Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
No. 84
Wednesday, May 1, 2002 Page A-4
ISSN 1521-9402
News
Water Pollution
Farm Bill Agreement Would Provide $17 Billion for Conservation Programs
Slightly more than $17 billion would go toward conservation programs,
including wetlands protection and environmental quality incentives, under an
agreement reached by congressional negotiators on the six-year, $73.5 billion
farm bill, according to a summary released April 30.
House and Senate conferees announced an agreement April 26 on the bill (H.R.
2646), including what they said was an 80 percent increase in conservation
programs.
Title II, the conservation section of the bill, also contains a new initiative
called the Conservation Security Program, which was championed by Sen. Tom
Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Harkin described
the $2 billion program as "a new and innovative approach to providing
conservation support" for lands that are in production. The summary said the
program is for "maintaining and increasing farm and ranch stewardship
practices."
The inclusion of this new program was applauded by groups that favor more
sustainable agriculture practices.
"Enactment of a nationwide stewardship incentive program could well mark a major
turning point in the history of U.S. farm policy," Ferd Hoefner, Washington
representative for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said in a statement.
He told BNA the conservation program would be enacted as an entitlement program,
meaning that any farm operation that is eligible for the payments would receive
them. This differs from other conservation programs in this farm bill and
previous ones that have backlogs of applicants wanting to participate because
the caps have already been hit.
Increases in EQIP
Hoefner said this program has "higher conservation standards and goals" than
other programs in the farm bill, including the Environmental Quality Incentives
Program (EQIP), which saw a significant increase in funding under the conference
agreement.
The program is aimed at improving water quality nationally by encouraging
agricultural operations to undertake practices that minimize their impacts on
water quality. These could include building or creating buffer zones between
farmland and water resources to filter runoff.
Funding for the EQIP would increase to $11 billion, up from the existing $2
billion baseline contained in the 1996 farm bill. This boosts funding to about
$1.3 billion per year spread out over 10 years, up from the previous annual
authorization of $200 million.
The funds would be divided so that 60 percent goes to livestock operations,
while 40 percent goes to crop producers. In addition, the payment caps increased
significantly, according to Hoefner, from $10,000 per operation to $75,000.
Payouts to each farm operation would be limited to $450,000 over the six-year
life of the farm bill. The Senate version of the bill had capped incentives
program payments at $30,000 annually, while the House set the limit at $50,000
per year.
Hoefner said the resulting $75,000 annual cap was "an interesting way to split
the difference."
A coalition of drinking water and wastewater utilities and local elected
officials had urged Congress to put a stronger emphasis on conservation,
pollution prevention, and protection of water quality in the farm bill.
Specifically, the groups had recommended a significant increase in funding for
EQIP.
The recommendations were made in an April 19 letter to House and Senate
conferees of the bill. Signing the letter were the National League of Cities,
the United States Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Towns and
Townships, the American Water Works Association, the Association of Metropolitan
Water Agencies, the National Association of Water Companies, the Association of
Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, and the Water Environment Federation.
Farm groups applauded the agreement and in particular the increase to the
incentives program. The National Pork Producers Council, for example, said it
would go a long way "to help livestock producers of all sizes and types meet new
federal, state and local environmental rules."
CAFO Rule
Livestock operations anticipate higher operational costs from a final rule to be
issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in December imposing stricter
Clean Water Act controls on concentrated animal feeding operations.
The rule may subject more facilities to the regulations, which were proposed in
January 2001 (66 Fed. Reg. 2960; 10 DEN A-6, 1/16/01). The proposed rule would
extend Clean Water Act coverage beyond the holding facilities to the surrounding
fields where wastes from the operation are sprayed as fertilizer.
The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and other environmental groups lobbied
unsuccessfully during negotiations on the bill to have Congress maintain
conservation measures in the incentives program, which was first established
under the 1996 law.
For example, the 1996 law forbade the use of program funds to build animal waste
storage structures, Hoefner said. That prohibition was stripped in the 2002
bill, he said.
The payments, he said, can now be used by large livestock producers to build
waste lagoons, which are defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as a
conservation practice, he said.
"It's a pretty dramatic subsidy to the large producers," Hoefner said.
A spokesman for the Senate Agriculture Committee told BNA that while EQIP money
can be used for the construction of waste lagoons, the whole program was revised
to enable small and medium-sized producers access to the funds to help them
comply with Clean Water Act regulations. Without federal assistance, he said,
these operations might be driven out of business by the larger facilities.
He said the conference report tempers provisions from the House version that was
"wide open for the big guys" by putting the $450,000 cap in place and ensuring
that only one entity could qualify for it. The House version would have allowed
multiple operations under one corporate umbrella to get funding and would have
allowed facilities to apply for up to $200,000 in funding every two years. This
would have meant payouts of about $600,000 over the life of the law, the
spokesman said.
"The goal of EQIP is to get cleaner air and cleaner water," he said.
Dave Roper, president of the National Pork Producers Council, said in a
statement that a 3,444 head swine operation could incur initial capital costs of
$322,000 to implement the CAFO rules, based on EPA's estimates.
"Family owned or operated pork operations come in all sizes, and a large
proportion of them will need to be able to access public resources if they are
to remain economically viable while providing the American people with the
environmental benefits they seek," Roper said.
Other Conservation Programs
Other conservation programs in the farm bill agreement remain essentially the
same as the earlier law with some adjustments to caps and other minor details.
The Conservation Reserve Program would be funded at $1.517 billion and would
increase the acreage cap from 36.4 million acres to 39.2 million acres. This
program essentially pays farmers to take lands out of production for
conservation purposes. It was revised somewhat to allow farmers to use their
land for hay or grazing on a limited basis as long as it does not disrupt
wildlife.
The Wetland Reserve Program would be funded at $1.5 billion and increases the
acreage cap to 2.275 million acres from just over 1 million acres. It
essentially would allow for the conservation of about 250,000 acres of wetlands
per year.
Other conservation measures in the bill include:
$254 million for the Grassland Reserve Program to enroll up to 2 million acres
per years of virgin and improved pasture land,
$700 million for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program,
$275 million for the Small Watershed Rehabilitation Program,
$985 million for the Farmland Protection Program, and
$200 million to help conserve desert terminal lakes.
By Susan Bruninga