Order Code RL33556
Soil and Water Conservation: An Overview
Updated April 10, 2007
Jeffrey A. Zinn
Specialist in Natural Resources Policy
Resources, Science, and Industry Division

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Soil and Water Conservation: An Overview
Summary
Soil and water conservation topics are prominent in discussions of policy
options for the next farm bill, which Congress is expected to act on later this year.
Two omnibus conservation proposals have been introduced (H.R. 1551 and H.R.
1600), and many interest groups continue to offer policy recommendations ranging
from general concepts to specific legislative language. On January 31, 2007, the
Administration released its farm bill recommendations, including 10
recommendations for conservation.
The current farm bill, enacted in 2002 and generally expiring at the end of
FY2007, increased spending and expanded the scope of the conservation effort by
reauthorizing and amending many U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
conservation programs and enacting new ones. An example of increased spending
is the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (from $200 million annually before
FY2002 to $1.3 billion in FY2007); and an example of a raised enrollment ceiling
is the Wetlands Reserve Program (from 1,075,000 acres to 2,275,000 acres). Several
new programs also expanded the scope of conservation. For example, the
Conservation Security Program (CSP) provides payments to producers who address
natural resource concerns as part of their farm operation on so-called “working
lands.” Other new programs conserve grasslands, address surface and ground water
conservation needs, permit approved third parties to provide conservation assistance,
and encourage use of innovative conservation technologies.
Implementation controversies have arisen since 2002. One of these, how to
fully fund technical assistance in support of the mandatory conservation programs,
was resolved with legislation enacted in 2004 (P.L. 108-498). A second,
implementing the CSP, continues as Congress has repeatedly limited funding and
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the implementing agency, has
responded by limiting program eligibility to specified watersheds, instead of making
it available nationally.
Congress continues to monitor conservation topics. Oversight hearings were
held in earlier congresses, and continue under new leadership in both the House and
Senate Agriculture Committees. Conservation topics addressed at recent hearings
include endangered species, the Conservation Reserve Program, the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program, and the overall status of the conservation effort.
Conservation also was discussed during several field hearings held by the House
Agriculture Committee during 2006 to gather farm bill input.
Congressional appropriators influence conservation topics annually. The
Administration has submitted its FY2008 budget proposal, which will initiate this
year’s appropriations process. FY2007 funding is being provided for the rest of the
year under a continuing resolution. With one significant exception, conservation
funding under the FY2007 budget resolution generally is similar to actions in
FY2006 on appropriations, when Congress agreed to make cuts in several mandatory
programs, while rejecting cuts to discretionary programs that were proposed by the
Administration.

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Contents
Most Recent Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Evolution of Federal Resource Conservation Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Current Major Conservation Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Wetlands and Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Conservation Security Program (CSP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Technical Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Selected Other Conservation Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Watershed Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Conservation Compliance and Sodbuster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Farmland Protection Program (FPP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Emergency Conservation Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Water Quality Programs and Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Private Grazing Lands Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Grasslands Reserve Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Healthy Forests Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Air Quality Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Research and Technical Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Program Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Other Conservation Programs and Provisions in the 2002 Farm Bill . 16
Conservation Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
FY2008 Appropriations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
FY2007 Appropriations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2007 Farm Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Administration Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Introduced Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

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Soil and Water Conservation: An Overview
Most Recent Developments
Two omnibus conservation proposals have been introduced. H.R. 1551,
introduced by Representative Kind on March 15, 2007, has 86 cosponsors. H.R.
1600, introduced on March 20, 2007, has 78 cosponsors. The two bills include many
similar conservation proposals. Other proposals either have been introduced, or are
being discussed widely and are in various stages of development. On January 31,
2007, the Administration released its detailed set of recommendations for policy
changes in a 2007 farm bill. Its ten recommendations for conservation would:
! reauthorize and amend existing programs;
! consolidate similar programs;
! increase assistance to new and financially challenged farms;
! encourage a more market-based approach; and
! repeal the so-called regional equity requirement for spending.
Interest groups are expressing support or opposition to many of the proposals
that have emerged, and will likely continue to do so throughout the farm bill process.
Another document that may help to inform the farm bill debate is the strategic plan
for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), which administers
most of the conservation programs, to guide its activities until 2010.1
Congress has funded agriculture for the remainder of FY2007 under a
continuing resolution (P.L. 110-5). This resolution generally provides funds at the
lower of either the FY2006 level or the House-passed level in H.R. 5384. The
resolution rejected many reductions for discretionary conservation programs that the
Administration had requested, although it provides no funding for the Watershed and
Flood Prevention Operations Program. For mandatory conservation programs,
current law authorized funding to increase by almost $330 million in FY2007, but the
continuing resolution limits funding for some of these programs.
Evolution of Federal Resource Conservation Issues
Conservation of soil and water resources has been a public policy issue for more
than 60 years, an issue repeatedly recast as new problems have emerged or old
problems have resurfaced. Two themes — reducing high levels of soil erosion and
1 Natural Resources Conservation Service, Productive Lands Healthy Environment:
Strategic Plan 2005 -2010, May 2006, 100 pp. The plan states that NRCS will follow three
overarching strategies: the watershed approach; market-based approaches; and cooperative
conservation (a Bush Administration initiative).

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providing water to agriculture in quantities and quality that enhance farm production
— dominated public policy debates about conservation until 1985.
Congress responded repeatedly to these themes before 1985 by creating or
revising programs designed to reduce resource problems on the farm. They
combined voluntary participation with technical, educational, and financial assistance
incentives. By the early 1980s, however, concern was growing, especially among
environmentalists, that these programs were not adequately dealing with
environmental problems resulting from agricultural activities (especially off the
farm). Publicized instances of significant problems, especially high soil erosion rates
said to rival the dust bowl era, increased awareness and intensified the policy debate.
Congress responded, in a watershed event, by enacting four major new
conservation programs in the conservation title of the Food Security Act of 1985
(P.L. 99-198). One of these programs, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP),
greatly increased the federal financial commitment to conservation and targeted
federal funds at some of the most severe problems by retiring land under multi-year
contracts. The other three, Sodbuster, conservation compliance, and Swampbuster,
created a new approach to conservation by halting producer access to many federal
farm program benefits if they did not meet conservation program requirements for
highly erodible lands and wetlands. Three of these four programs (all except
Swampbuster) addressed soil erosion.
Provisions enacted in the next farm bill, the Food Agriculture, Conservation and
Trade Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-624), reflected a rapid evolution of the conservation
agenda, including the growing influence of environmentalists and other non-
agricultural interests in the formulation of conservation policy, and a recognition that
agriculture was not treated like other business sectors in many environmental laws.
Congress expanded this agenda to address groundwater pollution, water quality, and
sustainable agriculture, and allowed for the use of easements, as well as amending
existing programs. Amendments to the CRP reflect these changes; its earlier focus
on highly erodible land (and on stabilizing land prices) has been adjusted, especially
in the 1990 farm bill, to give greater emphasis to environmental concerns.

After congressional party control switched in 1994, conservation policy
discussions turned to identifying ways to make the conservation compliance and
Swampbuster programs less intrusive on farmer activities. This switch also appeared
to reduce the influence of environmental interests in developing conservation policy.
However, the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-
127) included a wide-ranging conservation title. The enacted bill gave considerable
attention to wildlife, and enacted new programs dealing with farmland protection,
grasslands, and other topics. It also funded many of these new programs as
mandatory for the first time, using the Commodity Credit Corporation as the funding
mechanism.2
The nature of the conservation effort continued to evolve after 1996, as reflected
in the provisions of the most recent farm bill, the Farm Security and Rural Investment
2 For an overview of conservation provisions in the 1996 farm bill, see CRS Report 96-330,
Conservation Provisions in the Farm Bill: A Summary, by Jeffrey Zinn.

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Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-171). Conservation themes in this farm bill included (1)
increasing overall funding; (2) creating new programs and addressing new issues; and
(3) providing more conservation on lands in production (called working lands),
primarily through the new Conservation Security Program. One factor that influenced
the decision to provide more funding was the large backlog of interested and
qualified applicants who could not participate because of insufficient funds. A new
factor in this farm bill was considering how funding for farm programs generally, and
conservation specifically, could be used to meet world trade obligations.3 Themes
for conservation and the broader context within which the farm bill is being debated
have continued to change, and are described below in the section on the 2007 farm
bill.
Current Major Conservation Activities
USDA’s conservation efforts have centered in recent years on implementing the
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), wetland protection programs, the
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and the Conservation Security
Program (CSP), and on providing technical assistance. Funding for the overall
conservation effort will have grown much larger by the end of FY2007, when many
of the farm bill programs authorized in the 2002 law expire. General trends in policy
for the suite of conservation programs between 2002 and 2007 include less emphasis
on land retirement and on land producing row crops, and more attention to
conservation on land in other agricultural uses and to livestock producers.
Recognizing this expanding effort, Congress in the 2002 farm bill required the
Secretary to submit a report to both agriculture committees about how to better
coordinate and consolidate conservation programs, including implementing
recommendations. That report was delivered in July 2006.4
Lead conservation agencies are the Natural Resources Conservation Service
(NRCS), which provides technical assistance and administers most programs, and the
Farm Service Agency (FSA), which administers the most expensive current program,
the CRP. These agencies are supported by others in USDA that supply research and
educational assistance, including the Agricultural Research Service, the Forest
Service, and the Economic Research Service.5 In addition, the conservation effort
involves a very large array of partners, including other federal agencies, state and
local governments, and private organizations, among others, who provide funds,
expertise, and other forms of assistance to the conservation effort.6
3 For detailed information about the enacted provisions in the farm bill’s conservation title,
including how they compare with prior law, see CRS Report RL31486, Resource
Conservation Title of the 2002 Farm Bill: A Comparison of New Law with Bills Passed by
the House and Senate, and Prior Law, by Jeffrey A. Zinn.
4 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Reform and Assessment of Conservation Programs: A
Report to Congress, submitted July 10, 2006.
5 For background information on the suite of current conservation programs administered
by NRCS and FSA, see CRS Report RL32940, Agriculture Conservation Programs: A
Scorecard, by Jeffrey Zinn.
6 One of many recent examples of such partnerships is the November 8, 2006 announcement
(continued...)

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Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
Under the CRP, producers can bid to enroll highly erodible or environmentally
sensitive lands into the reserve during signup periods, retiring it from production for
10 years in almost all instances. Successful bidders receive annual rental payments
and cost-sharing and technical assistance. Enrollment can total up to 39.2 million
acres; however, it is limited to 25% of the crop land in a county. Funding is
mandatory spending.7 FSA’s summary of participation through February 2007
shows almost 36.8 million acres were enrolled, with more than 4 million acres in
Texas and almost 3.5 million acres in Montana.8 Under the 2002 farm bill
provisions, only land that was cropped in four of six years preceding enactment is
eligible, thus making it more difficult to bring land into production primarily to gain
access to the program. It made a six-state pilot program to retire small, isolated
farmable wetlands into a national program, with an enrollment ceiling of 1 million
acres. Some economic uses of enrolled lands are permitted for the first time under
the 2002 farm bill, in return for a reduction in annual rental payments.
In August 2005, Secretary of Agriculture Johanns announced that USDA would
offer opportunities to reenroll or extend contracts involving more than 28 million
acres of land where current contracts expire between 2007 and 2010. Priority for
reenrollment was based on the relative ranking of the land using the Environmental
Benefits Index, with additional credit being given for land located in any of five
national priority areas or areas of significant adverse water quality or habitat impacts.
Contracts were offered in five groups. Land in the highest ranked group was
reenrolled for 10 years (with 15 years for restored wetlands), using updated market
rental rates to reflect changes in local market conditions. Land in the other four
groups received contract extensions at existing rental rates, with the second highest
group receiving five-year extensions and the lowest group receiving two-year
extensions. On March 9, 2007, FSA announced that 23.2 million acres would
reenroll or extend their contracts out of the 27.8 million set to expire between 2007
and 2010; the other 4.6 million acres will exit the program when contracts expire.
Approximately 1.4 million of the 4.6 million acres are located in major corn
producing ares.
USDA has estimated that the average erosion rate on enrolled acres has been
reduced from 21 to less than 2 tons per acre per year. Retiring these lands also
expanded wildlife habitat, enhanced water quality, and restored soil quality. The
annual value of these benefits has been estimated from less than $1 billion to more
than $1.5 billion; in some regions where participation is most concentrated, estimated
benefits exceed annual program costs, which have averaged about $50 per acre per
6 (...continued)
of a partnership with the Defense Department to promote land conservation near military
bases.
7 Mandatory spending means that funding levels (or for this program, acreage enrollment
levels) are authorized for each year in the 2002 farm bill and provided through the
borrowing authority of the Commodity Credit Corporation, with no annual appropriation
required.
8 Information on the CRP, including announcements and enrollment statistics, can be found
at [http://www.fsa.usda.gov/daft/cepd/crp.htm].

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year. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others have
criticized the potentially ephemeral nature of these benefits, because the landowner
is under no obligation to retain them after contracts expire, although they must follow
a conservation plan on any previously enrolled highly erodible land to retain
eligibility for many types of farm program payments.
In addition to general signups, FSA has enrolled more than 3.7 million acres
under several more targeted options. These acres, which count against the overall
enrollment cap of 39.2 million acres, can be enrolled continuously because they are
presumed to provide large environmental benefits. The three largest and oldest
options, all authorized in legislation, are:
! Continuously enrolling portions of fields with especially high
environmental values. Through February 2007, more than 2.6
million acres had been enrolled, with more than 465,000 acres in
Iowa. The most common conservation practice at these sites is
buffer strips along water bodies.
! A state-initiated enhancement program (Conservation Reserve
Enhancement Program, or CREP) under which states contribute
funds so that higher rents can be offered to potential participants in
specified areas where benefits will be concentrated. For example,
Maryland, the first state to implement a CREP, is enrolling stream
buffers, restored wetlands, and highly erodible lands along streams
in a portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Currently, 29 states
have one or more approved enhancement programs (3 states have
more than one program), and requests are pending from several
additional states. FSA data show that almost 920,000 acres had been
enrolled through February 2007.
! A program to enroll up to 1 million acres of small, isolated farmable
wetlands. USDA offers signup bonuses to attract participation.
More than 162,000 acres had been enrolled through February 2007,
with more than 71,000 of those acres in Iowa.
Other newer options, all established through administrative actions by USDA,
include enrolling up to 500,000 acres of floodplains to be planted to hardwood trees,
with allotments specified for states; enrolling up to 250,000 acres of field boarders
for northern bobwhite quail habitat; creating up to 250,000 acres of wetlands in non-
floodplain areas; and restoring up to 250,000 acres of long leaf pine, 100,000 acres
of duck nesting habitat, and 500,000 acres to meet priority needs in all states (with
allocations to each state). Finally, a new emergency forestry conservation program
was enacted in supplemental appropriations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina under
which FSA estimates that 700,000 acres will be restored.
NRCS provides technical assistance in support of CRP, but the 1996 farm bill
placed a cap on funding from the CCC that can be used to reimburse agencies for
services provided to deliver CCC programs. These funds have been insufficient to
pay all related technical assistance costs at times in recent years, and in FY1999,
NRCS briefly suspended CRP-related activities. NRCS now has a line item in its
budget for this purpose and received $76.4 million for FY2006. Congressional

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efforts to provide adequate technical assistance funding are discussed in the
subsection titled “Technical Assistance,” below.9
Wetlands and Agriculture
Swampbuster and the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) have been the main
agricultural wetland protection programs. (A 1 million acre program for small,
isolated farmable wetlands, added to the CRP in the 2002 farm bill, is discussed
above.) Under Swampbuster, farmers who convert wetlands to produce crops lose
many federal farm program benefits until the wetland is restored. Swampbuster
includes several exemptions from loss of benefits, such as any wetland conversion
that was initiated prior to December 23, 1985 (the date of enactment), or a wetland
that is created as a result of adjacent development. It allows a partial penalty,
meaning that fewer benefits are lost, once a decade.
Swampbuster has been controversial since it was first enacted in 1985. Some
from the farm community view wetland protection efforts on agricultural lands as too
extensive or overzealous. They observe that it protects some sites that appear to
provide few of the values attributed to wetlands. A portion of this group also view
these efforts as an unacceptable intrusion of government into the rights of private
property owners, or “takings.” Environmental and other groups counter that the
Swampbuster program has been enforced weakly and inconsistently, with few
violators losing farm program benefits. Controversies also arise over inconsistencies,
such as when adjoining states use different interpretations of rules that lead to
different determinations.
The only provision in the 2002 farm bill amending Swampbuster addressed a
concern raised by the farm community by prohibiting USDA from delegating the
authority to make wetland determinations to other parties. This concern was thought
to have been addressed when a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) making NRCS
responsible for all federal wetland determinations on agricultural lands under
Swampbuster (and the Clean Water Act’s Section 404 Program) was signed by
NRCS, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1994. But these agencies have
been unable to revise the MOA to reflect changes in the 1996 farm bill, and the
participating agencies have ended their discussions.
An additional issue for agriculture was raised in January 2001 when the
Supreme Court determined, in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County
(SWANCC) v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (531 U.S. 159 (2001)), that the Clean
Water Act’s Section 404 wetland permit program should not apply to certain
“isolated waters.” One result is that an estimated 8 million acres of agricultural
wetlands that had been subject to the Section 404 program will now be subject only
to Swampbuster. Some of these wetlands (up to 1 million acres) may be enrolled in
the new farmable wetland component of the CRP.10 The Supreme Court recently
9 For more information on CRP, see CRS Report RS21613, Conservation Reserve Program:
Status and Current Issues, by Tadlock Cowan.
10 For more information on this decision, see CRS Report RL30849, The Supreme Court
(continued...)

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issued decisions on two cases that will likely result in further adjustments to the reach
of the Section 404 program.11

The second wetlands program, the WRP, was established in the 1990 farm bill.
It uses permanent and temporary easements and long-term agreements to protect
farmed wetlands. Enrollment reached almost 1.9 million acres by September 30,
2006. Permanent easements account for more than 80% of the total, and have been
perfected on almost 1.5 million acres. The Secretary has the option of delegating the
administration of easements to other federal or state agencies with the necessary
expertise. Section 2201 of the 2002 farm bill reauthorized the WRP through FY2007
and increased the enrollment cap to 2,275,000 acres, while limiting enrollment to
250,000 acres per year. Funding is mandatory through the CCC. The Office of
Inspector General released an audit report in 2006 which found that “unwarranted
payments” had been made because of lax controls and poor appraisals.
On June 29, 2004, USDA announced a partnership initiative in Nebraska,
modeled after the CREP component of the CRP, to enroll almost 19,000 acres. This
may be a prototype for future initiatives. Another recent initiative taken
administratively will be used to create 250,000 acres of wetlands in non-floodplain
areas (see the CRP discussion, above).12 During FY2006, NRCS used a “reverse
auction” to enroll more than 3,500 acres under 16 new easements, at a savings to the
federal government of more than $800,000.
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)
EQIP encourages farmers to participate in conservation efforts by paying a
portion of the cost of installing or constructing approved conservation practices.
EQIP is a mandatory spending program which supports structural, vegetative, and
land management practices. Under provisions in the 2002 farm bill, annual funding
was authorized to increase from $200 million in FY2002 to $1.3 billion in FY2007,
with 60% of the funds each year to be used to address the needs of livestock
producers. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171) extended the
authorization through 2010, and delays funding it at $1.3 billion until 2010 (with
somewhat lower levels through FY2009) to create savings in the intervening years.
The total of all EQIP payments that a single entity can receive, combined, is
$450,000 during any six-year period. Contracts can be 1 to 10 years in length. A
conservation plan is required to participate. Producers with comprehensive nutrient
management plans (one type of conservation plan) are eligible for incentive
payments, and producers receiving funding for animal waste manure systems must
have these plans. Beginning and limited resource producers are eligible for
10 (...continued)
Addresses Corps of Engineers Jurisdiction Over “Isolated Waters”: The SWANCC
Decision, by Robert Meltz and Claudia Copeland.
11 For background on these two cases, see CRS Report RL33263, The Wetlands Coverage
of the Clean Water Act Revisited: Rapanos and Carabell.
12 For more information about wetlands, see CRS Report RL33483, Wetlands: An Overview
of Issues, by Jeffrey Zinn and Claudia Copeland.

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additional cost-sharing assistance. The implementing regulations list four national
priorities that guide decisions about which producers will receive assistance and help
optimize environmental benefits from this program. NRCS gathered public
comments about whether these priorities should be altered at a national listening
session on May 5, 2005 (and at state listening sessions).13
Three new subprograms were authorized under EQIP in 2002. First, a portion
of EQIP funds in FY2003 through FY2006 can be used to make grants for innovative
efforts, such as fostering markets for nutrient trading. NRCS first awarded grants in
FY2004, and most recently, in FY2006, it awarded almost $25 million to more than
150 recipients. Awards for FY2007 will be announced later in the year. Second,
additional funds, starting at $25 million in FY2002 and growing to $60 million
annually between FY2004 and FY2007, are authorized for a new ground and surface
water conservation program within EQIP. In FY2002, funds were provided to eight
states that are located on top of the high plains aquifer. The program has expanded
each year since, primarily to areas suffering from drought and water shortages.
According to the NRCS, it has been used to enroll more than 1.5 million acres under
more than 5,000 contracts, and obligations have totaled more than $130 million.14
Third, an additional $50 million is earmarked for the Klamath River basin in Oregon
and California, and was to be provided as soon as possible; both states received $4
million in FY2006. Since the program began, irrigation water management has been
applied on more than 62,000 acres and conservation practices on almost 110,000
acres.
Interest in participating in EQIP continues to far exceed available funds, even
with the large increases in authorized amounts. For FY2006, NRCS reported that it
received almost 78,000 approved applications, but was only able to sign some 41,000
contracts, which provided a total of $788 million in financial assistance. The
remaining almost 33,000 applications that would have provided $636 million in
financial assistance could not be funded.15
Conservation Security Program (CSP)
Section 2001 of the 2002 farm bill authorized the new Conservation Security
Program (CSP) to provide payments to producers on all agricultural land that was
13 This process has been criticized, especially by those from states who believe they should
be receiving a higher allocation. The Government Accountability Office reviewed how
EQIP funds are allocated among states in a recent report; Agricultural Conservation: USDA
Should Improve Its Process for Allocating Funds to States for the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program, September 2006, GAO-06-969.
14 NRCS and FSA produce fact sheets that briefly describe their programs; these fact sheets,
reached on the “programs” page on the NRCS website and on the “conservation” page on
the FSA website, are written primarily to inform potential program participants. The NRCS
website for programs is [http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs], and the website for FSA
programs is [http://www.fsa.usda.gov/dafp/cepd/epd].
15 Unfunded applications include those that were preapproved, deferred, eligible, pending,
and disapproved. For further information on EQIP, see CRS Report RS22040,
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP): Status and Issues, by Carol Canada and
Jeffrey Zinn.

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cropped in four of six years before 2002. Payments are based on which of three
levels of conservation is planned for and practiced. The lowest level allows contracts
of five years and annual payments up to $20,000; the middle level allows contracts
of 5 to 10 years and annual payments up to $35,000; the top level allows contracts
of 5 to 10 years and annual payments up to $45,000. The lowest level requires a plan
that addresses at least one resource concern on part of a farm; the middle level
requires a plan that addresses at least one resource concern on the entire operation,
and the top level requires a plan to address all resource concerns on the entire
operation.
Implementation has proven controversial, as the authorizing legislation created
this program as a true entitlement, but appropriators prohibited funding in FY2003,
then limited available funding each year subsequently. As a result, CSP has been
growing, but much more slowly than proponents would like. NRCS has responded
to these funding constraints in the way that it has implemented the program, limiting
signups to producers in designated watersheds. After three years of implementation,
the program has more that 19,000 participants in 280 watersheds. In these
watersheds, about 15.7 million acres has been enrolled in the program. Requested
funding for FY2008 is $316 million, an increase of $57 million from FY2007.
However, this increase will only be enough to support contracts on land that is
currently enrolled. Funding amounts mean that no additional land will be enrolled
in 2007, and the Administration request for 2008 would not fund enrollment of
additional land either. This program has another component new to the conservation
effort; it requires interested producers to complete an extensive self-assessment to
determine their eligibility, the first time it has required this amount of work from
producers interested in enrolling in conservation programs, as a prerequisite to
determining whether they will be accepted.16
The most recent congressional action to cap CSP funding was in reconciliation
legislation enacted February 8, 2006 (P.L.109-171), where it was capped at a total of
$1.954 billion from FY2006 through FY2010, and at $5.65 billion from FY2006
through FY2015. The budget resolution that set FY2007 spending provides only
enough funding to support existing contracts. These actions generated complaints
from program supporters, who view the current funding situation as being at odds
with the entitlement that was envisioned in 2002 and are looking for alternatives to
gain additional funding.17
Technical Assistance
NRCS provides technical assistance (TA) at the request of the landowner to
conserve and improve natural resources. TA includes professional advice on how to
16 The GAO issued a report in April 2006 in which it found that some producers were
receiving payments through multiple conservation programs for a practice. The program is
titled Conservation Security Program: Despite Cost Controls, Improved USDA Management
is Needed to Ensure Proper Payments and Reduce Duplication with other Programs (GAO-
06-312).
17 For more information, see CRS Report RS21739, The Conservation Security Program
in the 2002 Farm Bill, by Tadlock Cowan; and CRS Report RS21740, Implementing the
Conservation Security Program, by Tadlock Cowan.

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CRS-10
design, install, and maintain land management, vegetative, and structural practices
that provide conservation benefits. NRCS combines that advice with knowledge of
local conditions. TA is a component of most conservation programs, and NRCS
estimates that the cost of providing it in FY2005 amounted to about $1.45 billion.
Almost $1.0 billion of this total came from discretionary accounts. Two issues
associated with technical assistance have been whether NRCS has the capacity to
meet the growing demand as funding for programs increases, and how technical
assistance costs should be funded for mandatory programs.
Section 2701 of the 2002 farm bill allows NRCS to augment the technical
assistance capacity of the agency by allowing producers to use approved third parties
to provide this assistance. In the June 7, 2006, oversight hearing, NRCS Chief Bruce
Knight testified that more than 2,500 applications to perform these services had been
approved. These people had provided the equivalent of 520 staff years of support
between 2003 and 2006, at a cost of $163.5 million to the agency.
A subsection of Section 2701 of the 2002 farm bill provided that technical
assistance in support of each mandatory program come from the funding provided by
the CCC for that program. However, the Office of Management and Budget,
supported by the Department of Justice, issued an opinion in late 2002 that technical
assistance funding for mandatory programs remains limited under a cap that has been
placed in Section 11 of the CCC charter under prior law. Many in Congress had
thought that the language in the 2002 farm bill had resolved this issue, and they were
supported in this conclusion by a GAO opinion.
The Administration proposed in its FY2003, FY2004, and FY2005 budget
requests to address this limit by creating a new farm bill technical assistance account,
to be funded through annual appropriations. Congress rejected these proposals. In
FY2003 and FY2004, Congress prohibited using any of the discretionary funds from
Conservation Operations for technical assistance to implement any mandatory
programs. This prohibition, combined with a retention of the cap on CCC funds that
can be spent on administrative expenses, meant that some of the mandatory programs
donated funding for technical assistance to other programs, thereby leaving less
money available to implement “donor program” activities.18 In P.L. 108-498 (S.
2856), enacted December 23, 2004, Congress amended the 1985 farm bill to require
that technical assistance for each mandatory program be paid from funds provided
for that program annually, and that funding for technical assistance cannot be
transferred among the mandatory funded programs, starting in FY2005.
Other actions related to technical assistance may also attract congressional
interest. A GAO report, released in November 2004, might contribute to discussions
about the cost of providing technical assistance, which critics state is too high and
18 For example, in FY2003, the EQIP was authorized at $695 million. Of that total, $145
million was to be spent on TA, leaving $550 million for cost-sharing assistance to
producers. But EQIP was a donor program because an additional $107 million was diverted
from the program to pay for TA in other mandatory conservation programs, leaving $442
million for cost-sharing assistance for producers. Other donor programs in FY2003 included
the Farmland Protection Program, the Grasslands Reserve Program, and the Wildlife Habitat
Incentives Program; they contributed a total of just over $50 million.

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CRS-11
reduces the amount of money available for program participants.19 Second, in
February 2005, NRCS announced new policy guidance for technical assistance that
will establish national priorities. For FY2006, for example, these priorities centered
on helping producers comply more easily with environmental regulatory
requirements. Third, in September 2005, NRCS announced that it would initiate a
new pilot program for conservation planning in nine states, using a land-owner self-
assessment process. This assessment process appears to follow the process
developed for producers who are interested in participating in the CSP, and wish to
determine their eligibility.
Selected Other Conservation Activities
Federal conservation efforts include many additional activities and programs.
The list below includes only selected conservation activities in USDA that are
administered by NRCS and FSA.20 Other USDA agencies that make significant
contributions to the conservation effort include the Agricultural Research Service,
the Economic Research Service, and the Forest Service. Also, none of the many
other conservation programs that Congress has authorized but that are not being
implemented (in some cases, they have never been implemented) are included here.
(Please note that any recent funding issues associated with these programs are
discussed below in the “Conservation Funding” section.)

Watershed Programs. NRCS has worked with local sponsors for more than
50 years to construct more than 10,500 structures to prevent floods, protect
watersheds, and control erosion and sediments, among other things, under two
authorities, P.L. 534 and P.L. 566. Projects continue to be constructed under both
authorities, although at a slower pace, as appropriations have remained relatively
constant or declined in recent years. An Emergency Watershed Program responds
to emergencies created by natural disasters (see discussion of “Emergency
Conservation Programs,” below). Funding varies greatly from year to year, and is
provided in supplemental appropriations. Over the past decade, funding has averaged
$131 million per year, but in FY2005 it was $354.5 million, while in FY2007, there
is no funding.
A rehabilitation program for aging small watershed structures that are reaching
or have exceeded their design life was enacted in the Small Watershed Rehabilitation
Amendments of 2000 (Section 313 of P.L. 106-472). Section 2505 of the 2002 farm
bill authorized both mandatory and discretionary funding for the rehabilitation
program; mandatory funding rises from $45 million in FY2003 to $65 million in
FY2007, and discretionary funding can be as large as $45 million in FY2003 and
grow up to $85 million in FY2007. To date, appropriators have not provided any of
the mandatory funds and have provided only a portion of the discretionary funds.
The law permits federal funds to pay for 65% of rehabilitation projects, with the
19 Government Accountability Office, USDA Should Improve Its Methods for Estimating
Technical Assistance Costs, November 2004 (GAO-05-58).
20 General program information for the NRCS programs can be found at [http://www.nrcs.
usda.gov/programs], and for the FSA programs, general program information can be found
at [http://www.fsa.usda.gov/dafp/cepd/epd].

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CRS-12
remainder coming from local sponsors. Through FY2005, 132 rehabilitation projects
in 22 states had been initiated and 47 dams had been rehabilitated.
Conservation Compliance and Sodbuster. Under conservation
compliance and Sodbuster provisions, established in the 1985 farm bill, producers
who cultivate highly erodible land (HEL) are ineligible for most major farm program
benefits, including price supports and related payments. These benefits are lost for
all the land the farmer operates. A smaller penalty can be imposed on producers once
every five years if circumstances warrant. Producers who cultivate highly erodible
land using an approved conservation plan are not subject to conservation compliance.
Section 2002 of the 2002 farm bill prohibited USDA from delegating authority to
other parties to make highly erodible land determinations. Any person who had HEL
enrolled in the CRP has two years after a contract expires to be fully in compliance.
According to 1997 data compiled by NRCS, producers were actively applying
plans on more than 97% of the tracts of land that were reviewed. NRCS estimates
that soil erosion on these acres is being reduced from an average of 17 tons per year
to 6 tons per year. Critics, primarily from the environmental community, have
contended that USDA staff has not vigorously enforced these requirements, and cite
a recent GAO report to support some of their contentions.21 Others, primarily from
the agriculture community, have countered that the department has been too vigorous
at times.
Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D). RC&D provides
a framework for local interests to work together to improve the economy,
environment, and living standard in multi-county areas through RC&D Councils that
develop and implement plans. USDA provides technical and financial assistance to
councils, and helps them secure funding and services from other sources. Projects
are implemented to improve natural resources, address waste disposal needs, foster
economic development, and address other similar needs. According to NRCS, 375
areas encompassing more than 85% of the counties in the country have been
designated. This total includes the 7 most recent additions that were accepted from
28 applications during the summer of 2003; at the start of FY2006, an additional 32
applications were pending. Section 2504 of the 2002 farm bill permanently
reauthorized the program and made numerous technical and updating amendments.
Farmland Protection Program (FPP).22 The 1996 farm bill authorized
USDA to assist state and local governments to acquire easements to limit conversion
of agricultural lands to nonagricultural uses. Section 2503 of the 2002 farm bill
greatly increased mandatory funding from $50 million in FY2002 to a high of $125
million in FY2004 and FY2005. The definition of eligible land was expanded to
include rangeland, pastureland, grassland, certain forest land, and land containing
historic or archeological resources. Land enrolled in the program is subject to
conservation compliance. Certain private nonprofit organizations are made eligible
to receive these funds. Eligible lands must be subject to a pending offer. Through
21 Government Accountability Office, USDA Needs to Better Ensure Protection of Highly
Erodible Cropland and Wetlands, April 2003 (GAO-03-418).
22 USDA calls this program the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program.

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CRS-13
FY2006, almost $452 million had been obligated to acquire 1,561 easements on
almost 312,000 acres in 42 states. An additional 909 easements were pending on
more than 169,000 acres. States where the most funds have been obligated include
Maryland ($29.1 million), New Jersey ($25.7 million), and Pennsylvania ($25.2
million).23
Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP). WHIP was authorized in
1996 to use a total of $50 million in mandatory funds allocated to the CRP to provide
cost-sharing and technical assistance for conservation practices that primarily benefit
wildlife. This money was fully allocated in FY1998 and FY1999. Congress
provided $40 million in additional conservation funding beyond authorized levels for
FY2001, and USDA allocated $12.5 million to WHIP. Section 2502 of the 2002
farm bill provided $15 million in FY2002, growing to $85 million annually from
FY2005 through FY2007. It provided that up to 15% of the funding each year could
be used for higher cost-sharing payments to producers who protect and restore
essential plant and animal habitat under agreements of at least five years. Through
FY2005, almost 3.7 million acres had been enrolled under more than 24,000
agreements.

Emergency Conservation Programs. The two emergency conservation
programs are the Emergency Watershed Program (EWP) administered by the NRCS,
and the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) administered by the FSA. The
EWP provides technical and cost-sharing assistance for projects that restore land after
flooding and help to protect it from future damage. The ECP provides cost-sharing
and technical assistance to rehabilitate farmland damaged by natural disasters, and
to carry out emergency water conservation measures during severe drought.
Emergency programs are implemented most years when funding is provided in
response to natural disasters.
In the wake of a very busy hurricane season in 2005, and especially Hurricane
Katrina, Congress provided $300 million to the EWP and $199.8 million to the ECP
in Division B, Title I, of FY2006 Defense appropriations (P.L. 109-148, enacted
December 30, 2005). It also created a new Emergency Forestry Conservation Reserve
Program (EFCRP), modeled after the CRP and to be administered within it, and
appropriated $404 million for this effort. In June 2006, Congress passed additional
emergency supplemental funding (P.L. 109-234, enacted June 15, 2006), which
provided an additional $51 million to the EWP and $100 million to the new EFCRP,
as well as making several other changes to improve access to these emergency
programs. Emergency legislation, including additional funding for these two
programs, was attached to the FY2006 appropriation. After that legislation was not
enacted, supporters have attempted to attach this funding to other legislation.
Currently, it is included in the pending bill that would provide supplemental funding
for the war in Iraq.
Water Quality Programs and Initiatives. Pollution in ground and surface
waters has emerged as a major issue for conservation policy as more instances of
23 For more information, see CRS Report RS22656, Farm Protection Program, by Renée
Johnson.

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CRS-14
contamination in which agricultural sources play major roles have been identified.
Specific occurrences that have driven public interest and concern in recent years
range from a very large hog farm waste spill in North Carolina to the Pfiesteria
outbreak and fish kills in portions of the Chesapeake Bay, hypoxic conditions
creating a large “dead zone” in the central Gulf of Mexico, and smaller ones in other
coastal sites such as Chesapeake Bay. Questions are being raised about the extent of
the problems, the severity of the potential threat to human health, the adequacy of
government programs, and the contribution of agriculture. In some cases, producers
may have contributed to contamination even though they followed accepted
agricultural practices. Current agricultural conservation programs that address water
quality concerns center on EQIP, plus the Enhancement Program (CREP) and the
continuous enrollment option under CRP.
EPA announced a final revised rule for managing nutrient wastes from animal
feeding operations, as required under court order, on December 12, 2002. Large
operators are required to develop comprehensive nutrient management plans while
smaller operators are encouraged to develop them.24 Farm interests were generally
pleased because the rule affects fewer producers and costs less when compared with
earlier proposals. On February 27, 2004, NRCS released its National Animal
Agriculture Conservation Framework, which it describes as a blueprint for assisting
livestock and poultry producers with their voluntary efforts to deal with
environmental issues.25
Water quality problems are being addressed not only through the programs
discussed above, including the CSP and the Ground and Surface Water Conservation
Program under EQIP, but also through farm bill programs enacted in 2002, including:
! the Small Watershed Rehabilitation Program amendments enacted
in Section 2505;
! the Agricultural Management Assistance Program, reauthorized in
Section 2501, which provides $20 million annually between FY2003
and FY2007 and $10 million annually thereafter to 15 specified
states that have been chronically underserved by risk management
programs (subsequent amendments limit conservation funding to
$14 million annually);
! a program for the Great Lakes Basin states enacted in Section 2502;
! a Grassroots Source Water Protection Program, enacted in Section
2502; and
! a program for the Delmarva Peninsula enacted in Sections 2601-
2604.

In addition, USDA released a draft framework for addressing animal agriculture
conservation on September 9, 2003. The framework discusses how USDA can help
24 This rule was published in the February 12, 2003, Federal Register, effective April 14,
2003.
25 For more information on this rule, see CRS Report RL31851, Animal Waste and Water
Quality: EPA Regulation of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), by Claudia
Copeland.

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CRS-15
producers meet environmental regulatory requirements and promote new
opportunities while sharing knowledge and increasing accountability.
The 108th Congress enacted legislation (P.L. 108-328) authorizing funding for
the New York City Watershed Protection Program through FY2010. This program,
funded primarily by New York City, intensively installs conservation practices on
farms (and funds other actions in response to other types of land use) in watersheds
that provide drinking water to New York City to maintain a level of water quality that
precludes the need to build a very expensive new water treatment plant. The program
requires participation by at least 85% of the farms in the watershed. If that
participation level is not maintained, the city would be required to build a treatment
system, estimated to cost between $5 billion and $8 billion to construct and $200
million to $500 million annually to operate.
Private Grazing Lands Program. A voluntary coordinated technical and
educational assistance program was initially enacted in the 1996 farm bill to maintain
and improve resource conditions on private grazing lands. Section 2502 of the 2002
farm bill reauthorized the program through FY2007 with appropriations of $60
million annually. Appropriators continue to earmark a portion of NRCS’s
Conservation Operations funds for this effort annually, providing $27.2 million in
FY2006.
Grasslands Reserve Program. Section 2401 of the 2002 farm bill
authorized a new Grasslands Reserve Program to retire 2 million acres under
arrangements ranging from 10-year agreements to permanent easements. The law
permits the delegation of easements to certain private organizations and state
agencies. It provides up to $254 million in mandatory funding, a cap that was
reached in FY2006. Through FY2006, 3,166 participants had enrolled slightly more
than 1 million acres. Applications have greatly exceeded available funding; in
FY2005, 1,219 applications to enroll almost 385,000 acres were approved; this was
16% of the applications received. All the authorized funding was allocated by the
end of FY2005.
Healthy Forests Reserve. Title V of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act
of 2003 (P.L. 108-148) established a program from 2004 through 2008 to help
landowners to restore and enhance forest ecosystems using 10-year agreements, 30-
year easements, and easements up to 99 years. Participants are to be able to show
that participation will improve the likelihood that threatened or endangered species
will recover, biological diversity will improve, or additional carbon will be
sequestered. An interim final rule was issued and became effective on May 17, 2006.
In FY2006, 11 applications were approved to enroll almost 500,000 acres in pilot
projects in Arkansas, Maine, and Mississippi. An additional 60 applications were
processed but could not be funded.
Air Quality Activities. The 1996 farm bill created an interagency air quality
task force in USDA. The task force represented USDA on scientific topics such as
EPA’s proposals to revise National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ground-level
ozone and some particulates in 1997. USDA and EPA cooperate under a
Memorandum of Agreement signed in January 1998. More recently, federal agencies
have been discussing how agricultural practices and programs affect global warming,

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CRS-16
especially by sequestering carbon. On March 23, 2005, USDA announced that
NRCS and the National Forest Service would start to track the amount of carbon that
farmers would be sequestering. The 2002 farm bill did not amend air quality
provisions.26
Research and Technical Activities. Many agencies in USDA conduct
research and provide technical support. NRCS, for example, provides basic data
about resource conditions and characteristics through the soil and snow surveys and
the National Resources Inventory (NRI). Data collected for the NRI was used to
determine that total erosion on cropland declined 43% between 1982 and 2003,
according to a June 2006 press release. NRCS also does applied research through the
plant material and technical centers. Other agencies, both within USDA and outside,
conduct basic research that contributes to both understanding the problems that
conservation programs address and how effective these programs are in counteracting
these problems.
Program Evaluation. NRCS initiated the Conservation Effects Assessment
Project (CEAP) in 2003 to quantify the environmental benefits of conservation
practices installed through selected federal agricultural conservation programs.27 The
project, funded at about $8 million annually, is centered on developing approaches,
methodologies, and databases that can produce scientifically credible estimates of
these benefits. It draws from other activities throughout USDA and beyond, from
NRCS’s National Resources Inventory to watershed research conducted by the
Agricultural Research Service and the U.S. Geological Survey in the Department of
the Interior. CEAP has two components, a national assessment and more focused
watershed studies. Limited data from this effort may be available for a 2007 farm bill
debate.28
Other Conservation Programs and Provisions in the 2002 Farm Bill.
In addition to the programs described above, the conservation title of the 2002 farm
bill authorizes and funds several other programs.
! Partnerships and Cooperation in Section 2003 use up to 5% of
conservation funding, for both stewardship agreements with other
entities and special projects designated by state conservationists to
enhance technical and financial assistance to address resource
conservation issues.
! Administrative requirements are amended in Section 2004 to
provide incentives to beginning and limited resource producers and
26 For more information, see CRS Report 97-670, Agriculture and EPA’s Proposed Air
Quality Standards for Ozone and Particulates, by James McCarthy and Jeff Zinn.
27 NRCS has been releasing a national summary listing fiscal year conservation
achievements in recent years. This summary is limited to numerical totals, such as “applied
conservation buffers on nearly 225,000 acres” in the FY2006 summary, which can be found
on the NRCS website. However, these summaries to provide some sense of the breadth,
scope, and magnitude of NRCS’s conservation effort.
28 For more information, see Soil and Water Conservation Society, Conservation Effects
Assessment Project: Final Report, 2006, 24 pp.

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CRS-17
Indian tribes, and to protect the privacy of personal information
related to natural resource conservation programs and information
about National Resources Inventory data points.
! The Agricultural Management Assistance Program is reauthorized
through FY2007 in Section 2501, and provided an additional $10
million (for a total of $20 million) in mandatory funding annually
through 2007.
! A Grassroots Source Water Protection Program is authorized in
Section 2501, with annual appropriations of $5 million through
FY2007.
! A Great Lakes Program for Erosion and Sediment Control is
authorized in Section 2501, with annual appropriations of $5 million
through FY2007.
! Desert Terminal Lakes provisions are authorized in Section 2507 to
require the Secretary to transfer $200 million in mandatory funds to
the Bureau of Reclamation to pay for providing water to at-risk
natural desert terminal lakes; the Bureau may not use these funds to
purchase or lease water rights.
! Matching funds are authorized through FY2007 in Sections 2601-
2604 to demonstrate local conservation and economic development
through a Conservation Corridor Demonstration Program on the
Delmarva Peninsula.
Conservation Funding
Conservation spending combines discretionary spending in six accounts (all
administered by NRCS) and mandatory funding for more than a dozen programs
through the Commodity Credit Corporation administered by NRCS and FSA. This
section summarizes the FY2008 request submitted to Congress on February 5, 2007,
and the FY2007 appropriations. The FY2008 request is based in part on funding
changes that would occur if Congress enacted the Administration’s farm bill
proposals. FY2007 appropriations will operate under a continuing resolution
throughout the year.
Funding for emergency conservation programs, discussed in an earlier
subsection and below, is not included in the data compilations for annual
appropriations unless noted, because these programs are almost never funded in these
acts; they are commonly funded in emergency supplemental appropriations acts.
Emergency funding in FY2006 was substantial, totaling more than $1 billion,
because of significant and widespread hurricane damage. Additional emergency
funding that had been attached to FY2007 agriculture appropriations that Congress
did not complete action on has been attached to supplemental funding for the war in
Iraq, which has yet to be enacted.
FY2008 Appropriations. The Administration request included several
changes for both discretionary and mandatory funds. One major proposed reduction
in a discretionary account is to reduce funding in the Resource Conservation and
Development Program from $51 million in FY2007 to less than $15 million in
FY2008. The Administration proposes to consolidate RC&D program coordinators
and alter their work responsibilities, decreasing the total number needed in these

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CRS-18
positions from 375 (one for each RC&D district) to about 50. In FY2006, Congress
rejected Administration proposals to decrease funding; that request was for a smaller
reduction, to $25 million. A second proposed decrease is to lower the discretionary
funding portion of the Watershed Rehabilitation Program from $31 million to $6
million because this work should be primarily a local responsibility. A large
proposed increase in a discretionary account is to increase Conservation Operations
by $38 million from FY2007, to $801 million, primarily to fund increased pay costs,
but for several other purposes as well.
Among the mandatory conservation programs, the Administration proposes to
increase spending for the Wetlands Reserve Program from $264 million in 2007 to
$455 million in 2008 by raising the enrollment ceiling from 150,000 acres to250,000
acres (which is the maximum annual enrollment currently authorized). No funding
would be provided for four mandatory programs, although two of these, the Klamath
Basin and Grasslands Reserve programs, will have used their total authorized funding
by the end of FY2007, while funding for the Wildlife Habitat Reserve Program will
expire at the end of FY2007 and no funding would be provided for the Agricultural
Management Assistance Program, which is authorized at $10 million in FY2008.
The request does call for providing $97 million for the Farmland Protection Program,
even though authorization for appropriations expires at the end of FY2007. It also
calls for limiting Conservation Security Program spending to $316 million, and
would reduce budget authority for this program by $80 million over 10 years
(FY2006-FY2015). This would be the seventh reduction since the program was
enacted in 2002.
FY2007 Appropriations. Appropriations for the remainder of FY2007 are
being provided under a continuing resolution (H.J.Res. 20, P.L. 110-5), enacted
February 15, 2007. The resolution provides $763 million for Conservation
Operations, a decrease of $68 million from FY2006, and no funding for Watershed
and Flood Prevention Operations, a decrease of more than $74 million. It generally
rejects earmarks. Funding for many of the mandatory conservation programs remains
unchanged from FY2006; significant increases (more than $5 million) are for the
CRP and WRP (funding for both programs is set by acres that can be enrolled rather
than dollars provided), and there are no decreases. Earlier appropriations legislation
had proposed varied changes, as shown below in Table 1.
Each year before FY2007, appropriations bills have included reductions in
mandatory programs, although they are often different than the Administration
request for reductions. Starting in FY2003, the portion of the authorized mandatory
funding for conservation that Congress has allowed has declined each year from the
preceding year. It fell from 97.6% of the authorized amount in FY2003 to 87.2% of
the total in FY2006. Each of the mandatory programs is supported by different
constituencies who decry reductions from the funding commitment that was
established in the 2002 farm bill; those who support the reductions point out that
overall conservation funding has been rising, even after these reductions are taken
into account.

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CRS-19
Table 1. FY2007 Funding for Mandatory Conservation Programs
(dollars in millions, unless noted otherwise)
Authorized
Admin.
House Bill
Senate Bill
Continuing
Level: 2002
Request (H.R. 5384) (H.R. 5384)
Resolution
Program
Farm Billa
Environmental Quality
$1,270
$1,000
$1,087
$1,031
$1,017
Incentives Program
Conservation Security Program
$373
$342
$280
$373b
$259
Wildlife Habitat Incentives
$85
$55
$55
$63
$43
Program
Wetlands Reserve Program
250,000 acres 250,000
144,766
250,000
$264
acres
acres
acres
Farm and Ranch Lands
$97
$50
$50
$58
$74
Protection Program
Ground and Surface Water
$60
$51
$51
$54
$51
Small Watershed Rehabilitation
$65
$0
$0
$0
$0
Program
Ag. Management Assistance
$14
$0
$6
$14
$0
Source: CRS, using Senate Appropriations Committee and Congressional Budget Office data. See also CRS Report
RS22243, Mandatory Funding for Agriculture Conservation Programs, by Jeffrey A. Zinn, for authorized funding
and limits on mandatory conservation programs.
a. Figures in the FY2007 authorized column represent how much are currently available, including reductions made by
the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171).
b. Based on CBO scoring, which differs from Administration figures.
2007 Farm Bill
Farm bill considerations are in the formative stages in Congress. Agriculture
committee chairs in both chambers have stated that they will attempt to complete the
conference on this legislation by September 30, 2007. Congress is growing more
active in anticipation of this debate, with numerous hearings. A few of these
hearings have focused on conservation topics; for example, the Senate Agriculture
Committee held an oversight hearing on the Conservation Security Program and
Environmental Quality Incentives Program on January 17, 2007. Most of the
hearings have been more general, and observations or recommendations about
conservation topics have been offered by witnesses at many of them.
Numerous groups have developed and presented to Congress recommendations
for changes to conservation policies and programs. These range from general
principles to very specific changes and possible legislative language, and from
changes limited to a specific farm bill title or program to those involving multiple
farm bill titles. Conservation has been among the most active farm bill topics,
attracting recommendations from many interests who represent widely-varying
perspectives.29 For many of these issues, coalitions have formed and are articulating
29 For a brief introduction identifying many of these proposals, see CRS Report RL33934,
(continued...)

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CRS-20
their priorities and positions. One conservation group, the American Farmland Trust,
in particular, was very active early on in soliciting input from a wide range of
interests and developing a wide-ranging set of general proposals, which it released
in early summer of 2006.30 Its proposals, as well as those from others, address many
aspects of conservation policy. These aspects include (in no particular order) the
following:
! How to better integrate conservation efforts with commodity
policies through green payments or by other means.
! Whether overall conservation funding will continue to grow, and
how funds should be allocated among the many conservation
programs, as well as where (which states or regions) and who (which
producers or problems) should receive higher priority for access to
these programs, what levels of funding are necessary to successfully
deal with the backlog of interest in program participation, and
whether that level of funding should be provided.
! Whether funding for working lands, generally referred to as green
payments and perhaps modeled after the CSP, should be expanded,
both because of the likely need for such a program if trade talks are
successfully concluded, and because such an effort would
complement the many land retirement conservation programs.
! How to make energy policies that encourage expanded crop
cultivation for biofuels compatible with land retirement and other
conservation goals.
! How to address issues new to the farm bill or of growing
importance, such as endangered species or invasive species.
! Whether the federal conservation agencies have the capacity to
deliver new or expanded programs, and whether their
responsibilities should be enlarged to include new mission areas or
receive significant additional funding.
! How to condense and coordinate the plethora of programs.
! What role(s) the Bush Administration’s Cooperative Conservation
Initiative and related types of efforts that involve voluntary
partnerships might play in agriculture conservation policy.31
! What opportunities there are to use more market-based approaches
— establishing ecosystem markets or selling carbon credits, for
example — in conservation.
! Whether there are opportunities to apply conservation efforts at
larger scales, such as ecosystems or watersheds.
29 (...continued)
Farm Bill Proposals and Legislative Action in the 110th Congress, by Renée Johnson.
30 Information on these proposals can be accessed through the American Farmland Trust
website [http://www.farmland.org].
31 More information on this Initiative can be found at [http://cooperativeconcservation.gov].

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CRS-21
Administration Proposal. The Administration offered its set of farm bill
proposals to Congress on February 2, 2007. These proposals come out of a process
that started with more than 50 listening sessions, followed by issuing four broad
theme papers. The theme paper on conservation and the environment, issued in June
2006, identified “generalized alternatives”: (1) improve existing conservation
programs; (2) provide “green payments” for land in production to enhance
environmental benefits and provide income support; (3) encourage private sector
markets for environmental services; and (4) expand conservation compliance or
establish a standard of care.32 The Administration presented its 10 proposals for
conservation in the format of a statement of the problem followed by recommended
solutions. These proposals would cost $7.8 billion above current conservation costs.
The proposals (and additional costs) are as follows:
! Consolidate six financial assistance programs that provide
conservation cost-sharing funds and technical assistance to
landowners and producers into a revised Environmental Quality
Incentives Program, and create a new sub-program to deal with
water quality and quantity issues on a regional basis ($4.25 billion).
! Amend the Conservation Security Program to emphasize higher
levels of conservation, and expand enrollment from 15 million acres
today to 96 million acres in 10 years ($500 million above the current
10-year baseline).
! Consolidate the three easement programs for working lands into
a single program ($900 million above the current 10-year baseline).
! Increase the focus of the Conservation Reserve Program on
environmentally sensitive lands, with priority for lands enrolled
on which biomass crops for energy are produced.
! Increase the Wetlands Reserve enrollment cap to 3.5 million
acres ($2.125 billion).
! Expand conservation compliance to include “sod saver” to
discourage conversion of grasslands into cropland.
! Designate a portion of each conservation program to socially
disadvantaged and beginning producers.
! Encourage the development of private-sector environmental
markets to supplement and compliment conservation programs ($50
million).
! Repeal provisions requiring a minimum amount of conservation
funds go to every state.
! Consolidate the two emergency response programs for
conservation.
Introduced Legislation. Bills with conservation proposals are being
introduced. Two bills are receiving more attention at this time, perhaps because of
their broad scope, or because each has many cosponsors. It is not clear whether
either agriculture committee might incorporate portions of these bills into legislation
32 For more information on the green payment concept, as well as a comparison of views
about it from the United States and Europe, see CRS Report RL32624, Green Payments in
U.S. and European Union Agricultural Policy, by Charles Hanrahan and Jeffrey Zinn.

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CRS-22
they will be developing, or if proponents might offer these bills as options to the
committee bill when farm bill legislation is considered on the floor of either chamber.
Several other bills addressing aspects of conservation have also been introduced, and
this list is likely to grow, as additional bills are anticipated. Provisions in both the
larger bills are outlined below. They appear to represent much of the range of likely
proposals. Following these two bills is an outline of a third bill, which is an example
of more limited legislation, in this instance, a focus on the Chesapeake Bay
watershed.
H.R. 1551 (Representative Kind)/S. 919 (Senator Menendez). H.R.
1551, the Healthy Farms, Foods, and Fuels Act of 2007, was introduced on March
15, 2007, and S. 919, an identical bill, was introduced on March 20, 2007. H.R. 1551
has 86 cosponsors while S. 919 has 5 cosponsors.33 The bill has four titles, but about
70% of the bill (by length) is the conservation title. All reauthorizations are through
2013, unless otherwise noted. Topics addressed in this bill are also addressed in the
other large conservation bill, H.R. 1600, unless they are identified as not being
include in both bills. The conservation title includes the following provisions:
! Section 101 would reauthorize the Conservation Reserve Program
and make numerous amendments, including greater consideration of
animals and forests, and greater focus on environmental benefits,
among other changes.
! Section 102 would reauthorize the Wetland Reserve Program,
increasing the total enrollment goal to 5 million acres and specifying
annual maximums. It would make other amendments, such as
making the protection of rare and endangered species a priority.
! Section 103 would reauthorize the Conservation Security
Program, making changes in the three-tier structure, eliminating
maintenance payments, changing some enrollment procedures, and
limiting technical assistance expenditures to 15% of a contract’s
value.
! Section 104 would reauthorize the Grasslands Reserve Program,
increasing total enrollment to 10 million acres and setting several
enrollment goals. It would add provisions for biodiversity, pasture-
based operations, and an enhancement subprogram where states
contribute a portion of the funds (similar to the CREP in CRP).
! Section 105 would reauthorize the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program, increasing the annual authorization to $2.0
billion. It would make numerous other changes, including adding
new provisions for forest stewardship, enhanced manure and nutrient
management, and state performance incentives; and increasing
funding for two existing subprograms, Conservation Innovation
Grants and Ground and Surface Water Conservation.
! Section 106 would reauthorize the Wildlife Habitat Incentives
Program, increasing funding to $300 million annually in FY2012
and FY2013. It would also expand the use of long-term agreements,
add priorities, and promote fish habitat.
33 None of the cosponsors are members of the House Agriculture Committee.

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! Section 107 would authorize a new Cooperative Conservation
Partnership Initiative using two- to five-year grants involving
multiple producers. It would establish a competitive application
process, and lists numerous evaluation criteria and eight program
priorities. It also lists funding criteria and provides funding by using
20% of the annual allocation for several specified conservation
programs.
! Section 108 would reauthorize the regional equity provisions and
increase the minimum amount each state would receive to $15
million annually.
! Section 109 would exclude conservation payments from the cap on
adjusted gross income that is used to exclude people with very high
annual incomes from farm program participation.
! Section 110 would increase annual funding for the Agricultural
Management Assistance Program to $40 million and specifies the
allocations among the three component subprograms. (Provision not
included in H.R. 1600.)
! Section 111 would authorize $50 million a year for a new
Community Forests and Open Space Program to help protect
forests in and near communities in states designated by the
Secretary. (Provision not included in H.R. 1600.)
! Section 112 would authorize the Farmland Protection Program
through FY2012 at $300 million annually.
! Section 113 would authorize mandatory funding, with no amount
specified, for the Healthy Forests Reserve Program. (Provision
not included in H.R. 1600.)
! Section 114 would authorize an Integrated Pest Management
Initiative in priority areas identified by the Secretary that would be
integrated with EQIP and use a portion of the funds provided for
EQIP and CSP.
! Section 115 would authorize a new initiative for socially
disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, funded using up to 10% of
the money provided to several conservation programs. (Provision
not included in H.R. 1600.)
! Section 116 would establish a Conservation Loan Guarantee
Program. It specifies loans qualifications, limits on both loan
guarantees and loan subsidies, and provides an unspecified amount
of mandatory funds for implementation.
! Section 117 would provide $40 million annually in mandatory
funding to establish a pilot program for Comprehensive
Conservation Planning in five specified locations (the Chesapeake
Bay watershed, for example, is one of these locations). (Provision
not included in H.R. 1600.)
! Section 118 would address technical assistance by clarifying the
role of third-party providers and establishing a financial-aid program
to assist students in exchange for a commitment to work for NRCS.

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CRS-24
H.R. 1600 (Representative Cardoza). H.R. 1600, the Equitable Agriculture
Today for a Healthy America or the EAT Healthy America Act, was introduced on
March 20, 2007. This legislation currently has 78 cosponsors. Nine of the
cosponsors are members of the House Agriculture Committee. This bill is more
wide-ranging than H.R. 1551, with eight titles. The conservation title is more than
40% of the total bill (by length). All programs in this bill are authorized through
2012. Sections that are identical or nearly identical to similar provisions in H.R.
1551 are identified as such. The conservation title includes the following sections.
! Section 201 would reauthorize the Conservation Security Program
by adding eight findings about the importance and potential benefits
of the program.
! Section 202 would reauthorize the Conservation Reserve Program
and make numerous amendments, such as greater recognition of rare
and endangered species and habitat, and limiting the portion of land
in the program that can be enrolled through a general signup.
! Section 203 would reauthorize the Wetland Reserve Program. It
is similar to Section 102 of H.R. 1551.
! Section 204 would reauthorize the Farmland Protection Program,
and is identical to Section 112 of H.R. 1551.
! Section 205 would reauthorize the Grasslands Reserve Program
and establish annual enrollment levels increasing to 3 million acres
in 2012 and annually thereafter. Other changes would include
emphasizing long-term agreements and easements, allowing land in
the CRP to be transferred into this program, giving more attention
to biodiversity, adding considerable detail about who can hold
easements, and adding an enhancement subprogram where states
contribute a portion of the funds (similar to the CREP in CRP).
! Section 206 would reauthorize the Wildlife Habitat Incentives
Program, and is similar to Section 106 of H.R. 1551. In addition,
it would give more emphasis to rare and endangered species and
their habitat, and require coordination with state wildlife plans.
! Section 207 would reauthorize the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program, gradually increasing the annual authorization
to $2 billion in FY2012. It would amend the existing statute in
several ways, such as modifying incentive payment rates and
restating the section on evaluation of applications to include
wildlife. It would also increase funding for Ground and Surface
Water and Innovative Grants subprograms, and add a new section on
air quality, which would be funded in amounts that increase up to
$100 million in FY2012.
! Section 208 would authorize a new Cooperative Conservation
Partnership Initiative that is nearly identical to Section 107 of H.R.
1551.
! Section 209 would reauthorize the regional equity provisions. It is
the same as Section 108 in H.R. 1551, except that it would authorize
a minimum of $12 million annually to each state instead of $15
million.
! Section 210 would authorize an Integrated Pest Management
Initiative that is nearly identical to Section 114 of H.R. 1551.

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! Section 211 would address technical assistance and is similar to
Section 118 of H.R. 1551. In addition, it would require development
of technical assistance for specialty crop producers.
! Section 212 would establish a Conservation Loan Guarantee
Program, and is nearly identical to Section 116 of H.R. 1551.
! Section 213 would amend the Emergency Conservation Program
to add providing assistance to clean up debris in nurseries caused by
natural disasters. (Provision not included in H.R. 1551.)
! Section 214 would exclude conservation payments from the cap on
adjusted gross income, and is identical to Section 109 of H.R.
1551.
! Section 215 would encourage the Secretary to develop guidelines for
voluntary sustainable practices for specialty crop producers.
(Provision not included in H.R. 1551.)
! Section 216 would require the Secretary “whenever practicable” to
assist specialty crop producers in addressing the adverse impacts of
long-term climate change. (Provision not included in H.R. 1551.)
In addition to these general bills, measures that are more specific to a particular
topic or location have been introduced or are being developed. One example is H.R.
1766, introduced by Representative Van Holland on March 29, 2007, and called the
Chesapeake’s Healthy and Environmentally Sound Stewardship of Energy and
Agriculture Act of 2007. It would amend and create programs to target conservation
(and bioenergy) activity either specifically to the Chesapeake Bay watershed or to
places that are confronting the types of conservation issues found in the Chesapeake
Bay watershed, focusing especially on the need to improve water quality by reducing
nutrients and sediments. Justifications for taking these actions are outlined in a
findings section. Conservation provisions in this legislation would reauthorize or
enact (and fund through FY2013):
! The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (increases to $2
billion/year), giving priority to multi-state watersheds with impaired
waters, and creating a new subprogram for small privately owned
forest land, a new Regional Water Quality Enhancement
subprogram, and an expanded Conservation Innovation Grants
subprogram.
! The Conservation Reserve Program (remains at 39.2 million
acres), with 7 million acres set aside for enrollment under the
continuous enrollment option and the conservation reserve
enhancement (CREP) option. Environmental standards for newly
enrolled lands would be higher than land currently enrolled.
! The Conservation Security Program (no funding level specified),
which would have the spending caps removed and would allow
continuous enrollment in multi-state watersheds that meet certain
criteria (the Chesapeake Bay watershed is specified as eligible). If
funding is limited, priority is to be given to watersheds impaired by
nutrients.
! A new pilot Comprehensive Planning Technical Assistance
Program ($10 million/year) that would be created for this

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CRS-26
watershed, to be provided either by the Secretary or through third-
party providers.
! The Wetlands Reserve Program (increases to 3.5 million acres),
with a target of enrolling 25,000 acres in the watershed by 2010.
! The Agricultural Management Assistance Program ($50
million/year), for which Virginia would be added to the list of
eligible states.
Additional legislation can be anticipated in the coming months.

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