$5.4 Billion Per Year for Conservation Incentives on Working Lands

The amendment strikes the existing conservation Title II and replaces it with the following.

TITLE II -- CONSERVATION

SUBTITLE A -FARM, RANCH, AND FORESTRY PRESERVATION

Section 201. Farmland Protection Program

• Increases annual funding to acquire development rights from farmland in path of sprawling development to $100 million in FY'02, $200 million in FY'03, $350 million in FY'04, $450 million in FY'05, and $500 million in each of fiscal years 2006-2011.
• Instructs use of $10 million of these funds program to enhance farm viability and competitiveness by providing market development grants and technical assistance to protected farms.

Section 202. Socially Disadvantaged Farmers

• Provides mandatory funding for program to assist social disadvantaged farmers of $15 million. (Previously, funding was discretionary and averaged around $3 million per year).

SUBTITLE B: ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP ON WORKING LANDS

Section 211. Environmental Quality Incentives Program (provides incentives and cost-share assistance to farmers and ranchers to improve water quality and wildlife through conservation practices on working lands).

• Increases annual funding for EQIP to a total of $1.7 billion when fully phased in.
• Opens EQIP to non-industrial private foresters.
• Increases authorized amounts for each recipient to $30,000 per year and $150,000 in total and allows farmers to exceed payment limitations to share in the cost of digesters.
• Requires use of ranking index to determine enrollments to maximize environmental benefits and requires index to make special provisions to ensure enrollments by economically disadvantaged farmers. This system replaces prior prioritization system.
• Maintains requirement that half of funds be used to provide assistance to livestock
• Maintains current restrictions on using EQIP funds to support waste management facilities by large animal feedlots, but this provision allows funds to be used by such feedlots for technical assistance and land management practices. "Large" feedlots are defined by the Secretary but presently are defined as feedlots with more than 1,000 animal units - only 3% of all dairy farms.
• Instructs Secretary to attempt to dedicate $100 million annually each on innovative manure management, water conservation, pesticide and herbicide reduction with an emphasis on reducing direct human exposure, and managed grazing.
• Phases I up to $700 million for a watershed-based program to help landowners implement nutrient management, pest management, and soil erosion practices that protect drinking water supplies. These funds are to be spent in accordance with a locally developed watershed plan and allocated with recognition of state funding efforts.
• Creates a pilot program in 15 watersheds annually to improve water quality in cooperation with local water utilities.
• Of these watershed funds, targets up to $100 million annually for a pilot program in 5 impaired watersheds to provide incentives for agriculture producers to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous applications based on actual performance.
• Links state allocations to local input, monitoring, and education efforts.

SUBTITLE C: PRESERVATION OF WILDLIFE HABITAT

Section 221. Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program

• Increases funding for WHIP to $200 million for fiscal years 2002 and 2003, $350 million for FY'04, $450 million for FY'05, $500 million each for the fiscal years 2006-2009, $400 million for FY'10, and $200 million for FY'11
• Authorizes the use of the program to make incentive payments to farmers and authorizes 20% to be used for easements so long as these funds do not take cropland out of production.
• Priorities enrollments that benefit imperiled species.

Section 222. Wetlands Reserve Program

• Increases enrollment cap for WRP to not less than 250,000 acres in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 and not less than 250,000 acres in each of fiscal years 2004-2011.

Section 223. Conservation Reserve Program

• Increases enrollment cap for CRP from 36.4 million to 45 million acres.
• Reserves 7 million acres to enroll particularly sensitive lands through the continuous enrollment program and the conservation reserve enhancement program, but allows these acres to be used to enroll lands within the general CRP program if they have not already been used by 1998.
• Allows up to 3 million acres in permanent easements for critically important environmentally sensitive lands, including 1 million acres of isolated wetlands.
• Allows Secretary to transfer a permanent easement to a State or local government or a qualified nonprofit organization.
• Allows continuous enrollment of buffers whose width and vegetation is designed to provide significant wildlife or water quality benefits.

Section 224. Conservation of Private Grazing Lands

• Provides $20 million for each of fiscal years 2002-2011 in guaranteed funding for program to promote ecological health of grazing lands.
• Expands authority of program to provide incentive payments to landowners through 5-, 10-, and 20-year contracts in addition to cost-share payments.

Subchapter D -- Grassland Reserve and Enhancement Program

Section 225 - Grassland Reserve and Enhancement Program

• Establishes new program that uses contracts and easements to protect up to 3 million acres of environmentally critical grasslands, shrublands, and blufflands.
• Half of acres are to be protected with permanent easements and pay fair market value of easement.
• Half of acres are to receive incentive payments and cost-share assistance to enhance the environmental quality of the grasslands.
• Secretary to establish criteria to evaluate and rank applications.

SUBTITLE D: ORGANIC FARMING

Section 231. Program to Assist Transition to Organic Farming

• Authorizes $20 million for fiscal years 2002 and 2003, $40 million for fiscal year 2004, $40 million for fiscal year 2005, and $50 million for each of fiscal years 2006-2008 to assist organic producers and organic certification organizations in making transition from conventional to organic farming.
• Payments available to cover infrastructure capital costs, technical assistance, initial market losses, certification costs, and market development costs both by new and existing organic farmers.
• Payments to individual farm and ranch operators shall not exceed $10,000 per year.
• Creates a national organic certification program to reimburse producers for the cost of organic certification.

SUBTITLE E: FORESTRY

Section 241. Urban and Community Forestry

• Provides mandatory funding of $50 million for each of fiscal years 2002-2011 and authorizes to be appropriated an additional $50 million for each of fiscal years 2002-2011.

Section 242. Watershed Forestry Initiative

• Creates a program to provide financial assistance to enhance the quality of municipal water supplies and to encourage long-term sustainability of private forestland at $75 million annually. Funding must be matched equally by any non-federal source for each of fiscal years 2002-2011 to acquire permanent easements that promote watershed protection.
• Provides $25 million annually for fiscal years 2002-2011 to share with non-federal sources the cost of land management practices on non-industrial forestland that protect municipal drinking water supplies and other conservation purposes.
• Creates a program to make grants up to $10,000 to develop and implement regional and watershed-based conservation plans. Provides a total of $10 million annually for fiscal years 2002-2011 for the program.

SUBTITLE F: TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

Section 251. Conservation Technical Assistance

• Increases annual funding to $200 million for basic technical assistance.

Section 252. Reimbursement for Program Administration

• Directs the Secretary to reimburse NRCS for the cost of administering conservation programs including CRP, WRP, EQIP, FPP, and other conservation programs.

Section 253. Conservation Technical Assistance by Third Parties

• Authorizes USDA to contract with third parties to provide technical assistance to farm and ranch operators and establishes eight training centers at land grant colleges.

Section 254. Conservation Practice Standards

• Directs NRCS to revise and update standards to include measurable goals for enhancing natural resources and to recognize innovative practices.
• Requires revision of handbook within six months and thereafter every five years.

SUBTITLE F - MISCELLANEOUS CONSERVATION PROVISIONS

Section 261. Conservation Program Performance Review and Evaluations Creates a program to monitor the benefits of conservation programs.
Ensures privacy of data collected for evaluation and review purposes.
Authorizes funding of $10 million annually for FY'02 through FY'11.

Section 262. Great Lakes Basin Program for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control.

• Directs the Secretary, in cooperation with the Great Lakes Commission, to carry out the Great Lakes Basin Program for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control.
• Authorizes $10 million annually for FY'03 through FY'11.

Section 263. Regional Equity

• Directs the Secretary to revise compensation rules and selection criteria for all programs to ensure regional equity and recognize importance of enrolling some high value lands.

SUBTITLE H: CONSERVATION COORIDOR PROGRAM

Section 271. Conservation Corridor Program

• Allows states, local governments and tribes to submit plans to coordinate all federal agriculture and forestry conservation programs in critical areas, watersheds
• d corridors in an integrated manner with state and local programs.
• Approval of plans may guarantee specific program resources for any conservation program, and automatic enrollment and may include special practice criteria and compensation rates.
• Enrollments in plan must be of exceptional environmental value
• Non-federal interests must contribute 20% of overall costs of plan but Secretary may waive for good cause and a showing of extraordinary natural resource benefits

Subtitle I -- Funding Source and Allocations

Section 281. Funding for Conservation Funding

• Shifts $1.9 billion in each of fiscal years 2002 through 2001 for above detailed conservation programs from farm price and income support payments for grains, oilseeds and cotton. Does not affect dairy, sugar, tobacco or peanuts.
• This amounts to a 15% reduction. Commodity payments in the first five years will still average $12 billion, more than twice the payments in the first three years of the last Farm Bill before Congress added "emergency payments.
• Limits reductions to the ten percent of commodity recipients who would otherwise receive the greatest total payments under farm price and income support programs. (Because only 30% of all farms produce commodities and 90% of these farms are protected from reductions, reductions affect only 3% of all farms. These farms will still receive an estimated $6 billion per year in first five years, twice the level in the first three years of the last Farm Bill.)

Section 282. Minimum Guarantee of Conservation Funds by State

• Directs the Secretary to ensure that each State receives at a minimum the State's share of the $1.9 billion on the State's share of total agricultural market value of production, with each State receiving not less than 0.52 percent and not more than 7 percent of such amount annually.

Subtitle J -- Rural Development

Section 291. Expansion of State Marketing Programs

• Provides $10 million annually for FY'02 through FY'11 for federal-state market incentive payments.
• Directs the Secretary to transfer to state agriculture departments and other state marketing offices at least 10 percent of market development funds for development of local and regional markets, including farmers markets.

Representative Sherwood Boehlert: 202-225-3665
Representative Ron Kind: 202-225-5506
Representative Wayne Gilchrest: 202-225-5311
Representative John Dingell: 202-225-4071