funded.

Air Quality Activities. The 1996 farm bill created an interagency air quality

task force in USDA. The task force represented USDA on scientific topics such as

EPA’s proposals to revise National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ground-level

ozone and particulates. USDA and EPA cooperate on air quality topics under a

Memorandum of Agreement signed in January 1998. More recently, federal agencies

have been discussing how agricultural practices and programs affect global warming,

CRS-16

especially by sequestering carbon. On March 23, 2005, USDA announced that

NRCS and the National Forest Service would start to track the amount of carbon that

farmers would be sequestering.28

Research and Technical Activities. Many agencies in USDA conduct

research and provide technical support. NRCS, for example, provides basic data

about resource conditions and characteristics through the soil and snow surveys and

the National Resources Inventory (NRI). Data collected for the NRI was used to

determine that total erosion on cropland declined 43% between 1982 and 2003,

according to a June 2006 press release. NRCS also does applied research through the

plant material and technical centers. Other agencies, both within USDA and outside,

conduct basic research that contributes to both understanding the problems that

conservation programs address and how effective these programs are in counteracting

these problems.

Program Evaluation. NRCS initiated the Conservation Effects Assessment

Project (CEAP) in 2003 to quantify the environmental benefits of conservation

practices installed through selected federal agricultural conservation programs.29 The

project, funded at about $8 million annually, is centered on developing approaches,

methodologies, and databases that can produce scientifically credible estimates of

these benefits. It draws from other activities throughout USDA and beyond, from

NRCS’s National Resources Inventory to watershed research conducted by the

Agricultural Research Service and the U.S. Geological Survey in the Department of

the Interior. CEAP has two components, a national assessment and more focused

watershed studies. Limited data from this effort is just starting to become available.30

Other Conservation Programs and Provisions. In addition to the

programs described above, several additional programs and activities were

authorized in the 2002 farm bill and funded through FY2007.

Partnerships and Cooperation could use up to 5% of conservation

funding for both stewardship agreements with other entities and

special projects designated by state conservationists to enhance

technical and financial assistance to address resource conservation

issues.

Incentives could be used to attract greater participation from

beginning and limited resource producers and Indian tribes.

The Agricultural Management Assistance Program provided $20

million in mandatory funding annually.

A Grassroots Source Water Protection Program received $5 million.

For more information, see CRS Report 97-670, Agriculture and EPA’s Proposed Air

Quality Standards for Ozone and Particulates, by James E. McCarthy and Jeffrey A. Zinn.

NRCS has been releasing a national summary listing fiscal year conservation

achievements in recent years. This summary is limited to numerical totals, such as “applied

conservation buffers on nearly 225,000 acres” in the FY2006 summary, which can be found

on the NRCS website. However, these summaries to provide some sense of the breadth,

scope, and magnitude of NRCS’s conservation effort.

For more information, see Soil and Water Conservation Society, Conservation Effects

Assessment Project: Final Report, 2006, 24 pp.

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A Great Lakes Program for Erosion and Sediment Control received

$5 million annually.

Desert Terminal Lakes provisions required the Secretary to transfer

$200 million in mandatory funds to the Bureau of Reclamation to

pay for providing water to at-risk natural desert terminal lakes; the

Bureau may not use these funds to purchase or lease water rights.

Matching funds were authorized to demonstrate local conservation

and economic development through a Conservation Corridor

Demonstration Program on the Delmarva Peninsula.

Conservation Funding

Conservation spending combines discretionary spending in six accounts (all

administered by NRCS) and mandatory funding for more than a dozen programs

through the Commodity Credit Corporation administered by NRCS and FSA. This

section summarizes the FY2008 appropriations actions by Congress to date and the

FY2007 appropriations. The Administration’s FY2008 request was based in part on

funding changes that would occur if Congress enacted the Administration’s farm bill

proposals. FY2007 appropriations is operating under a continuing resolution

throughout the year which was enacted after the FY2008 request had been submitted.

Funding for emergency conservation programs, discussed in an earlier

subsection, is not included in the data compilations for annual appropriations unless

noted, because these programs are almost never funded in these acts; they are

commonly funded in emergency supplemental appropriations acts. Emergency

funding in FY2006 was substantial, totaling more than $1 billion, because of

significant and widespread hurricane damage. Additional emergency funding was

attached to legislation providing supplemental funding for the war in Iraq.

FY2008 Appropriations

The President signed H.R. 2764, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008,

on December 26, 2007. This legislation provides funding through the remainder of

FY2008 for all federal agencies except the Defense Department, which was funded

in separate appropriations legislation. The amounts listed in the remainder of this

paragraph can be compared with earlier House and Senate actions, discussed below.

Among the discretionary conservation programs, this legislation provides $840

million for Conservation Operations, $30 million for Watersheds and Flood

Prevention Operations, $20 million for Watershed Rehabilitation, $51 million for

Resource Conservation and Development, and $2 million for Healthy Forests.

Among the mandatory programs, it limits EQIP funding to $1,000 million and

provides no mandatory funding for Watershed Rehabilitation; it also extends

authorization of the Farmland Protection Program, the Wildlife Habitat Incentive

Program, and Ground and Surface Water Program to March 15, 2008, at their

authorized FY2007 funding levels.

The House bill (H.R. 3161, H.Rept. 110-258), which passed the House on

August 2, 2007, and the Senate-reported bill (S. 1859, S.Rept. 110-134), which was

reported on July 19, 2007, both proposed to increase funding for discretionary NRCS

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programs, rejecting some of the Administration’s proposed reductions. More

specifically, the House bill would have increased total FY2008 discretionary NRCS

funding by $127.6 million (nearly 15%, to $979.4 million) and the Senate bill would

have increased discretionary funding by $120.3 million (about 14%, to $972.1

million), compared to FY2007 levels; the Administration’s request would have

reduced total discretionary funding by $27.1 million to $824.8 million (-3%).

Among the discretionary programs, the House provided $851.9 million and

Senate provided $863.0 million for Conservation Operations, which was an increase

from FY2007 ($763.4 million) and more than the Administration requested ($801.8

million). Both bills identify numerous earmarks, and specify that they be funded in

addition to, rather than a part of, state allocations. Among other programs, the

Administration requested no funding for Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations

(the same as FY2007), but the House provided $37.0 million and the Senate $33.5

million. Also, both bills identified numerous earmarks. The House bill provided

similar funding levels as FY2007 for the Watershed Rehabilitation Program ($31.6

million), whereas funding levels were lower in the Senate bill ($20.0 million) and in

the Administration’s request ($5.8 million). Both the House and Senate bills

provided similar funding levels as FY2007 for Resource and Conservation

Development ($52.4 million and $53.2 million, respectively), while the

Administration had requested to reduce funding to $14.7 million by consolidating

RC&D program coordinators and altering their work responsibilities. The Senate bill

provided $2.5 million to the Healthy Forests Reserve Program, the amount requested

by the Administration, while the House bill provided no funding.

Both bills proposed few changes to mandatory programs. The mandatory

conservation programs administered by the NRCS would have been $2.0 billion in

FY2008 if reauthorized without further change. The Conservation Reserve Program

(CRP), administered by the FSA would increase by $26 million to $2.0 billion. Both

the House and Senate bills recommended limiting EQIP spending below the

authorized level of $1,270 million; the House bill limited spending to $1,017 million,

while the Senate bill limited it to $1,000 million.

Pending Omnibus Farm Bill

The Senate passed its version of the farm bill on December 14, 2007 (H.R.

2419, amended), by a vote of 79 to 14, after adopting a wide-ranging manager’s

amendment (S.Amdt. 3855). This legislation would create a new Conservation

Stewardship Program that combines features of the Conservation Security Program

(CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program, provide level funding for most

existing conservation programs while increasing overall conservation funding by

almost $4.8 billion between FY2008 and FY2012, and create several new programs

(mostly within existing programs).

The House completed action on its version of the farm bill (H.R. 2419), passing

it by a vote of 231 to 191 on July 27, 2007. H.R. 2419 would authorize all programs

through FY2012. Numerous options for conservation provisions had been offered

and considered as the legislation moved through the House; perhaps the most

prominent were H.R. 1551, introduced by Representative Kind on March 15, 2007

and H.R. 1600, introduced by Representative Cardoza on March 20, 2007, each with

CRS-19

more than 100 cosponsors. However, the House leadership strongly endorsed the bill

reported by the committee, and the conservation title, as reported by the Agriculture

Committee and modified by a chairman’s mark, passed the House without further

amendment. This legislation would increase overall funding for conservation and

add a number of small new programs to the conservation portfolio while eliminating

very little from the current effort.

Prior to acting on farm bill legislation, both agriculture committees had held

hearings on conservation earlier in 2007; the Senate Agriculture Committee held an

oversight hearing on the Conservation Security Program and Environmental Quality

Incentives Program on January 17 and a general conservation hearing on May 1,

while the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit,

Energy, and Research held a hearing on the status and performance of conservation

programs on April 19. At these hearings, interest groups expressed support for or

opposition to many of the proposals that had emerged, and addressed questions such

as how funding constraints might be addressed in conservation policies and

programs. Several reports from USDA agencies and others, such as the strategic plan

for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), which administers

most of the conservation programs, to guide its activities until 2010, helped to inform

the farm bill debate.31 The most-widely discussed conservation topics include (in no

particular order) the following:

How to better integrate conservation efforts with commodity

policies through green payments or by other means.

Whether overall conservation funding should continue to grow,

and how any additional funds should be allocated among the many

conservation programs, as well as whether certain locations (states,

regions, or watersheds), producers, or resource concerns should

receive a higher priority, and what levels of funding would eliminate

backlogs of interest in program participation.

Whether funding for working lands in production, generally referred

to as green payments and perhaps modeled after the CSP, should be

expanded, both because of the likely need for more funding if

international trade talks are successfully concluded, and because

such an effort would complement the many land retirement

conservation programs.32

How to make energy policies that encourage expanded crop

cultivation for biofuels compatible with land retirement and other

conservation goals.

How to address issues new to the farm bill or of growing

importance, such as endangered species and invasive species.

Natural Resources Conservation Service, Productive Lands Healthy Environment:

Strategic Plan 2005 -2010, May 2006, 100 pp. The plan states that NRCS will follow three

overarching strategies: the watershed approach; market-based approaches; and cooperative

conservation (a Bush Administration initiative).

For more information on the green payment concept, as well as a comparison of views

about it from the United States and Europe, see CRS Report RL32624, Green Payments in

U.S. and European Union Agricultural Policy, by Charles Hanrahan and Jeffrey A. Zinn.

CRS-20

Whether the federal conservation agencies have the capacity to:

deliver new or expanded programs; add new mission areas; or

undertake enlarged responsibilities.

What conservation programs actually accomplish, including how

efficient and effective are they, how enduring are their benefits, how

do they serve various sectors of agriculture and various regions of

the country, and how are accomplishments monitored and measured.

How to condense and coordinate the plethora of programs,

simplifying them for potential participants.

What role(s) voluntary partnerships, such as the Bush

Administration’s Cooperative Conservation Initiative, might play in

agriculture conservation policy.33

What opportunities there are to use more market-based approaches

— establishing ecosystem markets or selling carbon credits, for

example — in conservation.

Whether opportunities to apply conservation efforts at larger scales,

such as ecosystems or watersheds, should be expanded.

What role compliance should play in future conservation policies.

The Senate Farm Bill Conservation Title

The Senate Agriculture Committee marked up and reported its version of the

farm bill, S. 2302, on October 25, 2007 (S.Rept. 110-220). Other then adoption of

a chairman’s mark, the conservation title was altered little by the committee. The

following week, the Senate adopted a manager’s amendment (S.Amdt. 3500) that

combined S. 2302 with a revenue bill that would fund increased farm bill spending

above the budget baseline (S. 2242), and adopted it as a substitute to H.R. 2419. The

Senate than passed this version of the farm bill on December 14, by a vote of 79 to

14, after adopting a wide-ranging manager’s amendment (S.Amdt. 3855). Almost

all programs are authorized from FY2008 through FY2012.

Section 2001 would add definitions for beginning farmer and

rancher, Indian tribe, socially disadvantaged farmer, non-industrial

private forest land, and technical assistance.

Section 2101 and Section 2201 would amend the compliance

provisions for highly erodible lands and wetlands, respectively,

to provide a second level of review for compliance violations.

Section 2301 would move programs in the conservation title, by

combining the Healthy Forests Reserve Program with other land

retirement programs, and placing EQIP within the new

Comprehensive Stewardship Incentives Program.

Section 2311 would reauthorize the Conservation Reserve

Program at the current enrollment level of 39.2 million acres, and

make numerous other changes, including expanding eligible lands,

extending the wetland subprogram, and adding wildlife provisions.

Section 2312 would create a new Flooded Farmland Program

within the CRP for closed basins in the Northern Great Plains.

More information on this initiative can be found at [http://cooperativeconservation.gov].

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Section 2313 would authorize a new Wildlife Habitat Program

within the CRP to improve habitat on enrolled lands under contracts

of up to five years.

Section 2321 would reauthorize the Wetlands Reserve Program,

allowing up to 250,000 acres to be enrolled each fiscal year. It

would authorize a new Wetland Reserve Enhancement Program and

clarify how compensation is to be calculated.

Section 2331 would move the Healthy Forest Reserve Program to

the conservation title and allow it to use permanent easements.

Section 2341 would create a new Comprehensive Stewardship

Incentives Program covering EQIP and CSP. It lists program

purposes, defines “resource of concern,” limits the number of

concerns that can be identified in a single portion of a state, and

requires implementing regulations to be issued within 180 days of

enactment.

Section 2356 would reauthorize the Environmental Quality

Incentives Program and make numerous amendments, such as

adding provisions to address forestry and forest fire topics, and

making invasive species management, pollinator habitat, and

predator deterrence practices eligible for incentive payments.

Section 2358 would reauthorize Conservation Innovation Grants

under EQIP and encourage participation by specialty crop producers.

Section 2359 would reauthorize the Ground and Surface Water

Conservation Program under EQIP at the current funding level and

authorize the program to work at a regional scale.

Section 2360 would authorize a new effort under EQIP to assist

producers who choose to convert to organic agriculture.

Section 2361 would authorize $165 million for a new Chesapeake

Bay Watershed Conservation Program within EQIP.

Section 2371 would reauthorize the Farmland Protection Program

and make numerous clarifying changes to the program.

Section 2381 would reauthorize the Grasslands Reserve Program,

allow certain lands already enrolled in the CRP to be transferred into

this program, and make numerous clarifying changes to the program.

Section 2391 would authorize the new Conservation Stewardship

Program, which would replace the Conservation Security Program.

Participants would be required to meet stewardship thresholds for

the resource concerns they agree to address. It requires more than 13

million acres to be enrolled into the program annually, at an average

cost of $19 per acre.

Section 2392 would extend the Conservation of Private Grazing

Land Program through FY2012.

Section 2393 would extend the Wildlife Habitat Incentives

Program, increase the percentage of funds that can be used for long

term projects from 15% to 25%, and give priority to projects that

support the goals of fish and wildlife conservation plans.

Section 2394 would extend the Grassroots Source Water

Protection Program through FY2012 at $20 million annually.

Section 2395 would extend the Great Lakes Basin Program for

Soil Erosion and Sediment Control through FY2012.

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Section 2396 would extend the Farm Viability Program through

FY2012.

Section 2397 would create the Discover Watershed Demonstration

Project in the Upper Mississippi River basin to demonstrate

approaches to reducing the loss of nutrients into surface waters.

Section 2398 would create an Emergency Landscape Restoration

Program to rehabilitate agricultural lands after natural catastrophic

events, and authorize the purchase of flood plain easements.

Section 2399 would authorize a new grant program at $20 million,

the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, to

encourage public access for wildlife-dependent recreation.

Section 2401 would provide funding for the Conservation Security

Program ($2.317 billion to administer contracts entered into before

the date of enactment of this farm bill); the Conservation

Stewardship Program (no amount specified); the Farmland

Protection Program ($97 million annually through FY2012); the

Grasslands Reserve Program (a total of $240 million through

FY2012); and EQIP ($1.27 billion in FY2008 and FY2009, and $1.3

billion in FY2010 through FY2012).

Section 2402 would reauthorize the regional equity provisions,

increasing the aggregate minimum amount each state is to receive

annually from $12 million to $15 million per year.

Section 2403 would improve access to conservation programs by

providing that 10% of conservation funds be used to assist beginning

and socially disadvantaged producers; by expanding the use of

conservation innovation grants; requiring the Secretary to offer

higher levels of technical assistance to beginning and socially

disadvantaged producers, where possible; and by allowing the

Secretary to implement cooperative agreements with entities who

assist beginning and socially disadvantaged producers.

Section 2404 would make numerous changes that address the

delivery of technical assistance and the use of third party providers.

Section 2405 would alter the administrative requirements for

conservation programs, by making such changes as requiring the

Secretary to develop a streamlined application process, encouraging

partnerships using at least 5% of conservation program funds, and

requiring monitoring of program performance by applying the Soil

and Water Resources Conservation Act.

Section 2406 would require the Secretary to develop a framework to

facilitate participation in environmental services markets, and

would require three reports to Congress on implementation.

Section 2501 would address state technical committee operations.

Section 2601 would reauthorize the Agricultural Management

Assistance Program through FY2012 and make Idaho an eligible

state.

Section 2602 would authorize a new Experienced Services

Program under which the Secretary can enter into agreements to

hire older qualified individuals to help administer conservation

programs.

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Section 2603 would update and clarify the provision of technical

assistance, and reauthorize the Soil and Water Resources

Conservation Act.

Section 2604would authorize such sums as necessary to carry out the

Small Watershed Rehabilitation Program.

Section 2605 would amend the Resource Conservation and

Development Program, requiring a coordinator for each council.

Section 2606 would amend provisions related to the National

Natural Resources Conservation Foundation.

Section 2607 would extend the Desert Terminal Lakes Program

through FY2012.

Section 2608 would deny crop insurance benefits on land parcels

greater than 5 acres converted to crop land from native sod after the

date of enactment.

Section 2609 states that producers who participated in a study of

aquifer recharge potential in the Texas high plains would not lose

program eligibility.

Section 2610 would require the Department of State to cover

expenses incurred by EPA employees working on international

treaties.

Section 2611 would allow the Bureau of Reclamation to carry out

certain salinity control activities in the Colorado River Basin.

Section 2612 would authorize $5 million annually from FY2007

through FY2012 to carry out the Great Lakes program for soil

erosion and sediment control.

The House Farm Bill Conservation Title

The conservation title passed by the House evolved in many ways since the

House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and

Research marked up a “discussion draft” May 23, 2007. The House discussion draft

was prepared before key decisions about the amount of funding available for

conservation programs had been made, so it included two options for funding levels

for several programs.

The full committee marked up the farm bill over three days, July 17 through

July 19, 2007. It reported this bill on July 23, 2007 (H.Rept. 110-256. pt. 1). The

House adopted a manager’s amendment and an en bloc reserve fund amendment,

both of which amended the conservation title by altering policies and programs, and

increasing some funding levels. However, it rejected three other amendment that

would have altered the conservation title, including the Kind amendment, which

would have made numerous changes enhancing funding and adding a new forestry

program.34 All programs in the bill are authorized from FY2008 through FY2012,

For a more detailed review of the steps leading to House passage, see CRS Report

RL33934, Farm Bill Proposals and Legislative Action in the 110th Congress, by Renée

Johnson.

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unless noted. As passed by the House, the conservation title includes the following

provisions.35

Section 2101 would reauthorize the Conservation Reserve

Program at the current enrollment level of 39.2 million acres, and

make numerous other changes, including adding a new transition

option for transferring land from a retiring land owner to a beginning

or socially-disadvantaged land owner.

Section 2102 would reauthorized the Wetland Reserve Program at

3,605,000 acres, set a goal of enrolling 250,000 acres each year

(including up to 10,000 acres of land in flood plains using

easements), define eligible and ineligible lands, and create a new

Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Program..

Section 2103 would reauthorize the Conservation Security

Program, defining ineligible lands, the terms and contents of

conservation security contracts, requiring the identification of

priority resources of concern in each state, authorizing stewardship

enhancement payments (limited to $150,000 over five years),

limiting technical assistance to 15% of annual spending, and

prohibiting new contracts after September 30, 2007 (see Section

2401 for additional funding information).

Section 2104 would reauthorize the Grasslands Reserve Program,

at an additional 1,340,000 acres, allow certain lands already in the

CRP to be enrolled in this program instead, create a new Grasslands

Reserve Enhancement Program, and authorize private organizations

and states to hold and enforce easements.

Section 2105 would reauthorize and make numerous changes to the

Environmental Quality Incentives Program, including adding

forestry provisions, reserving at least 5% of the funds each year for

beginning producers and 5% for socially-disadvantaged and limited

resource producers, setting priorities for evaluating applications,

reauthorizing and increasing funding for the Conservation

Innovation Grants subprogram (including providing specified

amounts for a pilot program for comprehensive conservation

planning, an air quality program, and a program for organic

producers) (see Section 2401 for additional funding information).

Section 2106 would create a new Regional Water Enhancement

Program under EQIP (replacing the current Ground and Surface

Water Conservation Program), reserve up to 50% of the funding for

5 specified priority areas, authorize activities based on partnership

agreements, and authorize $60 million annually in mandatory

funding to implement this program.

Section 2107 would reauthorize the Grassroots Source Water

Protection Program and increase funding to $20 million annually,

plus a one-time “infusion” of $10 million to remain available until

spent.

For a brief overview of all the provisions in H.R. 2419, see CRS Report RL34228,

Comparison of the House and Senate 2007 Farm Bills, by Renée Johnson et al.

CRS-25

Section 2108 would reauthorize the Conservation of Private

Grazing Lands provisions.

Section 2109 would reauthorize the Great Lakes Basin Program

for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control.

Section 2110 would reauthorize the Farmland Protection

Program, renaming it the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program,

adding a certification process for participating states and agreements

with eligible entities (all to be reviewed every three years) (see

Section 2401 for additional funding information).

Section 2111 would reauthorize the Farm Viability Program.

Section 2112 would reauthorize the Wildlife Habitat Incentive

Program, increasing the percentage of funding for long term

agreements from up to 15% to up to 25% (see Section 2401 for

additional funding information).

Section 2201 would reauthorize the Agricultural Management

Assistance Program, making Hawaii and Virginia eligible, and

providing that 50% of the funding made available go to NRCS for

the program’s conservation purposes (and 10% to organic

certification, and 40% to risk management).

Section 2202 would amend the Resource Conservation and

Development Program, specifying that each Council is to have a

coordinator designated by the Secretary.

Section 2203 would reauthorize the Small Watershed

Rehabilitation Program, providing $50 million annually in

mandatory funding and $85 million annually is discretionary

funding.

Section 2301 would authorize a new Chesapeake Bay Program for

Nutrient Reduction and Sediment Control, specifying the

components of plans and projects, and providing mandatory funding

of $10 million in FY2008, increasing each year to $55 million in

FY2012.

Section 2302 would create a new Voluntary Public Access and

Habitat Incentive Program, specifying priorities and authorizing

$20 million annually in discretionary funding.

Section 2303 would create a new Muck Soils Conservation

Program, defining eligible land, limiting payments to between $300

and $500 per acre annually, and authorizing discretionary

appropriations of $50 million annually through FY2012.

Section 2401 would specify funding levels for many conservation

programs: for the CSP, it would provide $1.454 billion for FY2007

through FY2012 and $1.927 billion for FY2007 through FY2017for

current contracts, and $501 million in FY2012 and $4.646 billion for

FY2012 through FY2017 for contracts signed after October 1, 2011

(effectively prohibiting new contracts from FY2008 until that date);

for the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, it would provide

$125 million in FY2008, increasing each year to $280 million in

FY2012; for EQIP, it would provide $1.25 billion in FY2008,

increasing each year to $2.0 billion in FY2012; and for WHIP, it

would provide $85 million annually through FY2012.

CRS-26

Section 2402 would amend several provisions authorizing third party

technical assistance providers related to rates charged, review of

technical assistance specifications, concerns of specialty crop

producers.

Section 2403 would establish a new Cooperative Conservation

Partnership Initiative using 10% of funds authorized for the CSP,

EQIP, and WHIP each year, and working with eligible partners.

Provisions establish evaluation criteria, project priorities, and

preferential enrollment.

Section 2404 would increase the authorized level for the regional

equity provision to $15 million annually.

Section 2405 would authorize implementation of a new simplified

application process for individuals who wish to participate in

conservation programs within one year of enactment.

Section 2406 would authorize an annual report on specialty crop

producer participation in conservation programs, and require the

initial report within 180 days of enactment.

Section 2407 would authorize and fund the development of

performance standards that could be used to promote market-based

approaches to conservation, and authorize a total of $50 million in

discretionary funding, to remain available until expended.

Section 2408 would amend the membership and responsibility

provisions for state technical committees and specify the use of

subcommittees.

Section 2409 would authorize payment limits of $60,000 per year

for any single conservation program and $125,000 per year for all

conservation programs, excluding payments for WRP, Farm and

Ranchland Protection Program and Grassland Reserve Program

contracts.

Section 2501 would add income from affiliated packing and

handling operations in determining the application of the adjusted

gross income limitation on eligibility for conservation programs.

Section 2502 would encourage the Secretary to use voluntary

sustainability practices guidelines for specialty crop producers

when implementing conservation programs.

Section 2503 would require the Secretary to designate at least one

farmland resource information center using at least $400,000 per

year but no more than 0.5% of the funds provided for the Ranch and

Farmland Protection Program.

Section 2504 would authorize a pilot program for a four year crop

rotation contract with a peanut producer, and provide mandatory

funding of up to $10 million per year.

Bush Administration and Other Recommendations

While considering the farm bill in committee and on the floor of both chambers,

Congress considered recommendations from many sources, including the Bush

Administration. The Administration offered 10 conservation farm bill proposals to

Congress on February 2, 2007, then submitted legislative language that would

implement them in late April. These proposals come out of a process that started

CRS-27

with more than 50 listening sessions, followed by issuing four broad theme papers,

including one on conservation and the environment. The Administration estimated

that its conservation proposals would cost $7.8 billion above current conservation

spending over 10 years. The proposals (and additional costs) are as follows:

Consolidate six financial assistance programs that provide

conservation cost-sharing funds and technical assistance in a revised

EQIP, and create a new sub-program to deal with water quality and

quantity issues on a regional basis (an increase of $4.25 billion).

Expand enrollment from 15 million acres today to 96 million acres

in 10 years and simplify the CSP (an increase of $500 million).

Consolidate the three easement programs (an increase of $900

million).

Increase the focus of the CRP on environmentally sensitive lands,

with priority for enrolling land to produce biomass crops.

Increase the WRP enrollment cap to 3.5 million acres, and combine

it with the floodplain easement program (an increase of $2.125

billion).

Expand conservation compliance to include “sod saver” to

discourage conversion of grasslands into crop land.

Designate 10% of financial assistance for each conservation program

to socially disadvantaged and beginning producers.

Encourage the development of private environmental markets to

supplement and compliment conservation programs ($50 million).

Repeal regional equity provisions requiring a minimum amount of

conservation funds go to every state to increase allocations for the

most meritorious program areas.

Consolidate the two emergency conservation programs.

In addition, many interest groups who represent widely varying perspectives.36

presented to Congress recommendations for changes to conservation policies and

programs. Recommendations ranged from general principles to very specific changes

and possible legislative language, and from changes limited to a specific farm bill

title or program to those involving multiple farm bill titles. Conservation was among

the most active farm bill topics, attracting an especially large number of

recommendations.

For a brief introduction identifying many of these proposals, see CRS Report RL33934,

Farm Bill Proposals and Legislative Action in the 110th Congress, by Renée Johnson.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.