SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE COALITION
For Immediate Release
February 14, 2003
COALITION APPLAUDS COMMITMENT TO RESTORE CSP
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition today applauded
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Ted Stevens and Agriculture
Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Thad Cochran for their commitment to
restore full funding to the Conservation Security Program in a
supplemental appropriations bill later this year. The commitment was
made in a colloquy with Senator Tom Harkin during floor consideration of
the FY 03 omnibus appropriations bill last night.
The Coalition also praised House Agriculture Committee chair, Bob
Goodlatte, and ranking member Charlie Stenholm, for their deep concern
over the cut made to CSP as an offset to the agricultural disaster
portion of the omnibus funding bill.
"We have steadfastly opposed robbing farm bill conservation dollars for
unrelated purposes and welcome the promise of full restoration,"said
Ferd Hoefner, Washington Representative of the Sustainable Agriculture
Coalition. Farmers and the environment were ill-served by the hasty,
behind closed-doors action to cut the CSP.
Funding for the Conservation Security Program, a key farm bill
conservation program, is cut by $4 billion in the final deal on the
agriculture disaster portion of the omnibus bill passed by the House and
Senate yesterday. The CSP would be reduced from an estimated $7.77
billion to $3.77 billion. Of that total, $3.1 billion would be used to
offset the increased commodity program payments and other forms of
disaster aid, and an additional $900 million would be transferred to pay
for conservation technical assistance to deliver CSP and other
conservation programs.
The Congressional Budget Office recently rescored the CSP program at
$7.77 billion over 10 years, up from its $2 billion 10-year score it
gave CSP last year during consideration of the farm bill presumably a
reflection of how enthusiastic farmers and ranchers have been about the
new program to help them solve natural resource and environmental
problems.
The Bush Administration, however, proposed capping CSP at $2 billion in
its FY 04 budget proposal and also insisted that any disaster spending
in the FY 03 bill be offset by cuts to the farm bill. The provision in
the omnibus capping the program at $3.77 emerged less than 24 hours
before the bill was filed.
"We urge the Administration to support restoration of full funding and
to accelerate implementation and delivery of the program, "said Hoefner.
Farmers and ranchers are anxious to participate in this effort to
protect the environment and the natural resource base on which our
long-term food security depends.
If the $3.77 billion cap were to stay in place, the CSP would still be a
conservation entitlement program, as provided by the 2002 farm bill, but
with one huge difference. All interested farmers and ranchers with
qualified and approved conservation plans would be able to participate;
however, once total obligations reached $3.77 billion, enrollment of
additional participants would halt, unless Congress authorized
additional funding at that point. If funding is restored in a
forthcoming supplemental appropriation as proposed by Senator Stevens
and Cochran, additional farmers and ranchers would be able to
participate in CSP.
The Conservation Security Program is a comprehensive stewardship
incentives program that provides financial and technical assistance to
farmers and ranchers to reward them for creating public benefits such as
clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration,
rangeland improvement, and wetland restoration and enhancements.CSP
payments are capped at a modest amount per farm per year and are fully
compliant with "green box" requirement under our international trade
obligations. USDA is in the process of finalizing the rules for the
program.
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