Transcript of Press Conference

on Conservation Provisions of the Farm Bill

Washington, D.C.

Monday June 3, 2002

Jim Little, Administrator of FSA; J.B. Penn, Under Secretary of Agriculture

for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services; Mark Rey, Under Secretary of

Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment; and Bruce Knight, Chief,

NRCS, at 6/3/02 press conference.

MR. QUINN: “Today we'll be discussing the conservation provisions of the Food Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002. Our guests today are Mark Rey, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment; J.B. Penn, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services; Bruce Knight, chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service; and Jim Little, Administrator of the Farm Service Agency.
 
“We'll begin our discussion this morning with an opening statement by Under Secretary Mark Rey. Mark?
 
MR. REY: “Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I will make some brief remarks, and then all of us here will be ready to take questions from those of you out there listening.
 
“The Bush administration is strongly committed to providing the tools and resources for environmental stewardship and conservation of working lands to ensure that the land remains both healthy and productive. And I believe that this farm bill does that.
 
“The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 represents an unprecedented investment in conservation on America's private lands, nearly $13 billion over the next six years. The bill emphasizes conservation on working lands. It provides the most dramatic growth in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The new farm bill provides more than $5.5 billion over six years.
 
“Additionally, the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program increases to $360 million over six years under the new farm bill.
 
“The Conservation Security Program will provide payments for producers who have historically practiced good stewardship on their agricultural lands and incentives for those who want to do more.
 
“The authorization for the Conservation of Public Grazing Lands, the CPGL program, is up to $60 million a year. The new farm bill also permanently authorizes the Resource Conservation and Development Program to promote protection of natural resources and improvement of local economies.
 
“In addition, land retirement programs, such as the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetland Reserve Program, have significant increases in their acreage caps. The new farm bill provides for several other programs to protect working farmland, including the Farmland Protection Program and the Grasslands Reserve Program. The Farmland Protection Program will have nearly $600 million over six years. A request for proposals for $50 million in funding was just published in the Federal Register. Check out our website for details.
 
“The new Grasslands Reserve Program will have a quarter of a billion dollars in mandatory spending to enroll up to two million acres of farmland.
 
“Finally, the new farm bill includes several watershed-based programs, including the Small Watershed Rehabilitation Program, the new Grassroots Source Water Protection Program, the Great Lakes Basin Program, and the Conservation Corridor Demonstration Program on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay.
 
“Along with this unprecedented investment in the future of conservation on private lands comes the challenge of getting the job done. We are working in many areas to make information available and to get moving on farm bill implementation.
 
“The Department and its agencies have established farm bill websites that contain a wealth of materials designed to inform producers. We have already met with many producer groups and other interest groups to go over the provisions of the farm bill and to let them know what we are doing to implement the bill.
 
“We're already working to get the needed rules in place as quickly as possible, and we want to keep these rules simple. When it comes to regulations, this administration believes that less is more.
 
“We are expediting the regulatory process for programs that have no changes or minimal changes from the current law. Other programs, including the new Conservation Security Program, will go through the formal rulemaking process, including a period of public comment. In any event, we will make the rulemaking process fully collaborative.
 
“One key to getting the job done is to stay flexible and delegate as much authority as we can so that there is as much local control as possible.
 
“That completes my remarks, and so now we'll be available for your questions. Thank you.
 
MR. QUINN: “We'll begin our questions now. Our first question will come from Ron Hayes with the Oklahoma Agrinet in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and standing by should be Dan Looker of Successful Farming.  Go ahead, Ron.
 
QUESTION: “Good morning, Larry and Secretary Rey, and I understand Bruce Knight and Dr. Penn also are on line with us today. I wanted to ask for a little bit of detail about what you're actually thinking of trying to put this thing together regarding the Conservation Security Program. It seems like--obviously this was a program that was greatly desired by Secretary--or by Senator Harkin and by some of his colleagues in the Senate. It was agreed to in the conference, and there's a substantial amount of money in this program. But it seems like it is predicated on practices that have already been done, and somebody's going to have to judge what is good and what is bad as far as these practices in order to start paying out this money.
 
“How are you going to put this program together?
 
MR. REY: “The Conservation Security Program, as the largest new program in the conservation title, is the one that we're going to reach out as broadly as possible to solicit views from as wide a range of interests as possible as we move forward. Fortunately, the program doesn't kick in until fiscal year 2003, so we've got the time to do it right. But this is one where we're going to accept and solicit a lot of comments from a wide range of people. And, yes, when we finally do get to the rulemaking stage, we will have to make those difficult determinations as to what kinds of practices deserve what level of support.
 
MR. QUINN: “Thank you, Ron.
 
“Dan Looker, Successful Farming in Des Moines, is our next questioner, followed by Colleen Callahan. Dan, go ahead, please.
 
QUESTION: “Good morning to all of you. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
 
“I wondered if you could give us a little better idea what the timetable would be for the regulations, the new regulations for the Conservation Security Program, and also if there are any practices that might not be approved for tier one of the Conservation Security Program. The law has a pretty long list, and it appears that many good practices the people are already using would be approved, at least for that first level.
 
MR. REY: “I’ll ask Bruce to tell us where we're at right now in pulling together the effort to implement this provision.
 
MR. KNIGHT: “The first order, though, for us is the timeline for the existing book of business that we have to do for implementation in 2002. So we'll focus first primarily on getting the EQIP monies moving, working closely with FSA on everything having to do with the other aspects of the farm program. Then we'll be moving forward with CSP. And so we really don't anticipate the ability to start going out for comment in the regulatory process until we're into fiscal year 2003. At that point in time, we'll start to be able to make those determinations as to what falls into tier one, tier two, tier three, and so there's going to be a lot of opportunity for that collaborative process that Mark spoke about earlier.
 
MR. QUINN: “Our next question comes from Colleen Callahan, WMPD, Peoria, Illinois, who's also president of the NAFB, followed by Wayne Falda. Good morning, Colleen.
 
QUESTION: “Good morning, Larry, and thank you, gentlemen, for this opportunity and for sharing your time this morning.
 
“My question relates to the CREP program. In this area of Illinois, it has been determined that this is really kind of the epicenter of the number of acres for the CREP program. How will the new farm bill under the conservation area affect CREP acres and the utilization of those acres, particularly for those who have found such great value to it in Illinois?
 
MR. REY: “I'm going to ask Jim Little to respond to that and have Bruce add anything that he wants thereafter.
 
MR. LITTLE: “Well, the CREP program, as you know, has been an extremely valuable program for conservation and for the Department of Agriculture. The Secretary has been extremely supportive of it and has taken every opportunity she can, has been able to, to promote it even further. And as you know, the CRP program under which the CREP was born does provide additional acreage from the 36.4 to 39.2 million acres.
 
“As we go through the regulatory process, we'll, you know, work to determine exactly how much of the CREP will be utilized. But it is a program that we feel is extremely beneficial because it creates a partnership not only with private landowners but with the public in general. So we will try to do whatever we can to expand CREP's role in conservation.
 
MR. QUINN: “Thank you, Colleen. Our next question will be from Wayne Falda from the South Bend Tribune in Indiana, and Joe Gangwish will be standing by. Wayne, go ahead, please.
 
QUESTION: “Thank you very much. I did want to follow up on Dan Looker's question regarding the timetable for implementing the conservation features. I take it from the response that there may be several months before--correct me if I'm wrong--before some of the local NRCS offices will get an answer on when they can start taking applications.
 
MR. REY: “Not for the programs for which there's funding for fiscal year 2002. We're getting those programs and that's funding out the door now, and that's got to be our first priority because that's what Congress directed us to do first.
 
“The Conservation Security Program, as well as a few others of the new programs, do not have funding for 2002, and therefore, we have the luxury of taking a little longer to sort out what these programs should look like, particularly the new ones like CSP.
 
“I also want to say that given the intense level of Congressional interest in the Conservation Security Program, I think it's inevitable that we're going to spend some time talking with Senator Harkin, Senator Lugar and with the House conferees and Agriculture Committee members as we move forward with this program as well to make sure that what we're coming up with is a good reflection of what they had in mind.
 
“So for a number of these programs we will be moving--we are moving aggressively now, programs that have 2002 funding. For those others that we have a little more time with, we're going to take that time to make sure we do it right.
 
MR. QUINN: “Joe Gangwish, KRVN, Lexington, Nebraska will be our next questioner, and he will be followed by Darrell Smith.
 
“Joe, go ahead, please.
 
QUESTION: “All right. Thanks, Larry. And good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for being with us this morning.
 
“My question would center around how the conservation provisions will benefit ranchers. We're a large cow calf area out here in Nebraska. Is there any breakdown on what benefits would be best for ranchers out there?
 
MR. REY: “There are a couple of programs that have been created in this conservation title that I think will be especially beneficial to ranchers. The new Grasslands Reserve Program, for instance, I think will materially assist ranchers in helping keep family ranches in family hands and out of developers plans.
 
“In addition we've seen an expansion of the EQIP program with a special emphasis on assisting in the development of manure management plans, and with the work that we're doing along with the grazing community, and EPA to deal with confined animal feeding operations and animal feeding operations. So those are two of the most notable programs where ranchers will benefit directly from this new conservation title.
 
MR. QUINN: “Darrell Smith, Farm Journal, based in Illinois, will be the next questioner, followed by Cyndi Young. Darrell, go ahead, please.
 
QUESTION: “Thank you and good morning. There's a lot of interest in carbon sequestration and documenting the amount of sequestration that occurs under various conservation practices, and I wondered if there was anything in this farm bill, any particular programs or anything to provide for scientific study and learn more about the carbon sequestration process and how much we sequester and so forth.
 
MR. REY: “We have some ongoing research at the Department on just these questions, and one of the things that we'll be looking at as we develop the Conservation Security Program, as well as some of these other programs, is what benefits we're providing for carbon sequestration.
 
“Additionally, I think if you look at the energy title of the farm bill, which is not the subject of today's interview, but nevertheless an important component of the farm bill, you'll find that there is some support and funding for additional research in this area as well.
 
MR. QUINN: “Cyndi Young of Brownfield Network will be our next questioner, and she'll be followed by P.J. Griekspoor. Cyndi, go ahead, please.
 
QUESTION: “Thank you, Larry, and thank you, gentlemen, very much. Regarding distribution of funding for these various programs in the conservation title, do we see any particular regions or commodities favored over the others?
 
MR. REY: “I don't think so. I think that one of the principal benefits of the financial support provided in the conservation title is that it has the opportunity to reach the agricultural community broadly across all regions, and across all commodities and sectors of the industry.
 
“I think that if anything, it provides the opportunity, particularly with some of the new programs, to reach some of the agricultural sectors that have heretofore been somewhat under represented in the conservation assistance that the Department has provided.
 
MR. QUINN: “P.J. Greikspoor, Wichita Eagle in Kansas will be our next questioner, followed by Ed Slusarczyk. P.J., go ahead, please. P.J., go ahead please.
 
QUESTION: “Thank you, Larry, and thank you, gentlemen for being with us here today. My question is also regarding the Grassland Reserve Program, noting the timetable probably means that we won't see much happen in that program in terms of rules and regulations either until fiscal year 2003 if I'm right. But at that time, is this a program that takes grazing land out of actual grazing use like CRP, or is this a program that pays for the conservation of grazing land as our Kansas farmers have been doing on the tall grass prairie for years?
 
MR. REY: “It is for the protection of working grazing lands through the purchase of easements or other sorts of cost-share arrangements. And you're right, it is a program like the Conservation Security Program that does not contain funding for fiscal year 2002, and again, that will give us the chance, since it's a new program, to get our regulations written, get some broad consultation with the agricultural and grazing community, so that when we do launch this program with funding in 2003, we've got it right.
 
“I think this is a particularly important program, particularly in parts of the country like the inter-mountain west, where the development pressure is resulting in privately-owned ranch lands and grazing lands being converted to subdivisions and ranchettes. I think this program gives us an opportunity, a very needed opportunity to reach these landowners and to provide some assistance and encouragement to them in keeping their family ranches as ranches and not subdivisions.
 
MR. QUINN: “Ed Slusarczyk with Ag Radio Network in Utica, New York is next, followed by Joe Roybal. Ed, go ahead, please.
 
QUESTION: “Okay. Thank you, Larry, and good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for being with us. I heard you mention that there will be some educational programs connected with letting people know what's in this farm bill in conservation. As you may know, here in the Northeast, we don't use conservation federal funds very much, and the reason for it is farmers are not aware of it and (neither are) commissioners of agriculture. I guess they draw a paycheck whether they do any conservation education or not. They don't seem to push conservation. Here at the network, with 136 stations, we've offered all of the commissioners in the Northeast (time), and the only ones who have taken advantage of our publicity is Maryland, and the others don't even answer our letters when we say we'd like to run a series of programs about conservation.
 
“Now, there are funds in some of these provisions for Secretaries of Agriculture and commissioners in the states to educate farmers, and they don't bother using them. Are you going to put any pressure on these commissioners to follow up some of the offerings in this farm bill?
 
MR. REY: “I think the programs in this farm bill are good enough that we're not going to have to pressure people to work with us to secure their adoption more broadly across the landscape. When I just look at the increase in EQIP, the increase of the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program and the increases in the Farmland Protection Program, as well as the new authority to issue innovation grants through EQIP for innovative conservation practices, and I have to believe that this farm bill will be the one that breaks through regionally and brings a lot more interest and participation in New England and other historically under represented regions of the country.
 
MR. QUINN: “Joey Roybal of Beef Magazine based in Minnesota will be our next questioner, followed by Judy Stratman . Joe, go ahead, please.
 
QUESTION: “Great. Good morning. Perhaps this question is a little bit premature given where we're at in the process here, but the Conservation Reserve Program says that it will allow for managed haying and grazing, including the harvest of biomass. Can you tell me what the framework will be for managed? What will determine that?
 
MR. REY: “Let Jim Little address that question, Joe.
 
MR. LITTLE: “Well, like you mentioned, it may be premature to be saying exactly how it's going to be working because we will also be going through the regulatory process and getting feedback and input from the community. We do have some stakeholder meetings that we're having tomorrow on conservation. We'll be having follow-up sessions as well. And this is an area that always gets a lot of high interest, particularly from the haying and grazing perspective on CRP. So we'll be looking at it very closely to see exactly how this one will be implemented.
 
MR. QUINN: “Judy Stratman from WNAX, Yankton, South Dakota will be next. And we're going to go back to the top of the list and continue back down again as we have time. Judy, go ahead with your question.
 
QUESTION: “Good morning, gentlemen. My question has to do with carbon sequestration, and in general, the implementation of new practices, whether or not they're going to be determined, the participation is going to be determined by practices of the past or of the future for those who are already involved in conservation?
 
MR. REY: “I think we'll let Bruce take a shot at this one, Judy.
 
MR. KNIGHT: “One of the things I really want to stress here is that when you look at some of the opportunities in the future and you look at some of the opportunities offered by a program that a lot of folks had some questions on in the Conservation Security Program, that's really an opportunity to help give support to working lands.
 
“And while we've got probably a year before we're really out at the point where we're starting to implement that program, keep in mind that the traditional tool chest of conservation programs and opportunities continue in the meanwhile, and are very much in there, in place. And CSP is only intended to complement that.
 
“So with EQIP many of the things that you're looking for, waste management, opportunities for grassland management and grazing systems, all those opportunities continue to reside with our current cadre of practices. Before we get to the kind of innovative things that may be out there in the future with a program like CSP, that maybe we're able to provide long-term opportunities for you on carbon sequestration and many of those things.
 
“But keep in mind, even the work like carbon sequestration really is complementary to what happens when you have good conservation practices going on the ground, whether that be CRP, EQIP, Managed Grazing Systems.
 
MR. QUINN: “Ron Hayes, Oklahoma Agrinet will be up next, followed by Dan Looker. Ron?
 
QUESTION: “Yes, Larry. I wanted to ask a question. We heard a lot of discussion during the farm bill debate regarding EQIP and the fact that there were so many requests for money, that there was a backlog of requests that we didn't have enough funding for. The money that you now have available, do you think will be able to take care of the needs say within the next year and get caught up to date on requests for EQIP funding?
 
MR. REY: “Well, the amount of money that was made available will certainly get us a long way toward that goal, so I think you're going to see a significant improvement in our performance in that regard.
 
MR. QUINN: “Dan Looker, Successful Farming, followed by Colleen Callahan. Dan, do you have another question, please?
 
QUESTION: “Yes, I do. I'm sorry to keep coming back to a program that may not be implemented until a year from now, but the Conservation Security Program is such an interesting program, it really is new and seems like a new concept. Senator Harkin was out here in Des Moines last week and talked a bit about it, and the impression I get is that he expects the program to be administered at great extent at the local or state level, and I believe farmers will have the opportunity to submit a plan that will have to be approved by NRCS, and I wondered if you could tell me how that approval process might take place, if you have some thoughts on whether that would be done at the county level, state level, or how do you foresee that taking place?
 
MR. REY: “Well, I think it's fair to say that we prefer, as much as possible, for these programs to be implemented at the local and county level with our cooperators in local and county government and the conservation districts. So I don't know that the Conservation Security Program will represent any sort of a new paradigm in that regard, but I don't think we've gotten far enough along yet to talk about exactly how the approval procedures would go, and I think it would be premature to start speculating on it until we have something in draft form that we can send out to people to get a reaction.
 
MR. QUINN: “Colleen Callahan, WMBD, Peoria, Illinois will be next, followed by Wayne Falda. Colleen?
 
QUESTION: “Thank you very much again, Larry. A follow up on my original question and much like that of Ron Hayes, when we talk about the CREP program and the success of its use here in Illinois, particularly around the Peoria area, and knowing from your response to my first question that there continues to be great support for the program, are there thoughts as to how much additional funding may be available for CREP or additional acres that possibly could be accepted?
 
MR. REY: “Do you have anything to shed some light on that question?
 
MR. LITTLE: “Well, I really don't have any specific comments to make other than, you know, the increase between the 36 and the 39 million additional acres. As far as the funding goes, it will just depend on the application. I really don't have any thoughts as to the amount of specific acreage that would go towards CREP. We'll be working closely with our partners, NRCS, in trying to determine what's best to get the most bang for the buck, so to speak, because this is a--we certainly can leverage a lot of conservation using a very small amount of CCC funds. So we'll just have to take a look how we can best leverage those monies.
 
MR. KNIGHT: “The Conservation Reserves Enhancement Program has been one of the larger success stories that you've had in the last few years of conservation work on the ground. What makes this such a fantastic program is you're taking a traditional CRP approach of idling acres. You married it with the Buffer Initiative, and then added a third component that had been missing at times, and that is a state match here and state participation in really rolling that out, and that's what's made the Conservative Reserve Enhancement Program such a dynamic and very attractive program, and you've got more and more states coming in with this sort of state match and state enhancement.
 
“So when we look at how much money is out there to move CREP in an individual state, we have, however, complicated it in that it's not just what are the resources that FSA has on the table, but also how much does the state bring or any of the other folks that are helping to match the outreach in the CREP program. But this has been a fantastic improvement in our conservation tool kit, and it has been a really innovative way of enhancing the kind of water quality benefits that are going on out there with the Buffer Initiative, and has really worked well in Illinois, Maryland, other states, to really put a buffer between our water bodies in the field and really improve the conservation outreach out there.
 
MR. QUINN: “Wayne Falda from the South Bend Tribune is next, followed by Joe Gangwish. Wayne, do you have another question?
 
QUESTION: “Yes. Thanks again. Just to follow along this line, do you see any weaknesses in the EQIP Program in prior implementation that you'd like to shore up?
 
MR. REY: “I don't know that there were so much weaknesses, as with some of the new authorities and opportunities provided in this farm bill. We can do a lot more across a lot broader conservation spectrum with the EQIP money than we could previously. So I'm very excited about the breadth of challenges that we can address with not only the increased funding, but the opportunity to provide innovation grants, as well as focus more of the effort on dealing with animal feeding operations.
 
“The real win that you've got out there right now with the new bill as it pertains to EQIP is that in some areas of the state folks felt underserved by EQIP because the priority areas had determined part of the areas in the state would have EQIP funding, others would be slightly left out because you just didn't have enough money to go around. Now because you've got a program with more financial resources, Congress saw fit to eliminate those priority areas, and so you'll see a little different satisfaction with delivering roll-out of the EQIP Program than you had in the past.
 
MR. QUINN: “Joe Gangwish, KRVN, Lexington, Nebraska is next, followed by Darrell Smith. Joe?
 
QUESTION: “Yeah, thanks again, Larry. There are still a few feed lots out in this part of country. Wondering if they qualify for EQIP funding. Can you tell us what the guidelines are for feed lots to qualify for the EQIP funding?
 
 MR. REY: “Yeah. Those are things that we're working on right now in terms of getting them out to the public, and I think that most feed lots will qualify in the way we're working on the direction right now, but the best bet for somebody who has a question is to contract the local NRCS district office, so that we can do a sort of a site-specific evaluation of whether that particular feed lot meets the requirements for EQIP funding.
 
MR. QUINN: “I think that's all the time we're going to have for questions today, but I do want to give Under Secretary Mark Rey any chance to make any closing statements or any of the rest of you here.
 
MR. REY: “The only thing I'd say in closing is that this is a very exciting time to be involved in working land conservation. The opportunity, the financial support and the enthusiasm that the Congress brought to the development of the conservation title of this farm bill provides us the best opportunity in all of our professional lifetimes. The challenge that we will meet is to make good on that opportunity in conservation programs that will serve us well for the next generation.
 
MR. QUINN: “Thank you, Under Secretary Mark Rey for Natural Resources and the Environment, J.B. Penn, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, Bruce Knight, Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Jim Little, Administrator, Farm Service Agency, for being with us today to talk about the conservation issues in the 2002 Food Security and Rural Investment Act.
 
“I'm Larry Quinn. Good morning from Washington.”

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