ACT:  BUSH ADMINISTRATION BLOCKING 2002 FUNDS TO HELP FARM FAMILIES SAVE
FARMLAND AND CONSERVE WETLANDS -- CALLS URGENTLY NEEDED!!!


The Bush Administration and the Office of Management and Budget are
refusing to allow the money, that the President and Congress approved for
2002, to be spent to protect farmland and conserve wetlands.  The recently
passed Farm Bill, signed by the President in May, committed increased funds
for conservation
programs, including the Farmland Protection Program and the Wetlands
Reserve Program. By blocking funding for the Natural Resources Conservation
Service to provide the technical assistance necessary to enroll farmland
and wetlands in the conservation programs, the Administration is preventing
the increased conservation funding for 2002 from being spent for those
purposes.  Farmers are waiting in line to place over 700,000 acres of
farmland and wetlands into these programs, and safeguard them from sprawl
development.  If the funds that Congress allocated for 2002 are not spent
by September 30, 2002 they will be forfeited.

Calls are urgently needed to President Bush and to Mitch Daniels at OMB
demanding that they not allow these critically needed conservation funds to
be squandered.

*     Call President Bush at  202-456-1414

*     Call Mitch Daniels, Office of Management and Budget,  at 202-395-4840
and leave the following message:


I urge you to release the funding to the USDA for technical assistance that
President Bush promised in  the farm bill for fiscal year 2002 in support
of the Farmland Protection Program  and the Wetland Reserve Program. This
funding is
critical to the implementation  of these programs.

For more information, call Robin Mann, 610-527-4598.



Erin Jordahl
Director, Iowa Chapter Sierra Club
3839 Merle Hay Road, Suite 280
Des Moines, IA 50310
515-277-8868
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