[Senate Hearing 118-124]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                        S. Hrg. 118-124

                    FARM BILL 2023: CONSERVATION AND
                           FORESTRY PROGRAMS

=======================================================================





                                HEARING

                               before the

                       COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
                        NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION
                               __________

                             March 1, 2023
                               __________

                       Printed for the use of the
           Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry 
           
           
 
 
 
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           COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY


                 DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan, Chairwoman
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio                  JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado          JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York      JONI ERNST, Iowa
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
CORY BOOKER, New Jersey              TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             CHARLES GRASSLEY, Iowa
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania         DEB FISCHER, Nebraska

                 Erica Chabot, Majority Staff Director
                 Chu-Yuan Hwang, Majority Chief Counsel
                    Jessica L. Williams, Chief Clerk
               Fitzhugh Elder IV, Minority Staff Director
                 Jackie Barber, Minority Chief Counsel 














                 
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        Wednesday, March 1, 2023

                                                                   Page

Hearing:

Farm Bill 2023: Conservation and Forestry Programs...............     1

                              ----------                              

                    STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS

Stabenow, Hon. Debbie, U.S. Senator from the State of Michigan...     1
Boozman, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Arkansas......     3

                               WITNESSES

Cosby, Terry, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. 
  Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.....................     4
Ducheneaux, Zach, Administrator, Farm Service Agency, U.S. 
  Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.....................     6
Coleman, Angela, Associate Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 
  Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.....................     8
  
                              ----------                              

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:
    Cosby, Terry.................................................    44
    Ducheneaux, Zach.............................................    55
    Coleman, Angela..............................................    65

Document(s) Submitted for the Record:
Stabenow, Hon. Debbie:
    ACEP Ale Community Farm Bill.................................    74
    Chefs for Healthy Soil.......................................    75
    Farm Bill Support............................................    78
    Protecting the IRA...........................................    81
    Western-Landowners Alliance, document for the Record.........    90
Booker, Hon. Cory:
    EWG Conservation Program.....................................    92

Question and Answer:
Cosby, Terry:
    Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow......    98
    Written response to questions from Hon. John Boozman.........   104
    Written response to questions from Hon. Amy Klobuchar........   106
    Written response to questions from Hon. Michael F. Bennet....   107
    Written response to questions from Hon. Tina Smith...........   110
    Written response to questions from Hon. Richard J. Durbin....   112
    Written response to questions from Hon. Cory Booker..........   113
    Written response to questions from Hon. Ben Ray Lujan........   114
    Written response to questions from Hon. Raphael Warnock......   115
    Written response to questions from Hon. Peter Welch..........   117
    Written response to questions from Hon. John Fetterman.......   120
    Written response to questions from Hon. Cindy Hyde-Smith.....   121
    Written response to questions from Hon. Roger Marshall.......   122
    Written response to questions from Hon. Tommy Tuberville.....   126
    Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune...........   127
    Written response to questions from Hon. Deb Fischer..........   130
Ducheneaux, Zach:
    Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow......   132
    Written response to questions from Hon. John Boozman.........   133
    Written response to questions from Hon. Ben Ray Lujan........   133
    Written response to questions from Hon. Tommy Tuberville.....   134
    Written response to questions from Hon. Charles Grassley.....   136
Coleman, Angela:
    Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow......   140
    Written response to questions from Hon. John Boozman.........   141
    Written response to questions from Hon. Amy Klobuchar........   146
    Written response to questions from Hon. Michael F. Bennet....   146
    Written response to questions from Hon. Ben Ray Lujan........   147
    Written response to questions from Hon. Raphael Warnock......   149
    Written response to questions from Hon. John Fetterman.......   151
    Written response to questions from Hon. Tommy Tuberville.....   151
    Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune...........   155

 
                    FARM BILL 2023: CONSERVATION AND 
                           FORESTRY PROGRAMS

                        Wednesday, March 1, 2023

                                        U.S. Senate
         Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 
328A, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Debbie Stabenow, 
Chairwoman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Stabenow [presiding], Brown, Klobuchar, 
Bennet, Gillibrand, Smith, Booker, Lujan, Warnock, Welch, 
Boozman, Hoeven, Ernst, Hyde-Smith, Marshall, Tuberville, 
Braun, Grassley, Thune, and Fischer.

      STATEMENT  OF  HON. DEBBIE STABENOW,  U.S.  SENATOR
        FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, CHAIRWOMAN, U.S. COM-
        MITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

    Chairwoman Stabenow. Good morning, and welcome to the 
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee of the U.S. 
Senate. We will call the meeting to order and welcome our 
witnesses today. We want to welcome Chief Cosby, Administrator 
Ducheneaux, and Associate Chief Coleman. Welcome to all of you, 
and we appreciate everyone being here.
    This Committee has a very important job ahead, as we know, 
which is to pass the next farm bill with strong, bipartisan 
support, and we are going to work hard to do that. It's our job 
also to make sure that our farmers, our families, and our 
environment are all supported in this process.
    Our farmers have a critical job to do as well--growing 
food, fiber, and fuel for our country and our world while also 
protecting our land and our water. This is nothing new for 
those of us in Michigan, where protecting the Great Lakes is 
part of our DNA.
    The farm bill provides important conservation and forestry 
tools that can help farmers and foresters keep our water clean, 
improve the resiliency of our land, and provide habitat for 
wildlife. Importantly, they are the kinds of tools our farmers 
use, they want, and they need. Right now, many of our 
conservation programs are oversubscribed, some as much as three 
to one.
    With recent investments in programs such as Environmental 
Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Regional Conservation 
Partnership Program, which I created in the 2014 Farm Bill, we 
are finally able to address the backlog of farmers who want to 
be able to use these important conservation tools.
    We know the farm bill is a jobs bill, and conservation and 
forestry investments are no exception. Conservation and 
forestry provide economic opportunities and jobs across our 
country in rural and urban communities.
    In 2018, for the first time, we recognized urban 
agriculture in a significant way. My Urban Agriculture Act laid 
the groundwork to establish the Office of Urban Agriculture and 
Innovative Production, which is housed in the Natural Resources 
Conservation Service. I am pleased to see all of the work that 
the USDA has done to integrate and accelerate urban 
agriculture.
    In the 2018 Farm Bill, this Committee made great strides to 
give the Forest Service additional tools to manage our national 
forests. We provided for expedited treatment of forests 
impacted by insects and disease, built on the successful Good 
Neighbor Authority to create efficient partnerships between 
State and Federal foresters, and established competitive 
programs to fund source water protection and landscape scale 
restoration projects.
    These investments and many others in the 2018 Farm Bill 
will aid in overall economic growth and development in rural 
areas, combat climate change, and increase the health and 
protection of wildlife habitats. Without healthy forests, air, 
water, and other natural resources suffer.
    As we support farmers' efforts to address emerging 
challenges across the country, from algae blooms in the Great 
Lakes to drought in the West, voluntary conservation tools are 
more important than ever.
    Matching public dollars with private investment was a 
success in the 2018 Farm Bill, and the impact of these projects 
is seen in all 50 States. The interest and involvement from the 
private sector have increased since 2018, and I look forward to 
hearing today how conservation programs are helping farmers 
succeed, as well as bringing new investments and partnerships 
into this work.
    I am sure we will hear about the disastrous wildfires that 
are hurting our western States. Since forest health and 
wildfire threats do not end at the Federal property line, I 
want to hear about the Forest Service's plan to aggressively 
treat 50 million acres of national, State, tribal, and private 
forest land. I want to hear more about how the Forest Service 
will continue to coordinate restoration efforts across 
ownership boundaries while engaging on creating fire adapted 
communities.
    As we look forward to the 2023 Farm Bill, we must continue 
to support smart forestry and conservation practices, 
recognizing the importance of the investments we have made, and 
looking ahead to the needs of the future.
    I have letters from stakeholder groups with over 700 
signatures supporting our robust investments in conservation 
and forestry, and I would ask unanimous consent that these 
letters be entered into the record. Without objection, so 
ordered.

    [The letters can be found on pages 74-95 in the appendix.]

    Chairwoman Stabenow. I also want to acknowledge the Chair 
and ranking Member of our Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and 
Natural Resources Subcommittee, Senator Bennet and Senator 
Marshall. We look forward to strong partnership and your 
leadership on these issues.
    With that, I will turn to Ranking Member Boozman for any 
opening remarks that he would like to make.

       STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BOOZMAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM 
                     THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

    Senator Boozman. Well thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you 
for convening today's hearing. We welcome our witnesses. We 
appreciate the great job that you are all are doing. We are 
excited to have today's hearing on conservation and forestry. 
Both of these issues are so important in the Natural State. 
Productive farms and forests benefit wildlife, the environment, 
the quality of life, and the economy of rural Arkansas.
    The farm bill conservation programs are successful because 
they are voluntary, incentive based and locally led. I view 
this reauthorization of the farm bill as an opportunity to 
renew our commitment to working lands conservation, where local 
resource concerns and producer-focused programs are the 
priority. Conservation needs and the needs of our producers are 
as diverse as the crops they grow and the land that they grow 
them on. Our programs must reflect this reality and provide the 
flexibility our farmers and ranchers need.
    Washington prioritizing a limited set of practices or 
natural resource concerns would undermine the continued success 
of the USDA's voluntary conservation programs. The 
prioritization of resource concerns must be left to the local 
level where producers decide how they can best address their 
unique and varied landscapes and needs.
    Cover crops might not work in dry climates but capturing 
water and preventing erosion are important resource practices 
farmers and ranchers can employ, and the funding and 
flexibility should be there for them to do so. Producers in 
Arkansas provide winter habitat in rice fields for migrating 
waterfowl. Seeing tens of thousands of birds all take wing from 
a flooded rice field is one of the most amazing experiences to 
behold. My farmers need the cost sharing necessary to level 
their fields and manage their water. Not only does this 
conserve resources and make the farmers more efficient, it also 
provides irreplaceable wildlife habitat.
    While we must maintain the elements of our farm bill 
conservation programs that make them successful, we cannot take 
on risky proposals that endanger the safety net. Tying crop 
insurance to incentives for certain conservation practices--
dictated by those in Washington--should be off the table so we 
can ensure this program continues to serve as a vital risk 
management tool for producers. We must hear from our farmers 
about their priorities and find the resources necessary to 
properly and adequately fund them.
    I know there is a genuine interest in reducing greenhouse 
gas emissions and sequestering carbon, and there is no better 
place to do that than the forestry title through active forest 
management. The decision not to manage our forests is 
devastating to the environment as it increases the risk for 
catastrophic forest fires. In California alone, the 2020 fire 
season released approximately 127 million metric tons of 
carbon. In fact, the emissions from that single fire season in 
California released twice the tonnage of greenhouse gases the 
State had reduced through regulation since 2003.
    There is tremendous potential in the conservation and 
forestry titles of the next farm bill. I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses on what additional authorities or 
flexibilities your agencies need to help modernize and 
streamline your efforts to keep our farmlands and forests 
working and healthy for generations to come.
    I thank our witnesses for joining us today, and with that I 
yield back, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much, Senator Boozman.
    We will now turn to our witnesses and again we appreciate 
you being with us.
    Mr. Terry Cosby is Chief of the USDA's Natural Resources 
Conservation Service, where he began his career as an intern in 
Iowa. I think our two Iowa Senators will appreciate that here 
on the Committee. He grew up on his family's cotton farm and 
attended Alcorn State University in Alcorn, Mississippi, the 
Nation's first Black land grant college. Prior to his current 
role, Terry served as NRCS's acting chief and has had numerous 
leadership and staff positions during his more than 40-year 
career at NRCS. Welcome.
    Mr. Zach Ducheneaux, who is the Administrator for the Farm 
Service Agency--and this is your second oversight hearing. We 
welcomed you at the commodity hearing and we welcome you back 
again today. His family operates a fourth-generation ranch on 
the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, and prior to this role he 
served as the Executive Director of the Intertribal Agriculture 
Council where he had worked since the 1990's. Zach has spent 
his career educating people about the importance of building 
new markets for producers and improving food systems.
    Ms. Angela Coleman serves as the Associate Chief of the 
USDA Forest Service. Prior to this assignment, she served as 
Forest Service Chief of Staff beginning in 2015, where she 
oversaw the chief's office daily operations and staff, issues 
management, and Office of Communications and Legislative 
Affairs programs. She provided senior-level support to the 
chief of the agency and the executive leadership team to 
advance and deliver the agency's natural resource conservation 
mission.
    Welcome to all of you, and we will start with Chief Cosby.

      STATEMENT OF TERRY COSBY, CHIEF, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF  
                 AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

    Mr. Cosby. Chair Stabenow, Ranking Member Boozman, and 
members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
speak to you today as you consider a new farm bill about 
critical support that conservation programs provide for 
American agriculture.
    My name is Terry Cosby, and I am honored to serve as the 
Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency 
that works alongside producers to support and strengthen 
agriculture, to protect and enhance our shared natural 
resources, to build resilience, and to mitigate climate change.
    I have spent the last 42 years of my career at NRCS, 
engaging with agricultural producers and rural communities, 
helping them to invest in land that they work. My great-
grandfather purchased our family farm in Tallahatchie County, 
Mississippi, in the late 1800's, and the importance of 
conservation has been handed down through generations with the 
family farm.
    The 2018 Farm Bill made it clear that voluntary 
conservation programs are critical to the continued viability 
of production agriculture. It also provided new incentives for 
producers and created new opportunities in urban communities.
    At NRCS, we take a comprehensive approach to conservation 
that is farmer-led and locally led to address resource 
concerns. Within this framework and working closely alongside 
those we serve, NRCS supports the implementation of practices 
and systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester 
carbon. These practices also provide other critical co-benefits 
such as enhanced wildlife habitat, improved water quality, 
water conservation, and climate resilience.
    In recent years, NRCS has invested $197 million for our 41 
projects through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program 
that addresses climate change, improve water quality, combat 
drought, enhance soil health, and support wildlife habitat.
    Funding for producers that are directly tied to climate-
smart agriculture and forestry projects totaled over $309 
million in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and 
over $192 million in the Conservation Stewardship Program. NRCS 
has also provided $35 million in funding through our 
Conservation Innovation Grants to help agricultural producers 
adopt innovation practices and strategies.
    We also work in cooperation with other Federal agencies to 
target Federal funding, including a joint investment in the 
Department of Interior's WaterSmart Initiative to help farmers 
conserve water and build resilience, post-wildfire and disaster 
relief funding through the Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration 
Partnership with the Forest Service, and the Sentinel 
Landscapes to strengthen military readiness and address natural 
resource challenges with the Department of Defense and the 
Department of Interior.
    We continue to work with producers and implement the 2018 
Farm Bill. We are also leveraging additional investment that 
Congress recently provided. The Inflation Reduction Act 
represented a historic, once-in-a-generation opportunity to 
address climate change and expand access to NRCS's 
oversubscribed programs.
    NRCS is moving forward with Fiscal Year 2023 implementation 
while also continuing to further expand capacities for the 
years ahead. On February 13, 2023, USDA announced the 
availability of Fiscal Year 2023 IRA funding.
    Climate-smart agriculture and forestry practice and systems 
through EQIP and The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) can 
now be funded through IRA, with sign-ups and priorities set at 
the local level. For our easements programs, we are holding a 
targeted national sign-up and will continue to expand and reach 
opportunities through ACEP IRA investments in 2024 and beyond.
    We will release the next RCCP funding opportunity this 
spring, which would include IRA funds for Fiscal Year 2023, 
targeted to maximize climate benefits and streamline the 
process to reduce barriers for partner and producer 
participation. For IRA, we are also developing strategies to 
expand capacities, target funding, streamline program delivery, 
leverage partnerships, advance equity, and measure and quantify 
outcomes.
    To maximize new and innovative ideas we sought public 
feedback through a request for information on how to maximize 
and quantify climate mitigation benefits, streamline and 
improve program delivery to increase efficiencies, and expand 
program access for producers. We will continue to identify and 
adopt additional changes based on public feedback in Fiscal 
Year 2024 and in future years.
    We have also been working to implement another critical 
piece of legislation, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which 
funds NRCS programs that have community rehab to aging dams, 
protect and restore watersheds, and recover and reduce hazards 
from major storms, wildfire, floods, and other natural 
disasters.
    NRCS has prioritized providing ongoing relief to 
communities impacted by severe weather events such as wildfire, 
floods, and hurricanes and other natural disasters. We have 
also prioritized carrying out projects in limited resource 
areas for our underserved communities where there is severe 
need for watershed infrastructure to protect entire communities 
from floods, natural disasters, and other watershed-related 
concerns.
    In closing, none of the NRCS accomplishments could be 
possible without our more than 10,000 employees in every State 
and territory across the country. Agency employees work 
incredibly hard to connect with farmers, ranchers, forest 
landowners, tribes, and partners to implement our many programs 
and initiatives. I am honored to lead so many dedicated 
conservationists in my role. I appreciate Congress' continued 
support for NRCS and our work to combat climate change, address 
drought, advance equity, and support voluntary conservation on 
working lands.
    I look forward to the discussion today.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Cosby can be found on page 
44 in the appendix.]

    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
    Next we are pleased to hear from Administrator Ducheneaux, 
and you are recognized for five minutes.

       STATEMENT OF ZACH DUCHENEAUX, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S.  
          DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

    Mr. Ducheneaux. Good morning thank you, Chairwoman 
Stabenow, Ranking Member Boozman, distinguished members of this 
Committee. It is always an honor and a privilege to appear 
before this august body and talk about the important issues of 
the time.
    Since our last visit, when we met about commodities and 
credit, I have had the opportunity to go to Minnesota and visit 
with some of our partners in conservation in Pheasants Forever 
and Quail Forever. I had a chance to visit with some distressed 
borrowers who have received assistance through IRA.
    I also had a chance to visit Tree-Range Poultry, where a 
young man in southern Minnesota is using tree-range poultry, 
free-range poultry to improve soil health in the margins of 
farmlands, which is really an important aspect of the work that 
we get to share in.
    I also got to sit through a blizzard in South Dakota as I 
spent some time with the fifth generation on the farm, another 
blizzard in a series that had been ravaging that part of the 
country, on the heels of two years of severe drought.
    The conservation efforts that we are going to talk about 
today are critically important to help mitigate those impacts 
and be ahead of that, because we all know that you cannot plan 
your way out of a drought. You have to plan for the next one, 
so conservation is a vital tool.
    I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of 
the programs along with several updates and improvements we 
have made in the last couple of years to our conservation 
programs, and have some time to answer some questions from you 
all about them.
    Of course, our flagship program for conservation is the 
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). It is one of the largest 
private lands conservation programs in the United States, and 
through CRP we pay producers a yearly rental payment to change 
the nature of production in environmentally sensitive areas by 
planting species that will improve environmental quality. The 
long-term goal of the program, of course, is to reward 
producers who establish valuable land cover, which in turn 
helps improve soil health, water quality, prevent erosion, and 
reduce the loss of wildlife habitat.
    There are several ways producers and landowners can 
participate in CRP, including through our General, Grassland, 
and Continuous Signups. Last year we accepted more than two 
million acres in General Signup, three million acres in 
Grassland Signup, and 877,000 acres in Continuous Signup.
    The 2018 Farm Bill established a cap for CRP, setting the 
cap at 25 million and moving it up to 27 million by this year. 
At the direction of the Secretary we have prioritized 
increasing access to CRP, strengthening climate benefits of the 
program, and now have the program on an upward trajectory of 
enrollment.
    To increase producer interest, FSA adjusted soil rental 
rates where data supported such an adjustment, increased 
payments for practice incentives, and we also added a Climate-
Smart Practice Incentive for CRP General and Continuous Signups 
to better leverage this program for positive climate outcomes.
    We updated the grassland CRP rental rates, and that 
resulted in an increase in over 1,000 counties in that 
grassland rate, which really drove the participation in that 
meaningful working land conservation program.
    We have made significant strides, like the Chief has, in 
our work to expand access to underserved communities, 
specifically through our Conservation Reserve Enhancement 
Program (CREP). That is a partnership program which targets 
conservation benefits identified by local organizations or 
States, or regional organizations.
    Through CREP, for the first time ever, three Tribal Nations 
in the Great Plains are partnering with USDA to have meaningful 
participation in the Conservation Reserve Program, and we are 
really proud of that work and hope to use that model in other 
places in the country to really bring regionally important 
conservation goals to fruition.
    Our Conservation Division also administers key disaster 
assistance programs such as the Emergency Conservation Program 
and the Emergency Forest Restoration Program, and we continue 
to work to improve our implementation of these programs in the 
wake of disasters.
    As I close my testimony I would like to reiterate that ag 
producers are the original conservationists, and conservation 
is an integral part of the work we do at the FSA. We are 
focused on weaving conservation values into the DNA of all of 
our programs, old and new, so that our ag communities that face 
more frequent and intense climate-induced disasters are better 
prepared to mitigate them and navigate out the other side.
    I am grateful for the leadership and expertise of the FSA's 
Conservation Division, our staff in headquarters and around the 
country, working hard every day to make these programs work for 
the producer, and I value the tools and authorities the 
Committee has provided us to deliver these services to our 
producers, and I look forward to supporting the efforts of the 
Committee as you craft the new farm bill, and I welcome your 
questions on our program. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Ducheneaux can be found on 
page 55 in the appendix.]

    Chairman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
    We will now hear from Associate Chief Coleman. You are 
recognized for five minutes. Welcome.

     STATEMENT OF ANGELA COLEMAN, ASSOCIATE CHIEF, U.S.
       FOREST SERVICE,  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
       WASHINGTON, D.C.

    Ms. Coleman. Chairwoman Stabenow, Ranking Member Boozman, 
and members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to 
sit in for Chief Randy Moore who is at home recovering from 
COVID. I serve as the Associate Chief of the Forest Service and 
have been with the agency for 30 years. In that time I have 
served across the country, with half of my time in the 
Southeast. I served on the Jefferson in Virginia, the Washita 
in Arkansas, the Francis Marion and Sumpter in South Carolina, 
and then I later worked as the Deputy Regional Forester in the 
Pacific Southwest, in California.
    I have learned forest management and land stewardship from 
the ground up, and I have witnessed tremendous change over the 
years, and this includes the helpful changes we have seen in 
the farm bill with the forestry title. Each new farm bill has 
equipped us with essential tools that enable us to tackle the 
natural resource challenges we face, strengthen our work with 
all communities and partners, and equitably serve all 
Americans.
    It is no surprise then that reducing the threat of 
wildfires across the western landscapes is highest on our list 
of priority work. Through the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, we have 
ramped up to treat the right places at the right scale, using 
an all-in, all-hands, all-USDA approach. Recent investments by 
this Congress give us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take 
bold and strategic action, and we are working to do just that, 
and we are putting every dollar to good use.
    This past January, we announced investments of $930 million 
in our 21 highest-risk landscapes in the West. This work will 
benefit 200 communities, protect critical infrastructure, and 
improve forests. We are grateful to the Congress and this 
Committee, in particular, for providing these resources to seed 
our initial work.
    We know that sustained execution is needed, and we are 
depending on continued Federal investment coupled with funding 
and capacity from our partners to keep the gains that we are 
making. The tools in the farm bill play a pivotal role in 
reducing wildfire threats and promoting resilience in our 
forests. We need management options that remove barriers and 
promote shared stewardship and cross-boundary work.
    The farm bill is uniquely suited to do that. Families and 
individuals own most of America's forests, my family included, 
and through landscape scale restoration we work with States to 
assistant private landowners in achieving conservation goals. 
This ensures that private lands remain in forests.
    Further, wood innovation grants accelerate new markets for 
wood products and wood energy. Cross-laminated timber is one 
such innovation, and this type of construction at the 
University of Arkansas and Walmart's corporate campus have 
catalyzed new markets for Arkansas lumber. Michigan State 
University leads the Midwest, and Milwaukee serves as home to 
the tallest wood building, at 25 stories. The National 
Agriforestry Center also offers the latest research to farmers 
for their use.
    We owe thanks to this Committee for the Good Neighbor 
Authority--380 agreements, 38 States, triple the groundwork 
since 2018. This tool strengthens ties and worked with States, 
tribes, and counties, and we access expertise and capacity for 
large landscape work.
    Finally, the farm bill supports collaborative forest 
landscape restoration projects. They expand science-based 
collaborative work and leverage partner dollars. This work has 
reduced fire risks on more than 4.6 million acres, and it helps 
us protect communities, communities like the Pagosa Springs 
community in southwest Colorado.
    We are working hard to leverage all the available 
authorities and funding, but obviously there is much work to 
do, especially with so much at stake. Your work on the next 
farm bill underpins our efforts to improve forest conditions, 
reduce threats to vulnerable communities and infrastructures, 
and we look forward to working with you.
    I look forward to your questions, and thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Coleman can be found on page 
65 in the appendix.]

    Chairman Stabenow. Thank you so much, and please let Chief 
Moore know that we wish a speedy recovery for him.
    Ms. Coleman. He finally got caught.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. I know. I know. We have all been, in 
some way or another, affected by this.
    Let me first start with Chief Cosby. NRCS has done really a 
tremendous amount of work to identify conservation practices 
that have a climate benefit. It is really a win-win both for 
our farmers and communities as well as the environment.
    However, the current list of practices identified by NRCS 
heavily favors commodity crops. What would it take to identify 
and develop practices for other areas of agriculture, including 
specialty crops, dairy, livestock, and western drought-impacted 
regions?
    Mr. Cosby. Senator, thank you for the question, and, you 
know, we have been working pretty hard to look at these 
practices and identify those. We have identified close to 40 
now, but we are going to continue to do that work because we 
know it is vitally important that we look at all landscapes and 
all crops and all practices that support that. As we look 
around the country, we have a lot of different practices that 
we can offer, and as the Senator said this morning, sometimes 
there are regions where cover crops and some of these things 
just do not work.
    We are looking at this. We are working locally where are 
folks are out across the country, and this is a locally led 
process where we are working with the States and our staff 
across the country to identify those practices. Then how do 
those practices help us mitigate some of the things we are 
looking at as far as carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas 
emissions?
    We will continue to identify those. The teams are working 
very hard on that, and we will continue that work.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. I think it is very, very important, 
obviously, to be getting the input directly from the local 
communities. I know I am hearing a lot from folks involved in 
fruits and vegetable production. They would like to be able to 
do more, and we really need to provide opportunities for all 
parts of agriculture as we are doing this. I encourage you to 
continue to do this.
    Administrator Ducheneaux, talk a little bit more about CRP. 
You have recently opened up the General Signup, as you said. 
There are 23 million acres enrolled in CRP, with 1.9 million 
set to expire this year. It is well below the 27 million acre 
cap that we had set in the last farm bill. Talk a little bit 
more about what is happening with CRP. How can we ensure that 
the program is really working for our farmers?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you for the question, ma'am. I am 
really proud of the work we have done in CRP to incentivize 
folks to participate voluntarily in this program. The 
collaboration that we have had with our local stakeholders in 
that has led to our process of adjusting soil rental rates 
where they more closely track with what those local communities 
need. I know that is at the forefront of the concern that we 
have as we continue to make changes to the program. We want to 
make sure that we are balancing the need for producers to have 
additional income stream along with their conservation needs.
    We are really going to emphasize the CREP agreements in the 
next year, ma'am, because we see that as an opportunity to 
really get the resource concerns from the local communities. 
The 27-million-acre cap, I personally see that as a goal that 
you all set for us, and we are going to do our level best to 
get to that goal by meaningfully deploying these important 
resources in a way that we can improve soil health, improve 
resilience, and improve climate change mitigation strategies 
for our producers all across the country through those CREP 
agreements, like we have done in Indian Country. They stand to 
bring into the program around three million acres of Grassland 
CRP alone.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Okay. Thank you very much.
    Associate Chief Coleman, in this Committee and in others I 
serve we hear about the need for Forest Service to increase the 
pace and scale of national forest restoration. What is the 
biggest impediment to accomplishing more restoration, and what 
is the best tool to protect communities and restore landscape 
post-catastrophic wildfires?
    Ms. Coleman. Thank you so much for the question, and 
obviously we are putting our work and our efforts toward 
implementing the Wildfire Crisis Strategy. It is science-based, 
and it really gives a good picture of the work that has to be 
done at scale. For that we are talking 20 million acres of 
national forest land, and 30 million in other land. That is our 
best tool for getting ahead and creating resiliency and 
protecting communities.
    I also wanted to mention, as far as tools that help us, I 
cannot mention the REPLANT Act. We had to make some hard 
choices in the past about where we invested our money to 
reforest. With the new, this gives us a little shot at, first 
of all, restoring our infrastructure and seedlings for climate-
adapted trees to grow on landscapes.
    Those are our two best tools, and we are looking at a 10-
year strategy in doing this work, and we are looking at doing 
it in partnership.
    When it comes to the impediment piece, I want to just go 
straight to where we are doing our hardest to kind of make up 
the distance, and that is in our capacity, both internally and 
externally with partners. It is a tough working labor market at 
the moment, and we are having to overcome a lot of challenges 
associated with that, everything from high rent, you know, 
affordability and availability of houses for employees, as well 
as competing for good talent.
    The Forest Service has a lot of distance to make up. As you 
all know, we spent money on fire suppression and a lot of our 
non-fire capacity, and we are ramping that up and making 
progress. That is the biggest, I think, challenge we are facing 
as far as impediments.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much. Always the 
challenge of meeting the immediate crisis versus getting ahead 
of it on prevention. This is always the challenge.
    Well, I have other questions I will give to you for the 
record related to the Regional Conservation Partnership Program 
and urban agriculture. I appreciate the efforts on urban and 
indoor and other innovative producers and where we are going 
there to create more opportunities.
    I will do that for the record, and I will turn it to 
Senator Boozman.
    Senator Boozman. Thank you, Madam Chair, and again, thank 
you all for being here.
    I know that you all are working really hard and doing lots 
of good things, but to be honest I do not have any idea what 
those things are. To provide proper oversight, the Committee 
needs regular updates on how and where the funds provided to 
USDA are being spent. Legislation has provided billions of 
dollars to USDA, yet we have no information on how the 
Department is obligating the funding.
    I guess my question is, can you commit, within the next few 
weeks, to provide us that information?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. On behalf of the Farm Service Agency, sir, 
yes, we will.
    Mr. Cosby. Also on behalf of NRCS, yes.
    Ms. Coleman. Well, obviously the Forest Service joins in, 
in doing that, sir.
    Senator Boozman. Good. Very good. Thank you very much.
    Chief Cosby, the Inflation Reduction Act prioritized 
climate and carbon sequestration in the conservation programs, 
I think neglecting maybe some important resource concerns 
regarding other things. As a result, this limits the ability 
for many producers in Arkansas to implement conservation 
practices on their land related to nutrient and water 
management because that legislation only focuses on climate.
    Will producers who are unable to implement climate or 
carbon sequestration projects still have access to both the 
farm bill and IRA dollars available through conservation 
programs?
    Mr. Cosby. Senator, thank you for the question. I will tell 
you that the way this works is that we look at what happens at 
the local level, and we have these local work groups out there 
across the country that are working really hard to look at what 
those local resource needs are. Those things float up to the 
State.
    When you look at all of the dollars that the 2018 Farm Bill 
provided and also what the IRA provided, we are looking at how 
do we implement practices on the land and how does that work, 
and so it works very well. Those producers out there will have 
an opportunity to come in and continue to apply for those 
practices, and the same practices we are talking about that we 
have been applying for a lot of years also provide those 
benefits for climate. It is not an ``if'' and ``and.'' They all 
work, and it works very good together.
    We will continue to offer all of the programs. We have 175 
different standards that we work from. There is numerous 
amounts of crops, from cover crops to no-till to rotations to 
all of those things. All of those things provide a climate 
benefit, and the farmers have been applying for those for 
years, all of my career. We will continue to offer everything 
we have in our portfolio, but some provide better benefits than 
others, but farmers will have an opportunity to continue to 
apply.
    Senator Boozman. The crops that it is more difficult to 
sequester carbon directly are not going to be left out.
    Mr. Cosby. No, sir.
    Senator Boozman. A significant amount of money is not going 
to go to particular areas compared to other areas.
    Mr. Cosby. We have a methodology that we look at, how does 
that work. We have collected a lot of data from all across the 
country to look at where the needs are, how do we do this. We 
have done this for years and years and years, and so IRA 
dollars, we will look at how do we also implement through the 
same process.
    Senator Boozman. Chief, we are very proud of your 
experience at the Ouachita National Forest, and again, I know 
you are down there periodically. I hope to be down there with 
you in the not-too-distant future so we can brag on you.
    I want to raise a concern that I have with Executive Order 
14072, which directs the Forest Service to define and protect 
old-growth forests. As you know, foresters have never been able 
to agree on a definition of old growth. That is kind of the 
Achilles heel.
    I will submit a question for the record for a written 
response from the Forest Service, but I fear that the 
Administration has asked USDA to take on an impossible task 
that will only end up in litigation, while diverting precious 
time and attention away from important forest management 
activities.
    Now to my question, markets for wood projects are critical. 
They are crucial to keeping our forests healthy and provide 
significant economic benefits to our rural communities. 
Companies and institutions across Arkansas are pioneering the 
use of wood products. You mentioned laminated timber, things 
like that.
    What role do you believe wood products markets play in 
keeping our forests healthy and working, and what actions are 
the Forest Service taking to expand the innovation, use, and 
adoption of wood products in both domestic and international 
markets? In other words, value-adding this tremendous resource 
that our country has.
    Ms. Coleman. Thank you so much, Senator, for the question, 
and I look forward to making my way back to the Washita to be 
with you as well.
    I think there are three points I would like to make around 
markets. Having a healthy infrastructure, timber-producing 
infrastructure, is essential for the agency to be able to 
accomplish the very ambitious goals that we have set out, to 
improve resiliency in our forests, to protect communities from 
wildfire threats. We have got to have infrastructure that 
works, and we have got to have companies that can produce 
timber on a regular basis, and we are continuing to commit our 
work there.
    The second piece is in our efforts to implement the 
Wildfire Crisis Strategy we are going to be also looking at 
small-diameter wood and figuring out together how we build 
markets for that, because that product has to go somewhere as 
well.
    Last, you mentioned it. Our investments in wood innovation 
are a hallmark of how we need to look at our future, and 
obviously Arkansas is out in front when it comes to utilizing 
mass timber. The agency, through our work in our programs, has 
doubled our investments there, and the projects are going up 
quite a bit. We have got 1,600 on the book at this point. That 
gives us a great deal of hope.
    It is in those three areas, starting with a stable 
infrastructure for wood production all around the country, 
particularly in the West.
    Senator Boozman. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
    I am going to turn to Senator Bennet, and first, Senator 
Bennet, you were not in the room. I did indicate you are Chair 
of our Subcommittee on Conservation, you and Senator Marshall. 
We are looking forward to the second half of the oversight 
process for conservation, which I know you will be leading at 
the subcommittee level.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had to introduce 
somebody at the Commerce Committee, but thank you so much----
    Chairwoman Stabenow. No, I realize that.
    Senator Bennet [continuing]. for raising that. I want to 
start by apologizing to my colleagues because leading up to 
this farm bill I am going to be a broken record, and the Chair 
already knows this, a broken record about the 1,200-year 
drought we are facing in the West. It is hard to hear those 
words and get it in your head, but for our farmers and 
ranchers, our producers in the Rocky Mountain West, they have 
never seen anything like this in more than 1,000 years. All of 
the water infrastructure that we have built, the assumptions 
that we have made are assumptions that we cannot make going 
into the future, and it is creating, in our producers, a real 
sense that we have got to look at our Federal ag programs at 
the root to understand how they can better serve the people 
that we are trying to serve.
    It is in that context that I approach this farm bill. 
Obviously, we have got huge labor constraints and other kinds 
of things too. I think a lot about the people that have sat 
around this table in past years, you know, the folks that put 
price supports in and other incentives in during World War I, 
to feed our troops, which was really, really important to do 
but broke up a bunch of land that maybe should not have been 
broken up. Then we went through the process of learning from 
the Dust Bowl, which resulted from that. Southeastern Colorado 
really was the epicenter for the Dust Bowl.
    Then we developed programs like CRP. There are others but 
Administrator Ducheneaux, this is a long-winded introduction to 
a question for you. Like CRP, where we had all the best 
intentions for a program that grew out of the Dust Bowl. It has 
evolved a lot since the Dust Bowl. It has been applied to 
worthy farm ground, I know, around the country. Today, for just 
one example, in Prowers County, Colorado, the heart of the Dust 
Bowl. We are seeing bids of $13 and $15 an acre in the heart of 
the Dust Bowl region, at the same time that farmers in other 
parts of the country are seeing $300 per acre. Obviously, these 
low prices discourage anybody from putting their farm into the 
CRP program, which is the opposite of what we should be 
encouraging.
    I have been in Iowa in a not very successful campaign, but 
I know what the farmers there are facing, and I do not want to 
take anything away from them. I also know that in Colorado we 
are facing those kind of Dust Bowl conditions again, and $13 an 
acre is just not going to achieve the policy objectives that 
CRP wants.
    Administrator Ducheneaux, I wonder if you could talk a 
little bit about these misaligned incentives, and ask you 
whether you would be willing to, as we get into this next farm 
bill, to work with me and to work with others on this Committee 
to better reflect the reality of the situation that we are all 
confronting in the American West.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you for the question, and I will 
start with the last one. Absolutely, yes, we are willing to 
commit to work with you all.
    To the first question--and I want to empathize. I, too, 
have had several failed election campaigns, not as meaningful 
as yours.
    Senator Bennet. I suspect your mother did not start yours 
by saying, ``Do we really need one more candidate in the 
race?'' which is what I heard.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Ducheneaux. To your point on the rental rates in 
Prowers County, in my opening remarks I had a chance to talk 
about one of the visions of CRP, and that vision is to change 
the nature of production on these lands, not necessarily just 
take it out of production, which makes it an enhanced income 
opportunity for producers alongside what they are doing. We are 
really driving home the CRP Grasslands Program, and in that 
particular segment of the country especially we have added an 
incentive for the Dust Bowl region, to add an incentive payment 
to that for enrollment there.
    Especially in your State, CREP agreements are an important 
tool that we can use because that really helps us position our 
partner more meaningfully in the conversation about what is 
needed in those particular production systems, and we welcome 
opportunities to continue that work, now and into the farm 
bill.
    Senator Bennet. Well, I appreciate that, and I look forward 
to working with you. Because of my preamble I am out of time, 
but Madam Chair, I am going to submit some questions for the 
record, particularly about forestry issues that we are facing 
with that 1,200-year drought in the West. We have to do more 
preemptively and proactively, and I hope to be able to persuade 
my colleagues that spending money preemptively is going to be 
better than spending it on the back end.
    Thank you for your answer, and Madam Chair, I yield.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you so much, and we are so 
pleased that you are leading this effort. It is a horrendous 
situation you are going through, so different than Michigan 
being surrounded by water. We have very different kinds of 
things that we are challenged with as opposed to the droughts 
that you are seeing. That is the importance of this Committee, 
to be able to understand regions like yours and other areas in 
the country.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Senator Ernst.
    Senator Ernst. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member 
Boozman, and thanks to our witnesses for being here and for 
your testimony.
    Today we are talking about conservation, and as we all know 
those farmers out there, they are our original 
conservationists. They raise their families on their farms, and 
it is in their absolute best interests to make sure that they 
are caring about the environment and their water quality.
    I hear from our farmers about the importance of soil health 
as well because we all know we cannot make more dirt. We want 
to be good stewards of the land so that our future generations 
have the opportunity to farm, just as my parents and 
grandparents.
    Following the devastating floods in 2019 in our great State 
of Iowa, over 4,000 acres of cropland in floodplains were 
voluntarily enrolled into the Emergency Watershed Protection 
Program, and that legislation would promote the restoration of 
hydrologic function on floodplain easements in this permanent 
program.
    I know that natural resource concerns are valid, but we 
must ensure that we are using our taxpayer resources 
appropriately. As we look to garner broad support for this 
very, very important farm bill, all funding should be carefully 
considered and streamlined to be more effective and efficient. 
Having said that, I do strongly believe conservation programs 
must remain voluntary, incentive based, and flexible, because a 
one-size process does not fit all. We just heard that from 
Bennet and the Chairwoman, that there are different issues that 
exist out there.
    Much when we are looking at the types of regulatory burdens 
around the conservation programs they are very challenging and 
time-consuming, and so much so that I hear some of our farmers 
say, ``I am just not going to participate because there is too 
much involved here.''
    Chief Cosby, how can we modernize the application and 
approval process so that some of our most popular conservation 
programs like the Regional Conservation Partnership Program 
(RCPP), and EQIP, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, 
can be better utilized?
    Mr. Cosby. Thank you for the question, and since coming 
into this job that is something that I have been working very 
closely with my staff on. Through my 40-year career I have seen 
this happen, where we need to be more flexible, and we need to 
also streamline the application process so that farmers 
understand. This is especially true in the underserved 
communities, that we need to make sure that folks out there are 
able to participate.
    These programs have things like, we have not had broad 
participation on a lot of these programs because folks did not 
have understand the process. One of the things that we are 
doing is we are out there doing outreach. We are working with 
all communities. We are trying to talk about how these programs 
work, what are the benefits. We are looking at all communities, 
all sources, and trying to make sure that we are more flexible 
and our programs are more available to folks that want to 
participate.
    It is sometimes hard when you are in some of these 
communities to talk about these Federal programs because there 
is not a lot of trust. We are out there. We are building trust. 
We are doing a lot of outreach work. There are some 
opportunities for folks to come in and work with us throughout 
the system. this is something that is very, very serious to us, 
and we are going to continue to do that, to make these programs 
available.
    Senator Ernst. Great. Thanks, Chief, because if it is 
easier to apply and adhere to the program requirements more 
people would absolutely be participating in it.
    As well, Chief Cosby, precision ag and innovative 
technologies present different opportunities for farmers to 
improve their productivity and to be good stewards of their 
land as well. For example, new biological fertilizers use 
microbes to promote nutrients for plant growth while also 
reducing nutrient runoff.
    What role do you see for tools like these to be 
incorporated and eligible for cost share in conservation 
programs?
    Mr. Cosby. Ma'am, one of the things that we do is we 
constantly look at our technical standards. I have a science 
and technology team that really worked every day to look at 
what these new concepts are, new techniques, new technology, 
and how do we incorporate that into what we do every day at our 
agency.
    As these new things come online we will continue to look at 
them. We work very closely with other agencies or other 
departments within USDA that understand how they work, because 
most of the things we do, all of the things we do are science 
based and we have to make sure that technology is something 
that we should be using.
    We will continue the work and look at our standards and how 
we incorporate that into our standards and make sure it is 
available to farmers as it comes online.
    Senator Ernst. That is great. Thank you so much to our 
witnesses. I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much. Senator Booker.
    Senator Booker. Thank you so much, Chairwoman. I am really 
excited that I have been working on multiple bills to make 
improvements to the farm conservation programs, including our 
bipartisan bill for EQIP reform, that I will be introducing 
tomorrow.
    I want to focus on another important issue. Mr. Ducheneaux, 
I am so grateful to see you here. Thank you for working so well 
with my team on a lot of really important things. Section 2206 
of the Inflation Reduction Act provided $3.1 billion to the 
USDA to provide relief for distressed borrowers, with FSA 
direct and guaranteed loans, and to expedite assistance for 
those borrowers whose farms are really struggling. They are in 
financial risk.
    Last year, the FSA distributed the first $800 million of 
this funding. Can you just explain how this funding is being 
utilized by the FSA and how many distressed farmers received 
assistance?
    Mr. Cosby. Yes, sir. In that first round of assistance 
there were around 11,000 producers. This week we also made 
payments to producers based on disaster set-aside opportunities 
they may have exercised in the past.
    In my opening comments I alluded to a meeting I had with 
some distressed borrowers in Minnesota. We had a chance to talk 
to a borrower there who was a soybean wheat farmer. He is 
trying to transition into regen and soil health. Without this 
assistance he was not going to make it there. I think the 
stories are important in this so that we come to an 
understanding of the reality of the impact that we have had.
    Another producer had health concerns, lingering health 
concerns for several years, and this payment helped him right 
the ship and maintain that operation for future generations.
    Still another had the death of a spouse and lost an income 
on his farm, which is chilling that we have to rely on off-farm 
income to do this because we have the luxury of having jobs 
where we do not need another job to make ends meet.
    Last and most importantly of those producers there was an 
active-duty military officer who does not meet the 
classification for veteran status in our programs to receive 
those additional benefits because of statutory challenges. He 
also received some of this IRA assistance and helped save the 
farm, helped him know that it was going to be there when he 
returned from that active-duty military status.
    The stories are important as the numbers, sir.
    Senator Booker. I mean, the stories are really compelling. 
Could you maybe tell me which States have received some of the 
most help, the most assistance?
    Mr. Cosby. Yes. We recently released that data on a State-
by-State table. Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas are the three 
biggest recipients of the payments, by virtue of the 
distribution of the borrowers.
    Senator Booker. That is extremely amazing. Again, each one 
of these stories is just so compelling on how these great 
Americans, who are protecting our heritage, have been really 
benefiting. I am grateful that the FSA has moved so quickly. 
Again, your team is so impressive to me, helping over 10,000 
farmers who were delinquent on their loans and at risk of 
losing their family farms to foreclosure.
    Now those farmers are receiving a big tax liability, right? 
In other words, they have got this help but they have a tax 
liability related to the FSA assistance. Can you explain what 
this issue is and how it is causing some challenges for those 
great Americans?
    Mr. Cosby. As I understand it, sir, there were 
conversations during the crafting of that legislation that 
might have exempted this assistance payment from tax liability, 
like some in the past had been. That was not the case, so 
producers now have received a Federal payment, they are 
receiving a 1099-G, which spells out their taxable income. Many 
of our producers in some of our more underserved communities 
have not had the ability to mature their operations to a level 
of sophistication where they have a retained CPA. They are at 
jeopardy, and continue to be at jeopardy, because of the lack 
of ability to adequately plan for this tax consequence.
    The timing of this action did not help. It was right at the 
end of the year, and we all know that our taxes are a calendar 
year basis. These producers received a pretty good-sized lump 
sum at the end of the year, in some cases, and not an 
opportunity to do things that would be investments in their 
farm to keep more of that money in circulation in their rural 
economy on their balance sheet before it is time to settle up 
with the IRS. That is critically important.
    Senator Booker. No, I appreciate it, and you said that we 
have done this before, when we have helped distressed farmers, 
we have helped struggling farmers. We have exempted this 
before. It is not like we have not done this before in a 
bipartisan way.
    I have introduced legislation to make assistance that these 
distressed farmers receive, to make this assistance nontaxable. 
I really hope the Chair and the Ranking Member can help us to 
quickly get a bill enacted into law so we can save these folks 
that got that taxable event at a time that they were 
distressed. The stories are so compelling. These are veterans. 
These are folks that have been on their family farms since the 
Homestead Act, and now are at risk of losing, and now the 
taxman can come and really upend this when this is something, 
again, that we have done and exceptions that we have made in 
the past.
    I appreciate the time. I really appreciate your team, and I 
know some of them are sitting behind you. I just want to say 
thank you to their efforts. They are literally helping 
Americans who are generational farmers stan on their land, so 
thank you, sir.
    Mr. Cosby. Thank you, Senator.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much. Thank you for 
raising this issue, and both as Chair of Agriculture but also 
on the Finance Committee I will join with you to make sure that 
we exempt these dollars, as we have done in other programs. 
This is not new, what you are asking for. It is something that 
should be done, and I strongly support it. Thank you. Senator 
Hyde-Smith.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank 
you, witnesses, for being here. It is really good to see all of 
you and I certainly appreciate what you do on behalf of farmers 
and ranchers throughout this country, and I am thrilled that I 
have Terry Cosby here from Mississippi. Tallahatchie County is 
also where Morgan Freeman is from. Some great people come out 
of Tallahatchie County. I am so proud to have you here.
    My question is very similar to Senator Ernst, and it is on 
the streamlining. You get the same calls that I get. You get 
the same complaints that I get. I am real strong supporter of 
voluntary conservation programs for working lands and for 
helping our farmers and ranchers with conservation practices 
because we certainly need them out there doing that.
    Mr. Cosby, my question is to you, and you have pretty much 
answered how we can simplify and streamline, and you are very 
aware at that. Would providing producers with equitable 
incentive payments that fully cover the cost of implementing 
conservation practices help ensure all our producers are able 
to participate?
    Mr. Cosby. That is something that we have discussed on 
numerous occasions, the participation rate as well as the 
incentive to do these practices. Some of these are pretty 
expensive to do, and we are able to offer 75 percent, up to 90 
percent, and sometimes, in some of the programs, we are able to 
waive some things where we can go up to 100 percent on some of 
these practices.
    With the recent investments I think we are going to have an 
opportunity to fund a lot more of these applications that are 
coming in through all the programs. We do still have folks out 
there that are struggling to put these practices on the ground 
because of the cost, so we need to figure out ways to help them 
do that.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Okay. The Conservation Stewardship 
Program also that Senator Ernst alluded to, do you have any 
thoughts on ways we could strengthen the program for livestock 
producers, such as providing additional conservation 
enhancement practices to help them participate?
    Mr. Cosby. As with all of these programs we still continue 
to look at how do we improve them. CSP is for that higher 
management of these farms. Folks go into EQIP and some of those 
and then they build their farm to a place where they can 
qualify for the CSP program. Through these recent investments 
we are going to see CSP grow, especially with IRA dollars that 
are going to be coming forth for CSP. We will be looking at all 
of those type practices to see if we can incorporate those into 
that.
    When we look at CSP we have had a lot of folks that are 
really interested. They have looked at how they can build their 
farms, and these payments have been critical in times when 
there are no other payments coming in. We want to continue 
that. We want to continue to expand CSP and look at other ways 
to get other folks in also.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you very much on that one. I have 
a little time left.
    Ms. Coleman, the forest industry is extremely important to 
rural communities and the overall economy in Mississippi. I am 
former Ag Commissioner and I met with a lot of folks who are in 
the forestry business. Private working forests provide more 
than 46,000 jobs in the State, which drives an overall payroll 
roughly $1.7 billion annually. That is big for our folks in 
Mississippi. The timber and wood products industry in 
Mississippi accounts for more than $8 billion in sales and 
manufacturing annually.
    We are uniquely positioned to meet a growing market demand 
for timber and wood. I always say if we have anything in 
Mississippi, we have got a wood basket.
    I am hearing from constituents that more could be done to 
support wood products so that our working forest owners can 
sell their trees at a healthy price and which will ultimately 
bring more prosperity to the rural communities that live and 
work near forested areas.
    How is the Wood Innovation Grant Program advancing 
technology in adoption of wood as a building product?
    Ms. Coleman. Thank you for the question, Senator. This is a 
part of the country that I know very well, having spent most of 
my time in the Southeast and growing up in the State of 
Alabama, next door to Mississippi, so I know how important the 
wood products industry is to the economy.
    The agency, as well, has stepped up when it comes to 
building new markets for mass timber. As I said in my opening, 
it is one of those growing areas that we are really ramping up 
our investments in, particularly when it comes to the number of 
projects. We have got 1,600 projects already, and we have 
doubled our investments, as well as we have 11 new mass timber 
projects.
    The opportunity is there, and we are happy to work with you 
on making sure those opportunities are visible to the great 
citizens in the State of Mississippi. It clearly is our area of 
growth.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you very much, because we like to 
capitalize on what we have and what we do well, and we can grow 
timber.
    Thank you, Madam Chairman.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much. Senator Smith.
    Senator Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have to say a 
moment ago I stepped out in the hallway and I had a chance to 
meet with Minnesota's soybean growers, and it was apt that they 
were here while we are having this Committee hearing. Of course 
they are very interested in the conservation programs and are 
very interested in passing a bipartisan farm bill, which is so 
crucial. I am not interested in laying this over for another 
year or two, and so I am really glad to be able to pass that 
message on to our Committee while we are here together.
    Farmers and producers appreciate conservation programs. No 
one cares more about conservation than farmers. It is their 
land, their water, their health, and their future. 
Historically, Minnesotans have led the Nation in participating 
in both the EQIP program and the CSP program, the Working 
Conservation Lands programs.
    Not everyone in Minnesota is able to access these 
incentives. In 2020, less than one-fifth of Minnesotans who 
applied for EQIP or CSP funds were awarded contracts. It is a 
big deal that we have delivered additional support for these 
popular and oversubscribed conservation programs in the 
Inflation Reduction Act.
    I would just like to ask everyone on the panel, where it is 
relevant, given the popularity of these programs, given the 
oversubscription of these programs, can you talk to us about 
what benefits you think we are going to be seeing both in 
resilience and also in production, that we are going to see 
more thanks to the additional support that we have been able to 
deliver through the Inflation Reduction Act?
    Maybe Mr. Cosby, you would like to start.
    Mr. Cosby. Thank you for that question, and yes, most of 
these programs are oversubscribed. Right now, on the average, 
we are able to fund about 30 percent of the applications that 
we get through the 2018 Farm Bill. Last year we received over 
100,000 EQIP applications, so we are only able to do a third. 
On the CSP, we see almost 24,000 applications, and we are only 
able to do 35 percent of those. These programs have been very 
oversubscribed. With the investments from IRA it is going to 
give us an opportunity to go back and maybe bring some of those 
producers forward.
    The other thing I want to remind you is that we have to 
look at also the oversubscribed but we also have to look at all 
new customers that are also going to be walking through the 
door----
    Senator Smith. That is right.
    Mr. Cosby [continuing]. to participate. The team out there, 
as I have explained before, it is a locally led process. We ask 
the States to sit down and talk about those resource issues, 
those resource concerns, and also come up with what is going to 
rank very high on the scale. We have State technical committees 
that work through this. We have representation from all walks 
of life on those committees.
    We will be looking at the oversubscribed as well as the new 
customers walking through the door, and IRA is going to give us 
an opportunity to expand these programs.
    Senator Smith. Thank you very much. Anybody else like to 
comment on this? Mr. Ducheneaux?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. I would, please. Thank you. Good question. 
I fall back on one of the conversations we had in the last 
hearing. The best conservation planning tool a producer can 
have is money in their pocket at the end of the production 
year, that they can spend at their discretion and on their 
timeframe. That is truly voluntary. That is really incentive 
based.
    A lot of the work that we are doing at the agency is 
focusing on providing that financial foundation for producers, 
especially new and beginning and underserved producers, to 
start at that position by flexible financing. If we can provide 
producers the flexible financing they need at the beginning, 
they are better positioned to pay the cost share that is 
theirs, or they can just take the next step and go right into 
doing this climate mitigation, soil health strategies that are 
going to benefit their operation for the long term.
    We cannot react our way out of a disaster but we can sure 
plan our way around the next one.
    Senator Smith. Absolutely, and it is interesting because 
the soybean growers that I was talking to were raising this 
point that you were alluding to exactly, which is as the 
average age of farmers in this country and in Minnesota is 
creeping up to around 60, they appreciate the massive debt that 
these young farmers are taking on in order to literally move 
into the field. Being able to have conservation programs that 
are accessible to them, which is what they want to do anyway, 
is just extremely important.
    Madam Chair, I only have a couple of minutes left and I 
know that I have got colleagues that are eager to ask their 
questions, so I will just say I have a question for the record 
that relates to the work I believe we need to do, that we all 
understand. As we are talking about conservation programs that 
are focused on sequestering carbon in the soil, and as we talk 
about how producers are interested, looking at opportunities 
for getting paid for that carbon sequestration, that there is a 
need for more research, I think, more better understanding of 
how that is working, that we have a good data base. I am going 
to submit a question to the record, to you, Mr. Cosby, to get 
at that question and to get some information out about how we 
are measuring carbon sequestration and what we need to do 
there.
    Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much, and research is 
very important, so thank you for raising that. Senator 
Marshall.
    Senator Marshall. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Let me just start by sharing how important I think 
conservation is to the farm bill, that Kansas farmers, American 
farmers were the original stewards, that we want to leave this 
world cleaner, healthier, and safer than we found it. One of 
the ways we have been doing it, and will continue to do it, is 
through innovation.
    I think about all the great things happening in innovation 
in agriculture. For instance, a center pivot now, we can put a 
monitor on the end of the pivot with radar technology, and as 
that pivot goes around that quarter section of land it measures 
the moisture content of the land. Soon we will be able to 
measure the nitrogen content in the soil. There is a camera on 
that with machine learning as the early detecting of fungus or 
a virus to that crop. That is how we are going to solve this 
problem, and that technology allows us to grow more with less. 
We are growing more food with less fertilizer and less water, 
so as that pivot makes it second and third trip around that 
quarter section of corn, we are able to use less.
    I want to start by thanking the NRCS for getting back with 
us on some technical assistance to which legislation we hope 
makes it into the farm bill, which provides for us to use 
fertilizer at a less amount. My first question is for Mr. 
Cosby.
    One of our priorities is the affordability of fertilizer in 
the United States. We are going to have to use some fertilizer, 
but it is not very affordable. It is probably the main input 
cost that people talk to me about back home. Our bill that we 
are writing, the Fertilizer Sustain Act, requires NRCS to 
recognize certified crop advisers as technical service 
providers, rather than having to go through the complicated 
eligibility provisions.
    Do you agree that breaking down the walls between the 
certified crop adviser program and the TSP program, including 
Section 590, Nutrient Management Plan Requirements, would help 
farmers?
    Mr. Cosby. Senator, we have worked very closely with the 
certified providers to become TSP. One of the things, when I 
first came in, that we looked at is how to make that process a 
lot simpler, and so we had the States doing that. What we have 
done now, we have moved that--the States are working on it but 
we have moved that more to a regional basis to make it a little 
easier, a little less stressful. We are looking at how do we 
make sure, as those crop advisers apply, we use their 
experience maybe instead of the educational side of it. We are 
going to make that less complicated, and I think there will be 
more technical service providers that will be coming in because 
we will be looking at their life-long experience instead of the 
education side.
    Senator Marshall. Great. I want to spend a moment just 
talking about water conservation. We spend lots of time on the 
Committee talking about the environmental impact of carbon. I 
would have to tell you if you would talk to Kansas producers, I 
am not sure which would be the bigger challenge, a lack of 
people for the jobs we have or a lack of water and how 
important water conservation is. I think that that needs to be 
raised to the top somehow in more ways. I appreciate Senator 
Bennet mentioning the drought that we have ongoing as well.
    I guess my question for Mr. Cosby or Mr. Ducheneaux--I am 
sorry--Mr. Ducheneaux and Ms. Coleman. Sorry, I got it backward 
there. What is the USDA thinking about water conservation? What 
more can we be doing?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you, Senator, and I have been called 
far worse by people that know me far better.
    Water is critical. Without water none of the rest of this 
works. Mni waconi is what my people say--water is life--and 
without that water we are not going to be able to stimulate the 
microbial life, the vegetative life, the livestock life, or 
maintain the human life. It is critically important and we are 
leveraging our tools as much as we can to help producers engage 
in more water-smart activities on their land, up to and 
including CREP agreements in your State as well, to recharge 
the aquifer through the playa system there.
    I think we can continue to work toward that by first taking 
the step that you offered, acknowledging water is every bit as 
important as any of the other things that we are talking about.
    Senator Marshall. Ms. Coleman, anything to add? As I think 
about this, what was the old saying back home, is that whiskey 
is for drinking and water for fighting.
    Ms. Coleman. Well, clearly water is just as essential to 
the health and resiliency of forests as any other part of our 
natural resource base, so our investments in watershed help our 
critical. They play a role, as well, in our strategy to combat 
what we are seeing from the effects of climate.
    We are in total agreement around the vitality of water and 
our commitment to invest in watershed health, that is critical. 
That is one of the bases for the Forest Service.
    Senator Marshall. Madam Chair, we do not have to answer the 
question but we still do not have a State conservationist 
officer appointed in Kansas yet. Hopefully we can accommodate 
that. I am hearing a lot right now from my producers that we 
are overworking our NRCS officers as well, that they have more 
and more territory to cover. It will be a challenge as we 
introduce all these new programs, we will have to make sure we 
address that.
    Thank you so much, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much. Senator 
Klobuchar.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you, Chair, for holding this 
important hearing, and I think you know that Minnesota has 
always ranked in the top five for conservation program 
enrollment and spending. It is very important to us and our 
farmers.
    Before I get to that I wanted to talk about timber. Ms. 
Coleman, in the last two farm bills, 2014 and 2018, I worked to 
expand the Good Neighbor Authority that gives the Forest 
Service additional flexibility to work with willing State and 
private landowners to implement forest management practices. It 
has been a resounding success, and I believe further expansion 
of the program in the farm bill can help us manage additional 
acres of forest.
    How do you feel the Good Neighbor Authority is working, 
besides it having a nice name, and what options should the 
Committee consider to prioritize new projects and agreements 
between the Forest Service and the States?
    Ms. Coleman. Senator, thank you for the question, and I 
think based on what we are seeing it is living up to its name 
and promoting good neighbor relationships and getting work done 
together.
    The addition of the authority to extent to tribes and 
counties, that has been very beneficial, and we have about a 
half dozen, a little more than a half dozen, on each side of 
that. When we look at the future of the Good Neighbor 
Authority, which has really delivered--380 projects, 38 
States--clearly we are benefiting from the sharing of expertise 
and capacity. When we look at the future we want to explore 
opportunities to incentivize even more county and tribal 
participation.
    Senator Klobuchar. Excellent. As you know, that also helps 
to reduce wildfire risks. We had 10 forest fires in the month 
of July alone, last July, in northern Minnesota. I went and 
visited with the Forest Service, Senator Smith and I did, and 
the Governor to see their work, and luckily the local fire 
departments responded. Further helps on that front as well.
    On the conservation front, we know that farmers, Chief 
Cosby, Administrator Ducheneaux increasingly interested in soil 
health. Senator Thune and I reintroduced legislation to improve 
the use of conservation data analysis so that farmers can 
identify the most effective conservation techniques that have 
the greatest benefit.
    Can you talk maybe, Chief, about the importance of having 
studies that compare yield rates to rates of cover crop and no-
till adoption or other conservation practices when making 
decisions?
    Mr. Cosby. Senator, thank you for the question, and I had 
an opportunity to visit your State last week and was there with 
the State conservationist, Troy Daniell.
    Senator Klobuchar. I am sure the weather was lovely for you 
there, Chief Cosby.
    Mr. Cosby. I was looking for a coat and a hat, real quick. 
The question is very important. We need to analyze a lot of 
data to make sure that these programs are working for the 
farmer and the producer. We have a team there at NRCS and 
across USDA that helps to look at a lot of these different 
things as the data comes in. How is it useful? How should we 
use it? How should it support the programs? We are working very 
hard to do that.
    I have been doing this for a long time, and we have a lot 
of data from a lot of years. We do CEAP studies. We are going 
to be doing a lot of remote sensing. We are going to be working 
with our soils assessment team to be looking at how this data 
could work. The teams are working very hard to look at that.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Thank you, Chief Cosby.
    Senator Thune and I also introduced the CRP Improvement 
Act, Administrator Ducheneaux, which provides cost share 
opportunities for grazing infrastructure, an increase in the 
CRP annual payment limitation, and permanently established the 
State acres for wildlife enhancement practice under continuous 
CRP. Would these provisions incentivize producers to enroll in 
the program? How can we capitalize on this tool and make it 
more desirable for farmers and ranchers?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you, Senator, and I think the more we 
can do to incentivize participation is naturally going to drive 
more producers to it. I think the important aspect that you 
really highlighted there is using CRP as a working lands tool 
and providing the tools that producers need to continue to 
produce but in a different way on these CRP lands. They have 
been a vital resource in our part of the country in emergencies 
in the last couple of years, for instance. Emergency haying and 
grazing of CRP lands has literally kept cow herds together for 
producers that have CRP and producers that are neighbors or in 
the region of CRP areas.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Very good. I think I am out of 
time, but I will ask the other questions on the record. I want 
to thank all of you for your good work and look forward to 
working with you. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much. Senator 
Tuberville.
    Senator Tuberville. I yield my time to Senator Grassley, if 
he is ready.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Senator Grassley?
    Senator Tuberville. I have always been nice to him.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Well, that is actually a smart thing 
to do.
    Senator Tuberville. Especially when it comes to 
agriculture.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. That is right. All right.
    Senator Grassley. I am only going to take you up on your 
offer because you are so mean to me.
    [Laughter.]
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Senator Grassley.
    Senator Grassley. Thank you very much. I think this hearing 
comes at a critical time because of Russia's influence on the 
world's supply of grain. All the while the Biden administration 
is taking action to take more American farmland out of 
production. A week into this term of this President he issued 
an executive order known as the 30x30 Plan. This plan aims to 
permanently conserve 30 percent of our country's lands and 
waters by 2030.
    Have you been involved in the discussion on the 30x30 
executive order, and if so, has CRP been a topic of these 
meetings?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you, Senator Grassley, for the 
question. We have all been part of the effort to ensure that we 
are doing our part to ensure conservation on our lands, and it 
is conservation of the lands that will reserve future 
production opportunity that we are focused on. It is not about 
forever removing it from conservation. We are even doing 
analyses right now about how do we better use land that is 
already in the CRP program so that we can continue to have some 
meaningful ag production while taking the conservation steps 
that will build soil health and improve our ability to continue 
to grow our production into the future.
    Senator Grassley. CRP has been a part of that discussion. 
Is that what you are saying?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Yes, sir.
    Senator Grassley. Okay. The 2018 Farm Bill capped CRP 
payments at 85 percent of county rental rates, yet during the 
2021 CRP signup USDA added a 10 percent inflation adjustment 
for contracts signed and other environmental incentives. This 
increases the chance that the Federal Government is outbidding 
young and begging cash rent farmers, so the Federal Government 
would be a very disastrous competitor. CRP can be a useful tool 
to address marginal land. However, Iowa has the most productive 
farmland and we should not be putting that in permanent 
conservation.
    Did FSA take into account how this inflationary adjustment 
would affect land prices and push producers trying to get 
access to rental land?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Yes, sir. In addition to a lot of other 
factors, FSA considers those economic impacts. I think it is 
important to note that we lean heavily on our local partners on 
the county committees to weigh in when they feel like the NASS 
data is incorrect as to what an effective rate would be. We 
make sure that when we get close to that 25 percent per county 
cap we are paying special attention in those cases, sir.
    Senator Grassley. Did you take into consideration that you 
would be violating law if that inflationary cap got over the 85 
percent county average?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. We work very closely with our Office of 
General Counsel, sir, and I would ask you to have the legal 
conversations with them. We adhere to their guidance.
    Senator Grassley. Can you explain how prime farmland ends 
up in CRP and what we can do in the next farm bill to ensure 
that we are only setting aside the most environmentally 
sensitive and marginal farmland?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. I think that is our goal, sir, is to ensure 
that it is the environmentally sensitive land. As to explaining 
how prime farmland can get into that program I think we have 
got to look at the causal factors. The economic reality of our 
producers is that 89 percent of them make most of their income 
off the farm. We have got to look at improving farm viability 
for all of our producers, and a rental rate for CRP is one of 
the many opportunities that a producer has to consider when 
measuring the economic viability of their operation. We welcome 
those conversations.
    Senator Grassley. Before I give up the chair let me explain 
to Senator Tuberville, you really are not mean but you sure 
tease me an awful lot.
    [Laughter.]
    Chairwoman Stabenow. For the record. All right.
    Okay. Senator Lujan.
    Senator Lujan. Thank you, Chair. I really appreciate the 
time today, and Tommy, you are okay, sir. Do not let them give 
you a hard time. You are a good guy.
    I want to thank all of our panelists for being here today 
and for the work that you are doing and that you will continue 
to do. My questioning today is predominantly around small, 
rural areas.
    In New Mexico, as you know, we have a lot of small 
communities, towns, farmers, ranchers that do well but they 
want to participate more in USDA programs. Initiatives like 
Justice40, they are a good start and they are a good first 
step. One of the challenges that producers in New Mexico have 
identified is cost share challenges along those lines. I am 
having the same conversation around the Colorado River and some 
of the small, historically underserved and disadvantaged 
communities.
    Mr. Ducheneaux, has the Justice40 initiative reviewed how 
cost share requirements prevent low-income and underserved 
communities from accessing conservation programs?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Yes we have, sir, and we have done some 
other studies, and thanks for the question. I had a chance to 
visit some of the acequia producers, as I mentioned in the last 
hearing, and you have heard me talk a lot in this hearing about 
the value of our Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. That 
was one of the first efforts that we made to get that out there 
with the acequia producers, as an assistance tool to help them 
participate more meaningfully. It gives them a fast track into 
the conservation programs.
    The other report that I was referring to is the Minority 
Non-Minority Participation Report, and that report very clearly 
indicates that--I am talking too loud or in the wrong place. 
That report very clearly indicates that having an increased 
cost share incentivizes production. When you take a look at 
minority participation, historically underserved participation 
in our programs, the higher cost share rates matter and drive 
participation. I think that is going to be a critical tool as 
we go forward to explore how do we get to the folks that do not 
have that opportunity, have not had the chance to amass that 
generational wealth that makes a cost share easy to pay. That 
is one of our tools that we are going to need to use, sir.
    Senator Lujan. Madam Chair, this is an area where I hope 
that, especially with smaller producers across the country, 
that we evaluate how this will benefit them as well. That is 
one of the goals that I had coming to this Committee, as I 
shared with you and with our Ranking Member as well, so I look 
forward to working with you on technical assistance and then 
working with the Committee and see if we can earn support for 
improvements through the farm bill as well.
    Since I have you, sir, I appreciate you mentioning 
acequias. That is a good thing. Now the knowledge is deep, more 
people are talking about these, and you have seen them and know 
them. For those of you that have not seen them I am going to 
invite you all to New Mexico, to my little farm, and you are 
going to help me dig them and keep them clean, so that way we 
keep them running for a long time.
    You did something, as well, that was important in this 
Administration. There were some predominantly Hispanic 
producers in northern New Mexico who, under the previous FSA, 
had been getting the runaround and not get support to qualify 
for NAP. One of the areas was the local FSA office stated, and 
moved something that said if you irrigated with these acequias 
you were not qualified for NAP. You fixed that.
    This is another area, Madam Chair, that this change is 
critically important, and I am hoping that we can work together 
to codify that change because it is a good one, and this 
injustice should never happen again.
    Now from a wildfire perspective, as we know New Mexico was 
hit terribly with the largest wildfires we have had in our 
State's history. I will address this to the entire panel and 
ask each of you what changes do you feel need to be made to 
USDA disaster programs to get resources out the door faster and 
better support our communities in need. Mr. Cosby?
    Mr. Cosby. Thank you, sir, and thank you for the question. 
I had the opportunity to be in New Mexico several times during 
this devastation and our heart just goes out to those folks 
that experienced this.
    Working with FSA and the Federal family we have looked at 
how do we make sure that when this type thing happens that we 
are readily available and we are on the ground. Internally we 
have talked about teams that we have put together, that will be 
put together, to respond to a disaster like this.
    Now one of the things that NRCS did was, we put together 
three different teams out there, and we had them out on each 
farm. I think we did about 400 of these investigations, on 400 
farms, to look at the resource needs that those folks needed 
right away to get them back up and going, from a conservation 
standpoint.
    It is really important that all of the Federal family is 
working together, and USDA works together real closely to do 
this with the Forest Service, with FSA and all the Federal 
family. Like I said, I also had an opportunity to be at the 
acequias and talk to a lot of folks. Paula Garcia and I have 
talked several times about this, and how we could make sure 
that we streamline these programs. They have to be streamlined 
so that when these type things happen folks can immediately get 
assistance. We are looking at how do we take down those 
barriers to make sure that happens.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that. Madam Chair, since my 
time has expired I will ask the other two experts here to 
submit their responses into the record.
    The last thing that I will share here is just with the 
acequias. I appreciate the attention that you all have given 
here. There are some areas where I cannot thank enough my 
colleagues for supporting the program that is providing support 
to these communities as well. It has come to my attention that 
there is some support USDA can offer and others that maybe are 
pointed toward FEMA, things of that nature.
    Look, this fire was started by the Federal Government. When 
one Federal agency says, this is the other Federal agency's 
priority or it is their business, that is not good. This was 
started by the Federal Government. The Federal Government needs 
to help. If there are challenges, legally or statutorily, that 
prevents you from doing it, please me know or let us know so we 
can fix it. Because in the end families need that help, and 
that is all I am going to ask there.
    I appreciate what you have been doing, and you are always 
welcome in New Mexico, and I look forward to having you back. 
Thanks, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Well thank you, Senator Lujan. Thank 
you for being such a strong advocate in this area where we need 
to make sure this is done right. Thank you.
    Now, Senator Tuberville.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to the 
witnesses for being here today, especially Ms. Coleman who is 
an Alabama native and a Troy University graduate. Thank you for 
being here.
    Today is significant for my State of Alabama because 
farming and forestry combine to make up the largest industry in 
the State. Alabama has 23.1 million acres of forests, 94 
percent of which are owned private landowners, which is 
important. We also have four national forests and four State 
forests. For our forests to thrive we must manage and harvest 
our timber. For our farms to continue producing food for the 
world we must keep working forests and farmland in production.
    Our farmers and foresters are true conservationists that 
have been implementing, and will continue to implement, 
sustainable practices that benefit our environment for 
generations to come. We must ensure conservation programs 
remain voluntary, market driven, and incentive based. Each 
producer must remain in charge of what operations occur within 
their farmland and forest land. Mandates on our producers will 
not be entertained to any degree.
    As we consider this costly $1.4 trillion farm bill and the 
$25 billion in Inflation Reduction Act spending for forestry 
and conservation programs, we must recognize the price tag of 
these programs, their damage to our national debt, and the 
effect of government incentives to take working forests and 
farmland out of production.
    That being said, I cannot believe that we have been going 
through this hearing for so long and have not talked about 
feral hogs. Mr. Cosby, I cannot go anywhere with farmers and 
foresters that stay after me about having their crops and their 
land destroyed. The 2018 Farm Bill included $75 million in 
feral swine eradication and control pilot program. How can we 
implement this better and do better, and do we need more money 
in the farm bill to help with this?
    Mr. Cosby. Thank you for the question, Senator. We have 
been working very closely with our friends at APHIS to look at 
this problem, and we have been providing incentives also for 
this.
    Now one of the things is that our incentives go for a 
certain thing. We do not eradicate, we do not do those type of 
things, but we can help with technologies and how do you get 
rid of these things. We have heard this all over. I am from the 
State of Mississippi. We have the same issue with feral hogs, 
and we just need to do a better job of the technology to trap 
them, and what happens to them after that, who knows.
    Yes, we do need to work very closely with the Federal 
family to figure out how do we do this because it is 
devastating when you go out and you look at a field that has 
been turned over overnight, or if a farmer loses all of the 
alfalfa or whatever has been planted there.
    Yes, it is a problem. It is something that we need to talk 
about, how do we aid the farmers in fixing it.
    Senator Tuberville. Do you think we need more money in the 
farm bill for this?
    Mr. Cosby. Sir, the money that we have gotten so far we 
have effectively used, and so we will look at other areas and 
other ways and see if there more available to put toward this.
    Senator Tuberville. Because it is a huge problem, and 
getting worse. It is getting worse. Have you got anything to 
add to that?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Yes. I think we have to empower producers 
to consider their production systems that allow these types of 
species to propagate. Senator Thune will be familiar with the 
conditions around Lake Oahe, where we have got the ebb and flow 
of the lake that creates bare ground where we get Canada 
thistle by the hundreds of acres. Because of some of the work 
that we have done in grassland ecosystems, Canada thistle 
cannot find a home in those ecosystems because that ecosystem 
is resilient.
    As we help deal with the symptom we have got to help 
producers understand the greater system that they are working 
in and provide them opportunities to adjust that production, to 
eliminate that environment that is conducive for the feral 
hogs.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you. Ms. Coleman, because 
forestry is so important to our State I want to be sure it is 
protected in the South. Insects and diseases, like the southern 
pine beetle and pine decline can decimate pine tree species. 
How is the Forest Service monitoring and preparing for 
outbreaks that could decimate our critical forest resources?
    Ms. Coleman. Thank you so much for the question, Senator. 
We have a very active, in our State and private forestry 
program, a very active pest management group, and certainly we 
have all seen the devastation of the southern pine beetle and 
other pests throughout the country, and climate change has only 
ramped up the effects.
    There was support and funding from recent legislation that 
really helps us to deliver, and farm bill authority that helps 
us deliver much more effective monitoring and eradication, or 
at least response to those infestations.
    Clearly it is very much a part of our forest health work in 
the agency, and it is also a contributor to our overall 
strategy when it comes to resilience and healthy forests.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I 
have got a couple of questions I would like to submit for the 
record.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Senator 
Gillibrand.
    Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. To start 
off I would like to talk about PFAS. PFAS are manmade forever 
chemicals that are used in industry and consumer products and 
can lead to serious health effects. Contamination of our soil 
and water has prevented some farms from selling their products, 
creating financial hardship for some affected family members.
    Chief Cosby, what is Natural Resource Conservation Service 
doing to assist farmers with testing their soil and water for 
PFAS, and how can Congress help you with this work in our 
upcoming farm bill?
    Mr. Cosby. Thank you for the question, and again, we have 
been working very closely together as a USDA to understand PFAS 
and the effects that it has on soils, on plants, and those type 
things. What our team has been doing is looking at how do we 
mitigate that. How do we use our conservation programs, our 
practices to do that. There will be research going into that to 
try to figure that out, and by all means, we are not the 
experts on chemicals. We will be working very closely with our 
sister agencies to understand this. Through our programs we 
want to provide solutions to those producers that are 
experiencing this, because we know it is devastating, 
especially on dairies and some of those things.
    Senator Gillibrand. One idea that I would love you to 
consider and respond to--you can respond in writing--is if a 
family farm has PFAS-contaminated land and it needs to be 
remediated by the EPA, so you would obviously be in 
collaboration with EPA, is there a way to remove land from 
production in the same way that we remove land for 
conservation, so that we can get a tax benefit? For example, in 
the same way when you put land and get tax benefits because you 
give it to forever farm or forever wild, you can get tax 
benefits, it would be very wise if we could also remove 
chemically ladened pieces of property into a brownfield site 
for remediation and to give the farmers a benefit for doing 
that, since they are losing the production ability on that 
farm, and they did not create the PFAS chemicals.
    Mr. Cosby. Yes, ma'am. We would be really interested in 
having those conversations with you and your team.
    Senator Gillibrand. That would be great.
    My next question is about science, technology, and 
innovation, and how important that is to American farmers, 
especially fruit and vegetable producers, to meet the growing 
demand for healthy food in the face of supply chain disruptions 
and climate change. The innovative technologies being developed 
and deployed by controlled environment agriculture producers 
are but a few of the critical tools we have to help indoor and 
outdoor growers accomplish these objectives.
    How can the USDA's Office of Urban Agriculture and 
Innovative Production help more producers invest and 
incorporate these technologies and systems, which are extremely 
capital intensive and often not eligible for support under 
existing programs?
    Mr. Cosby. Thank you for the question, and we really want 
to thank the Committee for adding this into the 2018 Farm Bill. 
We have been able to establish this Office of Urban Agriculture 
and Innovation Production, and we have a new director there 
now. We have been able to do a lot of things out in the urban 
setting.
    I was the State conservationist in Ohio, and we worked very 
closely in the urban areas to look at this, and we saw a lot of 
this during the pandemic, the food disruption. People want to 
grow local and buy local, so how do we help them do that?
    Then vertical farming is also something that I think has 
taken off, and we have a lot of abandoned buildings and 
different things where people can do this type of work.
    We are going to be continuing to look at all the new 
technologies. We have offered some innovation grants out there 
for folks that want to do this work. We are learning a lot from 
that, and we are going to continue to offer that and learn from 
this new technology.
    Senator Gillibrand. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman and Mr. 
Ranking Member, one issue that was just raised to me when I was 
talking to constituents is that our rural broadband money is 
allowed to go to the farm but not allowed to go to the 
businesses. One thing we should look at is, when we are talking 
about technology and innovation, the actual ag businesses need 
the same access, and so maybe figure out how to make sure--I 
did not think it was true but some farmers ran into this 
trouble. I would like to do a deep dive to make sure all ag 
businesses have access to technology, high-speed internet, that 
we can make sure it applies, and you could do it for any ag 
business. Make it much more ag business-related as opposed to 
just getting to the rural areas, the family farm, because I got 
that feedback which I did not realize.
    Thank you all for being here. Thank you for your testimony, 
and thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Mr. Ranking Member.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you, and thank you for raising 
that issue. I really would want to followup. That does not 
sound right to me.
    Senator Gillibrand. In the statement some of these can go 
to different types of urban farming. That might be another way 
to use the rural broadband money, to just make sure access is 
there for all farm businesses.
    Chairwoman Stabenow. Great idea. Senator Thune, and then I 
am turning the gavel over to Senator Boozman. I have to step 
out. This is true bipartisanship, so I am turning it over to 
Senator Boozman. Do not go crazy.
    All right. Senator Thune.
    Senator Thune. We will have passed the farm bill by the 
time you get back.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Thune. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member 
Boozman, for holding today's hearing on two very important 
titles of the farm bill, conservation and forestry. I want to 
thank the USDA witnesses. Administrator Ducheneaux, it is nice 
to have you back here, and a fellow South Dakotan.
    Let me just start by talking a little bit about the Black 
Hills National Forest and other forests that provide 
recreational opportunities and contribute significantly to 
local and regional economies. In the last few years, we have 
seen enormous wildfires across the West, which have been 
devastating to the local communities and that will have lasting 
effects on water quality, wildlife, recreation, and tourism. 
Proper forest management plays a critical role in maintaining 
forest health and reducing the threat of catastrophic 
wildfires.
    The forest products industry has been a reliable partner in 
the proper management of the Black Hills National Forest, but 
the Black Hills is at risk of losing additional milling 
capacity due to the lack of timber available. The Forest 
Service has failed to appropriately manage the forest timber 
sale program, and I urge the agency to prioritize staff and 
resources to conduct the Natl Environmental Policy Act analysis 
necessary for timber sales.
    The Forest Service must also consider expanding the 
suitable base of acres available for timber and significantly 
increase its collaboration with the States of South Dakota and 
Wyoming and industry stakeholders to find other ways to support 
the timber sale program. I want to urge the Forest Service to 
work collaboratively with State and local governments and the 
Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board throughout the 
forest plan revision process to come up with a plan that 
appropriately supports the future management and health of the 
forest and the communities that depend upon it.
    Associate Chief Coleman, let me just ask, what actions is 
the Forest Service taking to proactively maintain the health of 
the forest and to avoid any additional mill closures?
    Ms. Coleman. Thank you so much for the question, Senator 
Thune, and we really cannot agree more. We need a healthy, 
viable infrastructure with wood production to go after the work 
that needs to be done in these priority places. No question 
about that. We have been working hard to figure out what the 
opportunities are, volume-wise, in the Black Hills to add a 
reliable supply of wood products to keep those mills open.
    We had that third-party review, and it looks clear that we 
are going to have additional volume, and now we are actually 
focusing in on the specifics of that, using lidar technology, 
and expect, by the end of the year, to have much more clear 
information about how we can ramp up our suitable base for 
timber production.
    It is clear that we are doing what we can to expedite that. 
We did do a relook, and we do believe that there is more volume 
to keep these mills open, and we do, again, recognize these 
pieces have to work together. We have to have viable timber 
industry. We have to have a viable economy, as well as a strong 
community. We think that we are going to do our part. We know 
we are going to do our part to do that, and we are going to use 
all authorities available to us to go after this work.
    Senator Thune. Thank you, and I would just encourage you to 
improve collaboration with the advisory board, the counties, 
the States, who I think have a wealth of information and 
insight to bring to the table when it comes to the plan 
revision process.
    Let me just ask a quick question, and that is will the 
Forest Service commit to a more timely renewal process for the 
advisory board, moving forward?
    Ms. Coleman. We will be happy to work with you on that, 
Senator, and make sure that our commitment is really clear. 
Obviously we want to strengthen our relationships with the 
advisory board. It has played a very important role for us. We 
would be happy to continue conversations about how we do that.
    Senator Thune. Administration Ducheneaux, as you know, CRP 
program plays a critical role in conserving marginal lands and 
providing wildlife habitat, and I am going to continue to work 
to make the program a more effective working lands-oriented 
option for producers in the next farm bill, including through 
haying and grazing flexibility. Livestock grazing on CRP acres 
can be a particularly effective option because it can be done 
earlier in the year while maintaining wildlife habitat.
    There was a provision in the 2018 Farm Bill that I secured 
to allow cost share assistance for the establishment of grazing 
infrastructure like fencing and water distribution on CRP 
acres, but I am concerned USDA has been too restrictive on 
providing this assistance.
    We have got a bill, and I understand Senator Klobuchar 
asked some questions about this already, so I think you are on 
the record on that. I will not belabor that point.
    Let me just ask what else can be done to better leverage 
the multiple use benefits of CRP to support producers, soil 
health, and wildlife habitat.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Sir, if I may, real quick, the answer I 
shared with Senator Klobuchar, if we can enhance the usability 
of these working lands it further incentivizes producers to get 
in, and as a livestock guy myself I like to see livestock on 
the landscape because I am aware of the soil health benefits 
that we get that can accelerate the reason for putting it in 
CRP and taking it out of the production it is in already.
    We welcome conversations with you and your staff about 
flexibilities you feel we have that we are not extending. Those 
are some of my favorite conversations that I have had the 
fortune to have here.
    Senator Thune. Good. Well, and we will look for ways to 
better target the enrollment of a lot of these marginal 
environmentally sensitive acres into the program and welcome 
your input on that. It is an important program that does offer 
benefits, lots of benefits, and I think there are ways that we 
can utilize it to make it an even stronger program, a more 
efficient one, and one that offers significant value. Thank 
you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair--oh, sorry, Mr. Chair.
    Senator Boozman. Senator Welch.
    Senator Welch. Thank you very much for the hearing. I want 
to thank all of the witnesses who do great work. It is nice to 
be on this Committee where everybody thinks you are doing great 
work. I represent Vermont, a small State, small farms, and I 
have a number of questions for you, Mr. Cosby.
    The Regional Conservation Partnership Program in Vermont is 
successful but inaccessible in practical ways for some of our 
smaller farmers, and I just wanted to talk a little bit about 
that. We have got a great program with the $26 million that we 
have received since 2015, from the USDA, for the Regional 
Conservation Partnership Program.
    One of the challenges is that application process, and you 
were talking about that with one of my colleagues. The question 
that I have, on a very granular level, is how do we make that 
somewhat more accessible, especially to smaller farmers, and 
how do we deal with the necessity to reduce requirements on our 
smaller farms to allow more grant funding to be used for 
technical assistance? The program is there but it just is a 
little bit too much for it to be accessible to small farmers. 
It may as well not exist.
    Can you answer that and what you are doing to try to make 
it more accessible.
    Mr. Cosby. Senator, thank you for your question, and RCCP 
has been one of those programs that we have heard a lot about, 
and we are looking at how do we streamline it from top to 
bottom.
    In the 2014 Farm Bill I had one of the first in the State 
of Ohio to work with Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, and we were 
able to sit down and negotiate with the partner the terms of 
the agreement, and it was a simple process. I think from that 
time things have gotten more complicated.
    We are looking at how do we go back and make this less 
complicated and make sure that folks are able to participate 
because it is pretty popular. We did what we call alternative 
funding arrangements last year. We started with those, where we 
were able to work with entities and say that, hey, you run 
this. We will put that money out there for you to run this 
program. You work with the producers.
    Senator Welch. Who are you working with on that?
    Mr. Cosby. Well, we did this on some of the tribal lands, 
and it worked very well. We are going to look at how we expand 
that.
    I think we also need to look at how do we move this more to 
a grants program and a programmatic one.
    Senator Welch. Right. Where are you at on that?
    Mr. Cosby. We are very close. We are working through it. I 
think when you see this next announcement on RCCP there will be 
greater opportunities for grants.
    Senator Welch. Okay. Now let us talk a little bit about 
succession planning. It is just brutal for everybody. This is 
not unique to Vermont, obviously. A farmer has all his or her 
equity, family equity, in the farm and the land, and it comes 
time they have got to retire. The average for us in Vermont is 
56, and getting access to turn it over to younger farmers is 
really tough. What can we do about that, given the market 
realities and the legitimate retirement concerns of the folks 
who have been farming that land for a long time?
    Mr. Cosby. I will start off and I will let my colleague 
here talk about that also. I am from a family farm, and I 
understand the generational, you know, you want to pass it 
down. I had to leave the farm as a kid because there was just 
nothing there.
    We have what we call the Beginning Farmer and Rancher 
Program, and we have been really trying to make it more 
accessible to a lot more folks, and that is in our underserved 
community category. We have been doing that.
    Senator Welch. Let me just interrupt. It is really tough 
for anybody, right? I mean, the price of land is real high and 
whoever is trying to get in is going to have a real challenge. 
Just concretely, what can we do to help those younger farmers 
all across the country get access to the farmland they need?
    Mr. Cosby. I think it starts, like I said--Mr. Ducheneaux 
here will help me with this--but I think it starts with both of 
our agencies is how do we get them through that process and 
then how do we afford to apply these conservation practices 
once they are in. We have seen the price of land go up, and so 
how do we do that?
    I will kick it over to my colleague here.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you, Senator Welch. If I may, there 
are two parts to this. One, we have got the Conservation 
Reserve Program and it has got a Transition Incentives Program 
that is designed to put that next generation in touch with the 
previous generation that has got the Conservation Reserve 
Program contract, in the waning years of that contract. The 
idea there is we can build a linkage. We are studying how we 
can improve that.
    Access to capital is critical, and if a producer has to 
wait months to get not enough money from us, they are never 
going to have that opportunity. We need to continue to look at 
what we can do in the realm of providing thoughtful, timely 
financing for those young and beginning producers to be ready 
for that transition, because right now our tools do not work 
for the auction sale. They only work for that closely held 
generational transfer. We need to position our young and 
beginning farmers in a way that they have that opportunity when 
the opportunity is there. It is an once-in-a-lifetime deal.
    Senator Welch. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Senator Boozman. Thank you. Senator Braun.
    Senator Braun. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    This is something dear to me because I am one of the few, I 
think, on the Committee that has been deeply involved in 
farming as a sideline activity, and first of all as a tree 
farmer. I just got a couple hundred trees, 100 white oak and 
100 walnut, that I am going to plant over the next month. I 
fell in love with forestry, very underestimated in the total ag 
picture. For some reason that does not get easily discussed in 
the agricultural conversation.
    The thing I hear most about, and I would like all three of 
you to weigh in, to the extent you are familiar with the issue, 
is Waters of the U.S. I am one that believes that we have got 
to keep our waterways clean. I have been involved in the 
climate discussion since I have been here. As a conservationist 
I know what farmers do to be the best stewards of the land out 
there, and generally they practice on their own and with the 
help of State and the Federal Government.
    I had a dust-up right after I got here, in my own county, 
where we had the Indiana Department of Environmental Management 
and the Department of Natural Resources, through the 
enforcement side of it, kind of chasing farmers down on the 
back 40 when it would have been a waste of time. This was ditch 
maintenance in places where ditches hardly had any water in 
them.
    We have been getting the kind of football passed to and 
from on the WOTUS ruling, and currently now it is going back to 
I guess what it was in 2015.
    Farmers have a tough enough job to be worried about some of 
that. They would like clarity, and it needs to be practical as 
well. Weigh in on what you think will happen there, whether you 
agree with the rule being put back to 2015, or if you thought 
it made more sense where the Trump rule took it to but never 
got implemented.
    We will start with you, Mr. Cosby.
    Mr. Cosby. Senator, thank you for the question, and we have 
been one of the folks that have been sitting at the table with 
the discussion about how this is to happen. NRCS's role in all 
of this is doing wetland compliance and also doing those 
reviews for farmers to keep them in the program, and our folks 
do a very effective job of that. We did close to 54,000 wetland 
determinations and also compliance reviews last year, and so we 
are out there working with the producer, hand-in-hand, to make 
sure they understand these rules.
    Senator Braun. Are you still working off the 2015 rule 
then, because nothing else had really been fully implemented. 
Is that correct? Where are we at on how you are implementing a 
rule that even most farmers are confused with because it gets 
reset and then not reimplemented?
    Mr. Cosby. Well, I know about the 2015 rule, but there has 
been work on the way to look at this new rule. We look at the 
new rule now, and we have worked very closely with the agency 
to do that. Like I say, we are working with farmers and 
producers to make sure we are doing those determinations to 
keep them farming and keep them in the programs.
    Senator Braun. Okay.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you for the question, Senator. We 
believe in the farmer and rancher and their inclination to 
preserve the resource for future generations. Water quality is 
one of them. It is a conversation we have had here quite a 
little today already. Our goal is to continue to provide the 
voluntary incentive-based tools to help farmers improve that 
water quality through buffer strips, through better nutrient 
management, improve soil health so that the water can go into 
the ground instead of run by it. That is where we need it, and 
we need to reach our aquifers. Without the water in the ground 
it is not going to be able to get----
    Senator Braun. I agree with all that. Do you think the new 
rule is a better place for farmers and ranchers than where the 
Trump rule would have been back at the tail end? I think that 
was just done in literally October or November 2020. Which rule 
do you think is more practical? Because the feedback I am 
getting from farmers, and not so much ranchers, is that this is 
going to be more cumbersome with a lot more red tape with not 
the marginal benefits from it.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. That is not a rule that we live with on a 
day-to-day basis, sir. We are delivering the programs to the 
producers, not enforcing environmental.
    Ms. Coleman. Sir, I am going to defer to my colleagues on 
this, since this is an interest that is focused on ag 
production.
    Senator Braun. I have got a little remaining time. I will 
ask you on the biggest thing impacting anyone investing in 
timber ground currently would be invasive species. We just 
literally lost 8 to 10 percent of our total hardwood population 
with the emerald ash borer, and now you have got stiltgrass, 
you have got all other kinds. Most tree farmers that are even 
somewhat sophisticated do not really know if it is invasive or 
not.
    How much attention are we paying to that, because to me I 
live it every day, and when I go back on the weekends, and it 
looks like it is almost a problem that is so bad that we will 
never get it under control?
    Ms. Coleman. Sir, when it comes to invasive species, they 
figure just as much into the effects of climate as all these 
other stressors we are talking about, and the agency is paying 
a lot of attention. We have a very robust invasive species 
program, a Forest Health Program that resides in our State and 
private programs to work with landowners, forest owners, in 
particular. Because we are seeing it too, and it really does--
getting our hands around that, being responsive to that is just 
as critical to our resiliency in our forests as any of our 
other authorities that we use under the farm bill.
    Senator Braun. Thank you.
    Senator Boozman. Senator Hoeven.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. I appreciate 
it. Thanks to our witnesses for being here.
    Chief Cosby, do you agree that farm conservation programs 
should be voluntary, farmer friendly, and focus on locally led 
projects?
    Mr. Cosby. I do, sir.
    Senator Hoeven. Okay. Yes, that was kind of an easy one. A 
no on that one would have been a problem.
    Okay. Our CPP, PL-560, a number of these programs you need 
to get some more flexibility in those things. You can leverage 
them and do more if you would provide more flexibility in those 
programs.
    I just had a roundtable out in North Dakota and we talked 
about that, and you are dealing with a lot of different folks, 
not only the farmers and the ranchers but your county 
commissioners, your water districts and all these kinds of 
things. They come up with good ideas, and we will be submitting 
a bunch of those as we do the farm bill markup. If you provide 
flexibility I think you could do a lot more with RCPP, and I 
think make a big impact. What is your reaction to that?
    Mr. Cosby. Sir, as we work through these programs we are 
looking at all the flexibilities, all the authorities that we 
have, and also how do we tear down barriers to participation in 
these programs. This is something that we talk about 
constantly, on a daily basis, and how do we make these programs 
more accessible.
    Senator Hoeven. Yes, I think you have opportunity there and 
hopefully we can help you with some tools.
    On your carbon capture programs, your CO2 programs, same 
thing. You have got to have flexibility. Cannot be a one size 
fits all. Farming in South Dakota, is a guy sitting next to 
you, and ranching, is different in South Dakota and North 
Dakota than it is in Alabama or Georgia. Big surprise. Some 
places till; some places have no-till. There are a ton of 
different crops. You have got to provide flexibility if you are 
going to make sure that those carbon capture programs are 
farmer friendly. What is your reaction to that?
    Mr. Cosby. Sir, that is where the locally led process is so 
important. As we look around the country, and those folks are 
out there working in those local conditions, identifying what 
those local resource concerns are, and we will be working 
through that system to make sure that we are looking at 
everything across this country. The locally led process is 
important.
    Senator Hoeven. Our Ranking Member here and the Chairwoman 
did, I think, a pretty good job in terms of moving forward on 
the CO2 issue with parameters for USDA, and then the private 
market working with the farmer and rancher rather than a big 
Federal program sucking up all the farm bill resources, which 
we are going to need for countercyclical safety net. What is 
your reaction to that?
    Mr. Cosby. I think the countercyclical safety net is one of 
the FSA things, so I think I will turn to my colleague here.
    Senator Hoeven. No. He is next. You have got answer that.
    Mr. Cosby. Okay. All right, sir.
    Senator Hoeven. He gets his chance. This is yours.
    Mr. Cosby. As I said before, we will use all the 
authorities that we have to make sure these programs are 
flexible and they are locally led, because as you said, one 
size does not fit all, and farming across this country varies 
from State to State, and so we are going to continue to do that 
and make sure that we are opening these programs for all folks 
that would like to participate.
    Senator Hoeven. Okay, Administrator Ducheneaux, first off 
thanks for all your work at FSA, for your strong leadership, 
for the flexibility and the help you have given folks 
throughout cattle country and farm country. We really 
appreciate your can-do problem-solving attitude. Now if you 
want to tackle that last question, go ahead.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you, Senator Hoeven. It is good to 
see you and I am only slightly offended that I did not get 
invited to the roundtable in North Dakota.
    Senator Hoeven. Oh, we should have. It was really good. 
Yes, you are right.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. I just want to challenge, sir, 
respectfully, the notion of a Federal program or a Federal 
Government soaking up resources. Our staff work tirelessly and 
poorly compensated to do this work. When we let things go like 
that and float out in the air without pushing back on the good 
work of our staff in our county offices, doing it at a rate of 
pay where oftentimes they are eligible for food assistance, we 
really have to think about the efficiency that those folks use 
when they deliver programs. They do it for pennies on the 
dollar, and we have got to make sure that we make our staff 
know that we appreciate that work and do not feel like they are 
part of a greater bureaucracy that is taking resources from 
them, sir.
    Senator Hoeven. Yes. I know you get it, and we actually 
want to get you out for some more roundtables and continue the 
kind of work we have been doing----
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Yes, sir.
    Senator Hoeven [continuing]. both on the farm side but also 
to get some of these assistance programs that our cattle guys 
need included in the farm bill. Tester and I have some 
amendments, bipartisan, to do that, and we will work closely 
with you on those and get your input.
    With the indulgence of the Ranking Member I will just 
finish with the Joint Chiefs Partnership Program. This is for 
Associate Chief Coleman. Senator Bennet of Colorado, and I, 
worked to pass our Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration 
Partnership Act. It is really important in these areas where 
you have got a checkerboard of private interests, maybe Native 
American, BLM, Forest Service, and it is checkerboarded. The 
whole point of that Joint Chiefs program is so you all work 
together to help our farmers and ranchers out there, because it 
is tough to navigate all that. We want to make sure that that 
program continues and we want your commitment to support it.
    Ms. Coleman. We support it, sir.
    Senator Hoeven. Administrator, I know you do as well, so 
thank you for that.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Absolutely. I look forward to working 
together, sir.
    Senator Hoeven. Chief?
    Mr. Cosby. Yes, sir, we really support that, and it is a 
great partnership between the two chiefs on the Joint Chiefs.
    Senator Hoeven. Again, thanks to all three of you. I 
appreciate it. Thank you, Senator Boozman.
    Senator Boozman. Senator Fischer is recognized, and she 
also is going to take over. The only thing we have got to do 
around here is vote, and they are calling us and telling us to 
get over there. Thank you all for being here.
    I think I can speak on behalf of myself and Senator 
Stabenow. I really appreciate you all in the sense that you are 
very close to the people that you serve and the people that 
work for you. We do appreciate your efforts and look forward to 
working with you in the future.
    I am going to be in North Dakota in the not-too-distant 
future, and maybe you can sneak over there then and we will 
harangue you over there.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. It will be great to have you.
    Senator Boozman. Thank you. Senator Fischer. Likewise.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Senator Boozman, and thank you 
to the panel for being here today.
    Nebraska has experienced a significant number of disasters 
since the 2018 Farm Bill, including historic flooding in 2019, 
as well as wildfires over the last several years. The Emergency 
Conservation Program is meant to help our producers in times 
like these, yet I have heard about challenges for producers 
utilizing that program.
    In 2021, after wildfires in western Nebraska, producers 
were denied ECP because the source of the fire was yet to be 
determined, even though the spread of the fire was due to 
drought and to extreme wind. I have also had farmers write in 
about ECP, saying that paperwork was too burdensome in a time 
of disaster. They are trying to recover. They are not trying to 
fill out all this paperwork. Unfortunately, these producers 
Stated that they would absorb the losses and try to move on.
    It was based on this type of feedback from Nebraskans that 
I worked with Senator Lujan to introduce the ECP Improvement 
Act to help expedite relief to producers.
    Mr. Ducheneaux, I am glad to see in your testimony that 
USDA has begun making advance ECP payments available up to 25 
percent of the cost for restoration activities. My bill would 
buildupon this by increasing the amount of advance payment a 
producer could receive up front. Can you discuss how 
implementation for advance payments of ECP has gone and how 
they have been helpful to producers?
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Thank you, Senator. It is a fairly new 
development so we do not have a lot of data and feedback on 
that, but producers are in favor of that. The challenge that we 
have with the ECP program, as you mentioned, there are some 
boxes we have to check in the delivery of those services, and 
really what comes to mind for me is if we had a functional 
emergency loan program where a producer could come in and say, 
``I want to leverage my next five years production against 
repairing this while I go through that process to get the ECP'' 
that can then help out with the loan.
    We have got an emergency loan program that does not really 
allow for that yet, so I think that is an opportunity to make 
those two programs fit better together. The advance payment, of 
course, is a critical part, but we still have to make sure that 
we are being respectful for the local environmental and 
cultural concerns that may exist, so the work cannot 
necessarily commence below the plow line on those type of 
projects.
    We look forward to working with you on those solutions.
    Senator Fischer. Do you have any other ideas on thinking 
outside the box on how we can streamline that to get those 
payments out earlier, you know, we can increase the percentage 
of the payments that can go out earlier? I hear a lot of 
people, you wait two years to get a payment and some people are 
out of business by then.
    Mr. Ducheneaux. Yes, ma'am, and I think we need to 
contemplate the cost of a producer not jumping into this 
program and weigh that against the other concerns that we have 
to evaluate as we deliver the program. Because if we are not 
able to help a producer in their time of need they are not 
going to look to the other valuable forward-thinking 
conservation tools that are going to help them be better 
positioned to mitigate the next disaster themselves. We have to 
really contemplate the cost of exclusion, like we need to in 
all of our programs, for those producers and our underserved 
producers all across the country.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you.
    Mr. Cosby, last year the Inflation Reduction Act was passed 
without any input from Republicans, from this Committee or 
elsewhere, and it appropriated large amounts of funding toward 
traditionally bipartisan conservation programs. Notably, the 
IRA funding departed from bipartisan parameters the 2018 Farm 
Bill laid out on how funding for these conservation programs 
must be spent.
    In Nebraska, livestock production is the largest segment of 
agriculture. One of the most popular conservation programs for 
livestock producers is EQIP. The IRA waived a requirement of at 
least 50 percent for that funding be made available for 
practices related to livestock production. The IRA also placed 
a large focus on carbon and greenhouse gas emission reduction 
but ignored other priority resources, concerns that this 
Committee has agreed on in the last farm bill, such as 
addressing water quantity and drought concerns.
    Mr. Cosby, without the requirement for USDA to spend at 
least 50 percent of IRA EQIP funds on practices targeting 
livestock production, what percent of funding do you expect to 
go for livestock producers?
    Mr. Cosby. Well, that is something that we will be looking 
at. We just rolled this program, IRA, out. In the 2018 Farm 
Bill we have our traditional programs that we have been 
administering, and now we have the IRA dollars that are there 
also, and we have identified those practices. This year we will 
be looking at how those IRA dollars are spent and the 
effectiveness of them, and then as we ramp up to move to 
further years we will also be looking at that.
    I want to stress that all of these practices, they do 
certain things for soil health, when we are looking at this, 
and a lot of these practices that we have identified also help 
on the livestock side of the house. It is not all just carbon 
and climate. It addresses all of the resources. When our folks 
are out on the land working with these producers and writing 
these conservation plans and looking at what these resource 
needs are, we are recommending all of our practices that we 
have in our repertoire to address what those needs might be.
    I think both of these, IRA and the 2018 Farm Bill, working 
together is going to be great. All of these programs are 
oversubscribed. We have an opportunity now to open the doors to 
a lot more producers to come in and participate. I think we are 
going to learn a lot.
    Senator Fischer. Without the requirement for USDA to spend 
at least 50 percent of the IRA EQIP funds on practices that are 
targeting livestock production, what percent of funding do you 
expect is going to go toward livestock producers?
    Mr. Cosby. Again, right now we do not know what that number 
is going to be.
    Senator Fischer. If this Committee and Congress comes 
together, which I am sure we will--this is a very bipartisan 
committee. We work well together. We try to address 
noncontroversial issues to have in the farm bill--should not 
the USDA, should not your job be to follow what the authorizing 
committee is setting forth for these programs?
    Mr. Cosby. We will follow that----
    Senator Fischer. No matter where the money is coming from?
    Mr. Cosby. Whatever this Committee decides, that is what we 
will follow.
    Senator Fischer. Okay. I think we will have some further 
discussion on that in the future. I hope you are open to that.
    Mr. Cosby. Yes, ma'am, I am.
    Senator Fischer. [Presiding.] Okay. Thank you very much.
    Seeing no other members present for the hearing I too want 
to thank the panel for being here today. The information you 
provide us is very valuable as we work toward getting this farm 
bill done, hopefully this year, and so I appreciate that.
    The hearing record will remain open for five business days.
    Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

      
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