Climate mitigation does not deserve priority over other soil and water conservation goals notwithstanding the $20 billion earmarked for it, said two senior Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Tuesday. “I don’t feel bound by the amount of funding or the specific program allocation passed in the partisan (climate, health and tax) bill,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Glenn Thompson, the Republican leader on the committee.
Thompson and Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California shrugged aside the allocation of the money into four USDA stewardship programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase climate resiliency. At a conservation subcommittee hearing, they said lawmakers should consider the broad range of environmental and conservation goals at the USDA when writing the 2023 farm bill.
The USDA spends around $5 billion a year on land stewardship at present. The $20 billion would be released over a three-year period, beginning Oct. 1, and available for 10 years. Participation in the programs is voluntary and USDA routinely shares the cost of conservation “practices” or makes an annual payment to producers for reducing erosion or runoff from farms and feedlots. All sides agree the voluntary, incentive-based system should continue combating global warming.
“No one natural resource concern should be prioritized over another,” said LaMalfa, the senior Republican on the conservation subcommittee, after pointing to the impetus to “re-orient conservation programs more towards climate mitigation.”
“We want the conservation title to work for the producer and not only provide environmental outcomes but make economic sense,” said Thompson in listing farm bill goals. “Second, I will not prioritize climate over every other resource concern. Period.”
Thompson is in line to become chairman of the Agriculture Committee if Republicans win control of the House in the Nov. 8 elections.
Conservation and farm groups asked the Agriculture subcommittee to consider larger funding for stewardship programs — only half of applicants receive funding each year — and higher reimbursement rates for those who are accepted.
The climate, health and tax bill, enacted last month without any Republican support, “provides historic investments in these over-subscribed, voluntary and incentive-based conservation programs,” said Michael Crowder, president of the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD). “Although I do wish this funding could have been provided on a bipartisan basis, NACD looks forward to working with both sides of the aisle throughout the development of the 2023 farm bill to ensure this funding is allocated appropriately and a positive, long-term effect on conservation.”
Conservation funding from the law included $8.45 for the cost-sharing Environmental Quality Incentives Program, $3.25 billion for the Conservation Stewardship Program, $6.75 billion for the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, $1.4 billion for the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, and $1 billion for technical assistance.
Witnesses suggested revisions of the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays landowners an annual rent in exchanging for idling fragile cropland for 10 years or more. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said grazing encourages carbon sequestration and suggested there should be no penalty for pasturage on CRP land — a change in rules. The NACD said “only the most environmentally sensitive land,” and not prime farmland, was allowed into the reserve.
In the 2018 farm law, Congress lowered the annual payment on land entering the CRP to 85 or 90 percent of the average rental rate in the surrounding county, so the government would not compete with farmers for land. And it reduced USDA’s share of the cost that landowners would incur in managing the land.
“With all these costs going up, the program is not getting the same interest from farmers that it once did,” said Nicole Berg, president of the National Association of Wheat Growers. “Focusing on enrolling environmentally sensitive, highly erodible land on CRP should allow for protection of fragile lands at risk of erosion and allowing other lands to be farmed.”
Some 10 million of the 22 million acres now in the CRP entered through so-called general signups, when large tracts, including entire fields, can be offered. The USDA pays an average $81 an acre for land in the reserve, ranging from an average $51 an acre for general enrollment land to $197 an acre for “CREP” land, where state or private groups offer additional funding for land retirement, such as along waterways.
To watch a video of the hearing, click here.
To read the written testimony of witnesses, click here.