-------- Original Message -------- Subject: SAC releases press release on EQIP changes; please pass on Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 17:16:49 EDT From: [log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] Defenders of Wildlife * Natural Resources Defense Council * Sierra Club * Sustainable Agriculture Coalition * For Immediate Release Contact: Melanie Shepherdson, NRDC, 202-289-2393 April 8, 2002 Martha Noble, SAC, 202-547-5754 CONSERVATION GROUPS URGE FARM BILL CONFEREES TO ADDRESS SHORTCOMINGS OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY PROGRAM WASHINGTON, D.C. – Leading conservation groups today urged House and Senate farm bill conferees to refrain from stripping the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) of key conservation and environmental measures, noting that the House bill in particular is a radical departure from the current EQIP. According to the organizations, the EQIP proposals being considered in conference committee could lead to a new large subsidy scheme for expansion of industrial-sized confined livestock operations, with serious, negative environmental consequences. “The farm bill conferees have to decide whether to keep real conservation measures in this bill, or turn it into just more subsidies for polluting factory farms” said Ed Hopkins, senior Washington representative with the Sierra Club. “Our groups are united in urging them not to make a mockery of this important conservation program.” The EQIP program, established by the 1996 farm bill, is the major federal agricultural conservation cost share program. Both the House and Senate farm bills would greatly increase annual funding for the program, from $200 million per year under current law to well over $1 billion per year. The House bill, however, completely rewrites the program to reduce its environmental objectives. Both bills delete current law prohibitions on payments to build waste lagoons for large scale animal factories, though the Senate bill retains some critical basic minimum restrictions on these types of payments. Environmental Targeting The House bill removes existing language targeting the program to serious environmental threats, removes existing language allowing USDA to focus money on priority watersheds, and removes existing language directing USDA to maximize environmental benefits per taxpayer dollar expended. The House bill also reduces the EQIP contract term to just one year, which would in essence do away with conservation planning, the linchpin of the existing program. In each of these proposals, the House farm bill dramatically reverses the policy established by Congress in the last farm bill. “The House bill is the worst of both worlds – it more than quintuples funding and puts per farm payment limitations through the roof, yet destroys the basic environmental nature of the program.” said Susan Prolman, government relations associate with Defenders of Wildlife. “The House proposal is EQIP in name only – in substance it creates an unfocused and potentially anti-environmental program, coupled with vastly increased funding.” In addition to retaining most of the existing targeting language, the Senate bill also provides for new conservation innovation grants within EQIP to leverage state and private funds in pursuit of special projects to protect source drinking water, reduce nutrient applications, and promote carbon sequestration. The Senate bill also includes an innovative pilot project for the Chesapeake Bay region to nutrient applications and loadings. Animal Factories Under current law, USDA does not provide payments from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) for the construction of large-scale (over 1,000 animal units as defined by USDA) confined livestock and poultry feeding operations, often referred to as CAFOs. CAFOs above the current Clean Water Act regulatory threshold of 1,000 animal units currently represent 5 percent of total animal confinement operations in the country, according to USDA figures, and a much smaller percentage when grazing and other non-confinement livestock operations are included. Large-scale animal factories have proliferated across the nation with little regard for the environmental damage and public health threats arising from the huge amounts of animal waste generated by these operations. Many rural communities have seen drinking water supplies and recreational waters degraded. In some cases, neighboring property owners, including those who have lived in their communities for generations, have been driven from their homes. Farmers and ranchers have joined with others in bringing legal actions against these facilities. For 25 years, since implementation of the Clean Water Act in 1976, CAFOs have been directed, at least in theory, to comply with environmental safeguards as “point sources” of pollution. The weakness and inconsistency of those regulatory controls spurred a new proposed EPA rule in January 2001, a rule subsequently attacked by national livestock trade associations. “It is ironic that industrial-sized technologies with a very substantially negative environmental track record would become eligible for subsidies to foster and encourage expansion under a purportedly environmental quality program,” said Martha Noble, senior counsel with the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “In the name environmental safeguards, the industry is asking the taxpayer to absorb its capital and production expansion expenses, expenses which would normally be considered a cost of doing business, especially for a regulated industrial sector.” Over 70 farm, rural, and environmental organizations wrote to farm bill conferees in March supporting provisions in the Senate version of EQIP that provide some safeguards against abuse. The letter (attached) describes a number of protections added to the Senate bill that together retain a degree of integrity to EQIP, including lower payment limitations, a prohibition on owners of multiple CAFOs from receiving funding, and requirements for CAFOs to have approved plans for environmentally sound waste disposal practices. Payment Limitations The House bill lacks any effective payment limitation. The House bill nominally limits EQIP payments to $50,000 a year or $200,000 per every “multiyear” contract. Under the House bill, a contract may be of just one year’s duration, making a multiyear contract potentially as short as two years. Over the life of the proposed 10 year House bill, this could result in $1 million being made available to the same operation (i.e., 10 year bill divided by 2 year contract times $200,000 equals $1 million). In reality, however, the House bill has no limit at all. Unlike the Senate bill in which all payments are directly attributed to real persons, the House bill allows payments to multiple business entities (often referred to as “paper farms”) that are actually the same operation. Unlike current crop subsidies that at least limit producers to three such entities (the so-called “three entity rule” – a rule which the Senate bill would eliminate as part of its payment limitation reform provision), the House EQIP proposal would allow owners to collect EQIP payments through unlimited numbers of entities. “For the past several months people have been asking how it came to pass that specific individuals have received millions of dollars in government crop subsidies,” said Ferd Hoefner, Washington representative for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “The answer is quite simple – Congress, over succeeding farm bills, has laced the payment limitation law with legal loopholes, a process that will be started all over again with respect to livestock should the House EQIP provisions prevail.” Prior to passage of the 1996 farm bill, the annual conservation cost-share limit was $3,500. Since the implementation of EQIP in 1997 and its new $10,000 annual limit and $50,000 5-year limit, cost-share payments for animal waste storage structures of various kinds have averaged $7,000-$14,000 per 5-year contract per farm on a national basis, according to USDA data. This is considerably less than even the current law limitation and just a small fraction of the proposed $150,000 5-year limit in the Senate bill and $200,000 nominal 2-year limit in the House bill. Confidentiality Both the House and Senate bills, through different mechanisms, would keep information relating to conservation programs private, potentially compromising the implementation and enforcement of EPA's permitting program for CAFOs mandated by the federal Clean Water Act. In 1972 when Congress enacted the Clean Water Act, it recognized that CAFOs are significant sources of water pollution and as a result specifically identified these industrialized livestock facilities as point sources requiring regulation under the federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program. Realizing that chronic over application and misapplication of animal manure contributes to water pollution, the states and EPA are beginning to require CAFOs to develop nutrient management plans. In order to prevent pollution from excess waste application, the terms of these nutrient management plans need to be incorporated into the NPDES permit and be enforceable. USDA provides technical assistance to many CAFOs to develop nutrient management plans. Both farm bills contain provisions that could shield the information provided to or developed by USDA for technical or financial assistance not only from the public eye, but also from any federal, state, local agency, or Indian Tribe. Withholding this information would interfere with ability of state agencies and EPA to effectively implement regulatory programs designed to protect the environment and public health, such as the control of water pollution from CAFOs. USDA confidentiality provisions should not be used to impede the ability of EPA, the Department of Justice, state agencies, and citizens to bring enforcement actions against bad actors under environmental and public health laws. "USDA should not be given license to interfere with the implementation and enforcement of a federally mandated Clean Water Act permitting program," said Melanie Shepherdson, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Federal courts and the EPA have recognized that controlling runoff from the land application of waste is just as important as preventing spills from waste storage lagoons. The conferees should ensure that any privacy language adopted be narrowly tailored and not undercut EPA's jurisdiction or shield bad actors from being held accountable for violating the Clean Water Act and other regulatory programs that protect the environment and public health." -30- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT to [log in to unmask]