Release No. 0227.02
Transcript
of
Press
Conference on Conservation Provisions of the Farm Bill
Mark Rey, Under
Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment
J.B.
Penn Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services
Bruce
Knight, Chief Natural Resources Conservation Service
Jim
Little, Administrator of the Farm Service Agency
Washington
D.C.
Monday, June 3,
2002
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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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