September 9, 2001

Washington, D.C.- This week, the House is likely to vote on the 2002 farm bill. Included in that bill is my $16 billion expansion of the nation's conservation programs for farmers and ranchers. The conservation section of this farm bill will be a welcome upgrade of the existing conservation programs for producers.

American farmers and ranchers are the original conservationists of this country. The Farm Bill's purpose is to assist in providing them with the tools to provide the American consumer with the cheapest, safest, and most stable food supply in the world, and to do so in an environmentally friendly manner.

In an effort to meet these goals, I laid out a plan in my own conservation bill to help the producers and the American public by providing sound environmental assistance to U.S. producers. The centerpiece of my conservation bill was the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). It will assist farmers and ranchers, who now have to deal with an increasing number of state and federal environmental regulations and laws. The current program is funded at only $200 million per year, which has left many producers sitting on a waiting list because the program runs out of funds every year. The livestock coalition that testified before my committee this year asked for $2.5 billion per year. My bill provides producers with $1.2 billion per year, and the committee bill also adopted this number. Fifty percent of the money goes to crop producers and fifty percent goes to livestock producers, so that neither side will be shortchanged for these funds.

My bill provided 40 million acres for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) up from 36.4 million acres. Many groups wanted to leave the program at its current level; however, even more groups wanted the CRP to increase to 45 million acres. The committee bill incorporated my compromise proposal of 40 million acres.

My conservation bill included $600 million to fund the Small Watershed bill. I was able to get the committee to provide $150 million in its bill.

I also created a Grasslands Reserve Program of three million acres. The committee included a two million acre program based on my bill. Also, the committee followed my lead by including 150,000 acres per year of Wetland Reserve Program acreage and $500 million dollars worth of funding for the Farmland Protection Program. The committee was only able to provide $250 of the $500 million that I recommended for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program.

My goal was to secure a large sum of money for the conservation title in the new Farm Bill. I managed to get an increase of 75 percent in funding. The current programs spend $2.1 billion per year. If the House Agriculture Committee enacts its bill, nearly $3.7 billion per year will be spent on conservation programs.

I am now hearing concerns regarding some of the changes the committee made in its draft of the Farm Bill. At my town hall meetings in western Oklahoma this month, concerns were raised that the bill, in its current form, does not provide enough funding for technical assistance. I will continue to work diligently to address the problems presented to me in the committee bill, and will work to provide additional technical assistance funding for conservation programs in the next Farm Bill.

After this week, we will be a big step closer to giving a much-needed update to environmental farm policy. It's been a long road, and we still have the Senate to contend with, but I'm dedicated to making sure we provide the necessary programs to help our farmers and ranchers conserve the land that provides for us all.