[Senate Hearing 118-502]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-502
HEARING ON THE HIGH PLAINS: COMBATING
DROUGHT WITH INNOVATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
CONSERVATION, CLIMATE, FORESTRY, AND
NATURAL RESOURCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
June 26, 2024
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on http://www.govinfo.gov/
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
57-489 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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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
Eyang Garrison, Majority Staff Director
Chu-Yuan Hwang, Majority Chief Counsel
Cindy Qualley, Senior Clerk
Jackson Blodgett, Hearing Clerk
James Ferenc, Director of Information Technology
Fitzhugh Elder IV, Minority Staff Director
Caleb Crosswhite, Minority Chief Counsel
----------
Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado Chairman
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TINA SMITH, Minnesota MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
PETER WELCH, Vermont JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
C O N T E N T S
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Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Page
Subcommittee Hearing:
Hearing on the High Plains: Combating Drought with Innovation.... 1
----------
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS
Bennet, Hon. Michael F., U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado. 1
Marshall, Hon. Roger, U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas...... 4
WITNESSES
Panel I
Sakata, Robert, Agricultural Water Policy Advisor, Colorado
Department of Agriculture, Brighton, CO........................ 7
Goble, Peter, Climatologist, Colorado Climate Center, Colorado
State University, Fort Collins, CO............................. 9
Owen, Constance C., Director, Kansas Water Office, Topeka, KS.... 11
Redmond, Christopher A., Assistant Meteorologist, Kansas Mesonet
Manager, Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS...... 13
Funk, Alexander, Director of Water Resources and Senior Counsel,
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Denver, CO........ 15
Panel II
Greenberg, Kate, Commissioner of Agriculture, Colorado Department
of Agriculture, Broomfield, CO................................. 22
Brown, Don, Director, Republican River Water Conservation
District, Yuma, CO............................................. 23
Lewis, Jr., Earl D., Chief Engineer and Director of Water
Resources, Division of Water Resources, Kansas Department of
Agriculture, Manhattan, KS..................................... 25
Janssen, Patrick Milan, President, Kansas Water PACK, Kinsley, KS 27
Simpson, Cleave, General Manager, Rio Grande Water Conservation
District, Alamosa, CO.......................................... 29
Panel III
Sayles, Curtis E., Owner and Manager, CFS Farms, Seibert, CO..... 38
Currier, Carlyle, President, Colorado Farm Bureau, Molina, CO.... 41
Sternberger, Jeff, Owner and General Manager, Midwest Feeders,
Inc., Ingalls, KS.............................................. 43
France, Amy, Vice Chair, National Sorghum Producers, Scott City,
KS............................................................. 44
Parmar, Sarah, Director of Conservation, Colorado Open Lands,
Lakewood, CO................................................... 46
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APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Sakata, Robert............................................... 56
Goble, Peter................................................. 65
Owen, Constance C............................................ 67
Redmond, Christopher A....................................... 79
Funk, Alexander.............................................. 86
Greenberg, Kate.............................................. 98
Brown, Don................................................... 103
Lewis, Jr., Earl D........................................... 114
Janssen, Patrick Milan....................................... 119
Simpson, Cleave.............................................. 122
Sayles, Curtis E............................................. 126
Currier, Carlyle............................................. 130
Sternberger, Jeff............................................ 137
France, Amy.................................................. 139
Parmar, Sarah................................................ 147
Document(s) Submitted for the Record:
Bennet, Hon. Michael F.:
U.S. Drought Monitor, document for the Record................ 156
National Association of Wheat Growers, document for the
Record..................................................... 157
Colorado Association of Wheat Growers, document for the
Record..................................................... 160
American Rivers, document for the Record..................... 162
HEARING ON THE HIGH PLAINS: COMBATING DROUGHT WITH INNOVATION
----------
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
U.S. Senate
Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and
Natural Resources
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m.,
Mountain Standard Time, at the Midway Theater, 446 14th Street,
Burlington, Colorado 80807, Hon. Michael F. Bennet, Chairman of
the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Bennet [presiding] and Marshall.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL F. BENNET, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF COLORADO
Senator Bennet. Good morning, everyone. I am very grateful
that you are here. I am sorry that we are starting a few
minutes late. Cindy, thank you very much for taking care of all
this and your--and your colleagues as well from the Agriculture
Committee, but we got both Wi-Fi back and the air conditioning,
so we appreciate it very much.
I am pleased to have the chance to call this Subcommittee
hearing on Conservation Climate, Forestry, and Natural
Resources to order, and especially to welcome all of you to
Burlington, Colorado. I am extremely grateful to my colleague,
Ranking Member Roger Marshall, for his partnership in convening
today's field hearing, and I would like to thank his staff,
Tucker, and my staff, Rosie, for their excellent collaboration
in getting us here this morning. I know Senator Marshall shares
my concern about the unprecedented drought that farmers and
ranchers throughout the Western United States are enduring, and
he has been an outstanding bipartisan partner in the work that
we have been doing on the Agriculture Committee.
I want to thank the Agriculture Committee staff who have
traveled here to ensure that our hearing on the High Plains
runs just as smoothly, maybe even more so than it would in a
hearing room in Washington. In fairness to all of us, we do not
have some of the cast of characters that we have in Washington,
DC to screw things up today.
[Laughter.]
Senator Bennet. I also want to thank all of the Colorado
State University staff for their support, our Hometown
Charitable Foundation for hosting us at the Historic Midway
Theater, the city of Burlington for welcoming our attendees
from near and far, and all of our witnesses today.
Senator Bennet. Well, I am glad to live in a country where
people can speak freely.
Senator Marshall. Amen.
[Applause.]
Senator Bennet. It is one of the great things about being
in the United States. I also should say--I did not say at the
beginning how nervous I am about interrupting wheat harvest
today.
[Laughter.]
Senator Bennet. I think Senator Marshall joins me in
saying, if you need to leave, you need to leave, and please do
not worry about it, but we look forward to the witness'
testimony today. Many hands go into making a successful field
hearing happen, and I am grateful to all of you.
Our purpose today is simple and straightforward. It is to
hear directly from Western producers who are facing
unprecedented challenges of a--of a hotter, drier landscape and
using innovative tools to combat historic drought. There is no
more appropriate place to talk about this issue than
Burlington. During the Dust Bowl, devastating dust storms
plagued farmers here in Kit Carson County. Black dust,
blanketed roads, suffocated livestock, destroyed crops, and
ruin the livelihoods of thousands of Eastern Coloradans and
Western Kansans who took generations to recover. I was grateful
to spend yesterday in Kansas yesterday afternoon visiting with
a--with a farmer there and his family who are wrestling with
the effects of drought.
That was a terrible time for American agriculture, and out
of desperation, farmers and ranchers put subpar land into
production. They were told that rain would follow the plow as
they struggled to feed their families. This made America's
working lands vulnerable to dust storms that ravaged our
heartland. Prairie winds blew 50 million tons of topsoil off
the Southern Plains in 1935 alone, and after that--some of that
dirt land--and dust landed on the U.S. Capitol, Congress
finally recognized the crisis on the Eastern Plains by creating
the Soil Conservation Service, which has since become the
Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS. For almost 90
years, NRCS has partnered with farmers and ranchers and private
landowners to protect our farms and safeguard our natural
resources. The Farm Service Agency also plays a critical role
mitigating the effects of drought and managing agricultural
land from the Conservation Reserve Program to crop and
livestock disaster programs that are so important to our
producers. Today, their mission has never been more important
as we confront a change in climate and a hotter, drier future.
These programs have not kept pace with a West that looks
very different from the Dust Bowl era. I hear from producers
across the State that NRCS and FSA programs need to be much
more flexible and allow for more innovation but, instead, are
burdened by red tape. The applications are cumbersome, as we
heard yesterday, only accepted during short enrollment windows,
and USDA takes too long to process them. In some cases, people
have to literally fill out their applications by hand and send
them in by mail in 2024.
Many of you likely knew Pat O'Toole, the cattle and sheep
rancher, whose family's sixth-generation operation straddles
the Colorado-Wyoming border. He and his wife, Sharon, manage
their ranch with future generations in mind.
[Applause.]
[Pause.]
Senator Bennet. Pat O'Toole is not an animal killer or a
planet killer. He and his wife, Sharon, manage the ranch with
future generations in mind every single day. Before Pat's
recent passing, he was in the middle of preserving the family's
ranch through a USDA agricultural conservation easement. That
easement had been in the back-and-forth process with NRCS since
November 2020, and Pat, sadly, was unable to see his family's
ranch protected before his passing in February this year.
Federal red tape is especially tough on young farmers,
small-scale producers, underserved and first-generation
farmers. They do not have the time--nobody does--to navigate
the bureaucracy and cannot afford to hire someone to do it for
them. The future of rural America depends on whether the next
generation decides to continue operating their family farms and
ranches.
Today, we are going to hear from experts, producers, and
partners who, like Senator Marshall and I, are concerned for
the future of rural America. They will highlight their
experience with drought and a rapidly changing landscape. They
will tell us about the Federal programs that work well, and
they will tell us about the programs that are not working for
farmers and ranchers, especially those east of the Mississippi
River. We will also hear from producers who are breaking
tradition with how their grandparents or parents once farmed
and pioneering practices to grow food and fiber for the rest of
us.
To underscore the issues of drought affecting
agricultural--American agriculture, I have a map of the current
U.S. Drought Monitor and testimony from the national
Association of Wheat Growers, the Colorado Wheat Growers
Association, and American Rivers that is describing the
situation we face.
I ask unanimous consent that they be entered into the
record. So moved.
[The documents can be found on pages 156-165 in the
appendix.]
Senator Bennet. That is the good thing about being chairman
of a subcommittee. When I do that in DC, I have to get the
attention of the chair.
Instead of a dust bowl, today's farmers and ranchers are
dealing with a 1,200-year drought. They face a change in
climate and a future that is going to get hotter and drier. As
we meet today, more than half the country is in the throes of a
historic heat wave with wildfires raging across the West. We do
not have time to waste. This is a five-alarm fire, and
Washington needs to treat it that way. My hope is that today's
hearing can help us identify specific ways to make progress,
and I am prepared to work with every member of the Agriculture
Committee in a bipartisan way to do so.
So now let me stop there and I will turn it over again to
the ranking member, Senator Marshall from Kansas, who is good
to make the trip over here. As we talked about yesterday, the
border between Colorado and Kansas does not really recognize
distinctions in drought or in the challenges that our producers
are facing. I cannot think of a more appropriate person to be
here to have this conversation with than Senator Roger
Marshall. Please give him a round of applause for making the
trip. Thanks.
[Applause.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER MARSHALL, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF KANSAS
Senator Marshall. Well, Senator Bennet, it is a great honor
to be up here with you. I appreciate your hospitality.
Senator Marshall. Well, like I was saying, Senator Bennet,
it is an honor to be here with you. I want to thank you, Rosie,
you and your staff. I know that you--the staff really does all
the work as well, so thank you. Recent marriage, is that right?
[VOICE.] Yes.
Senator Marshall. A recent--so she is on her honeymoon
here.
Senator Bennet. This is her honeymoon.
[Applause.]
Senator Marshall. Welcome to our witnesses. Thanks to my
staff. Tucker Stewart is behind me, our ag person, and Katie
Sawyers out there is our State director. Thanks for making this
all possible.
On a personal basis, Senator Bennet, it is--it is an honor
to just not call you a colleague but a friend. To tell a story
on both of us, we work out together about every afternoon when
we are back in DC, and it is an interesting place, the Senate
gym. Before you think--get your eyes off in too much of a--of a
mindset, what this looks like, this is worse than any YMCA I
have ever been in. It is, but I love it. I love the gym. We let
our guards down, and I can attest that there is probably nobody
in better aerobic shape than Senator Michael Bennet. I mean, he
works at it hard on this--on this biking business, so I
appreciate that about him as well.
I would just assure people in the audience and the folks
that are watching from home is that there is no one more
committed to leaving this world cleaner, healthier, and safer
than we found it than the two of us, and it is in our heart. It
is in our soul. This is a priority we think about future
generations, why we are--we are in the Senate, came to
Congress. This would be one of my three things that I would
like to leave a mark on before we leave, so very, very
important to me.
You--and you are about the similarities between the State,
that in so many ways, Eastern Colorado looks like Western
Kansas, and it is no surprise that once upon a time, we are
sitting in Kansas territory. Just want to remind everybody of
that----
[Laughter.]
Senator Marshall [continuing]. that this was Kansas
territory once upon a time, but we do share much more than a
borderer. We share this drought. For about 10 of the last 15
years, we have shared this drought. Many parts of my State,
your State are a year's worth of moisture behind. In the last 5
years, we have lost a year's worth of moisture, and we continue
to struggle, and that I believe that water is--will be the
defining issue of our States for not just the near future, but
for generations ahead, and not just for agriculture, but for
municipalities as well. This is the defining issue, water
conservation. It is the most valuable commodity that our Nation
is blessed with.
I think for the folks that are listening back in DC, it is
so important to understand what this aquifer is and how
important it is to American agriculture as we continue to feed
and clothe the world, that this aquifer is like an ocean
beneath us. If you would go down about 400 to 500 feet beneath
the ground where we are sitting today, there is an ocean of
fresh water, and it goes from South Dakota through Nebraska,
Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. In
some places it is a hundred foot deep, some places it is a
thousand foot deep, and the rate of going down is faster than
we have replenished it, but we have slowed down that
deplenishment thanks to conservation practices. We visited a
farm yesterday where they basically are at net neutral now. By
conservation practices alone, they are now at a neutral use of
that water, and I think that is what we are here to accentuate
today.
As you mentioned, 90 years ago, the Dust Bowl ravaged our
corner of the world, and my great-great-great grandparents were
starting family farms across the State of Kansas and building
terraces, trying to figure out how to conserve this land. We
have had some spring rains that have provided some moisture,
but we still have this effect of this drought going on, and we
are not close to being out of the woods. We do not know what
the summer holds. We do not know what the fall holds. We do not
know what next year holds. Providing a value perspective on
this area are some of Kansas' and Colorado's brightest minds,
who I am excited to have here today and to listen and learn.
There has been a great public-private partnership between
agriculture producers and the Federal Government, and we have
created the strongest food system in the world. We are so
blessed.
Food security is national security. We are so blessed that
we are not dependent upon other countries to feed us, but many
countries are dependent upon us to help feed them.
In Washington, DC, many lawmakers and agency staff may be
unfamiliar with the type of challenges our farmers and ranchers
face on these High Plains. In fact, Kansas and Colorado only
qualified for about 40 percent of the conservation practices
through the IRA. Let say that again. Kansas and Colorado
ranchers and farm producers only qualified for about 40 percent
of the conservation through the IRA. We need some more
flexibility, if at all possibility. Our farmers and ranchers
want to do the right thing, but we need some flexibility.
These environmental practices were designed to cut carbon
emissions, yet they cut out some of our country's highest crop-
producing region, and in our Nation's second largest carbon
sink: soil. We do not have the wonderful forest that Colorado
has for a carbon sink, but the soil carbon sinks that we have
in our States are just as important. I will give you an example
of some of the environmental practices that we simply cannot do
in Eastern Colorado or Western Kansas. Anyone that farms east
of the 100th Meridian are getting paid by the Federal
Government to grow cover crops, but the practice does not work
out here. We simply do not have the moisture to do it. We would
love to do cover crops, but we do not have the moisture, and
that is why we need the flexibility. We have seen national
disasters, drought, and wildfire. Farmers and ranchers need
Federal assistance to maintain their livelihoods and continue
producing our Nation's food supply. Unfortunately, the
bureaucracy sometimes in DC delay the process, and we owe work
to our producers to set up and improve and implement safety net
mechanisms.
Senator Bennet, since I was a little kid raised on a farm,
riding on a tractor, my grandparents spent time teaching me how
important it was to leave our farm better for the next
generation, and that is why I have said our farmers and
ranchers, we are the original conservationists. Today we will
explore the best ways to support them in the midst prolonged
drought as the Federal Government--whether it is through
improving conservation flexibilities, developing research
opportunities, or strengthening disaster relief funding, I am
confident that we will come out of today's field hearings with
innovative solutions for farmers and ranchers in our corner of
the country and beyond.
I think about this, that we are the descendants of those
people that homesteaded out here, that they figured out ways to
innovate and persevere and, through hard work, pass it on to
future generations. I am confident we can do it, and, again, I
am just so honored to be here to help you and empower us to
help solve this problem. Thank you.
I have two witnesses I want to introduce today, and I think
we introduce them all, and then they will give their
testimoneys later. I am going to first introduce Chip Redmond.
Chip, thank you for being here today. He was originally from
Ohio, but we are now proud to call Chip a Kansan. He obtained a
bachelor's degree from The Ohio University with minors in
computer science and physics in 2011, and a master's from South
Dakota School of Mines and Technology. For the last year, he
has been the Kansas Mesonet manager in the Department of
Agronomy for the Ever Fighting Kansas State Wildcats.
[Laughter.]
Senator Marshall. He works extensively with the Mesonet, a
network of 80-plus weather stations in the State. He is also an
incident meteorologist for Rocky Mountain Area, Complex
Incident Management Team in the Kansas Forest Service, and
finally, he is a volunteer, and one of my favorite loves, he is
captain of the Blue Township Fire Department and assists in
coaching his children's baseball/softball teams. He resides in
beautiful--one of the most beautiful cities in Kansas, St.
George, Kansas along--is the Blue River there? Kansas River
there.
Then also, I am going to introduce Connie Owen. Connie is
the director of Kansas Water Office, and prior to that, she
served as the chair of the Kansas Water Authority. She is a
licensed attorney and has practiced Kansas water law for over
25 years. In 2004, she served as the administrative hearing
officer presiding over the initial hearings for the first two--
something I am very proud of--the local enhanced management
areas, which we refer to as LEMAs in Kansas. These programs
help with water conservation in Kansas. She is a lifelong
Kansan. She earned her bachelor's degree from The Emporia State
University, the Fighting Hornets, and her law degree from the
University of Kansas. Connie and her husband, Dan, live in
Overland Park and have two grown sons. Glad to have both of you
here. Thank you.
Senator Bennet. Thank you very much, Senator. I like to
introduce first Mr. Robert Sakata, who is an agricultural
policy advisor for the Colorado Department of Agriculture and
serves as president of Sakata Farms in Brighton, Colorado.
Robert was born and raised in Colorado and grew up on his
family farm, which his father started in 1944. Over time, his
family farm successfully adapted to production pressures,
including the decreasing availability of water, lack of
adequate seasonal labor housing, which we have talked about a
lot, increasing cost of crop inputs, and urban encroachment. In
addition to his lifelong farming experience, Robert has served
in a wide range of agricultural-and water-focused positions
beyond his farm, including the Colorado Department of National
Resources, Interbasin and Compact Committee, and the Colorado
Water Conservation Board. I am grateful to have him with us at
this hearing today. Robert, I look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Peter Goble is next, a climatologist for the Colorado
Climate Center at Colorado State University. His
responsibilities include supporting the Colorado Climate
Center's three main missions of climate research, data
collection, and education and outreach. His current research
includes using machine learning to better understand errors in
annual water supply forecasts in Colorado, modeling future
weather extremes in Colorado, and using a mix of observed and
model data to determine whether we can grow more wine grapes in
Colorado. Peter, thank you for being here today. I look forward
to your testimony as well.
Last but not least, Mr. Alexander Funk is the director of
Water Resources and senior counsel for the Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation Partnership. Alex has over a decade of experience
working on the Colorado River and other Western water
challenges. In his role with the TRCP, Alex leads the
organization's national freshwater policy efforts, focusing on
issues ranging from the Clean Water Act, to securing Federal
funding, to increase watershed conservation and restoration
projects benefiting fish and wildlife. Thank you for being here
today, Alex. Thank you for making the trip. I look forward to
your testimony.
Again, I want to thank all our witnesses for being here
today. As a reminder, we ask you to keep your testimony to 5
minutes each. Any written testimony will be submitted for the
record. You may hear me gavel should your time expire. I am
inclined to be a little generous this morning. Mr. Sakata,
please proceed with your testimony. Thank you again for being
here.
STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT SAKATA, AGRICULTURAL WATER POLICY
ADVISOR, COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, BRIGHTON, COLORADO
Mr. Sakata. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator and
Chairman Bennet. Thank you, Ranking Member Marshall. It is a
pleasure to be here, and thanks to the staff as well. As you
said, my name is Robert Sakata. Our family has a farm in
Brighton, Colorado, and I am privileged to serve as the ag
water policy advisor for the Colorado Department of
Agriculture.
First, as you did, welcome everybody to the city of
Burlington. It is a pleasure to have you all here. Thanks to
your wonderful staff, all the hard work that they did to
organize this, and thanks to Chairwoman Stabenow for also
allowing a field hearing to be here. We really appreciate all
the work the committee is doing. I am very humbled, honored,
and really intimidated to be here today to lead off the
discussion but will do my best to start us off with a broad
overview of the challenges that I see agriculture is facing in
the arid West.
To highlight the scope of the problem facing us, I refer to
the USDA Ag Census. The most recent one indicates that over the
last--most recent 25-year reporting period, Colorado has
actually lost over a million acres of irrigated lands, and that
accounts for, surprisingly enough, 80 percent of the irrigated
land reduction across the entire United States. There is a
tipping point, and I think we are approaching it. What is
causing this reduction? I will highlight four factors.
The first is our changing climate. The rising temperatures
are not only increasing irrigation, municipal, and industrial
needs, but is drying the soils leading to less water reaching
our streams and rivers. This is also putting much more stress
on our mountain watersheds, making the work on watershed
protection and forest health imperative. Second is the
increasing municipal and industrial demand due to increasing
population growth. The Colorado Demography Officer indicates
that growth is forecasted to continue to grow, and most of that
growth is going to be around the current population centers.
Third are the efforts across the State to manage our
groundwater resources. Prime examples are here in the
Republican River and the Rio Grande Basin. You will hear from
the leaders in these efforts. I have the utmost respect for
their dedication to achieving the goals that they have set,
especially considering how arduous a process and effort that
is. In Colorado, as you know, the State owns the water. It
allocates that water for beneficial use based on the seniority
of water rights, a system called prior appropriations. Our
State has worked very hard to do this fairly, to protect senior
water rights holders, and to be in compliance with compact
agreements with our neighboring States. This has been and will
continue to be challenging, expensive, and painful for
agriculture as farm and ranch families are battling on the
front lines of this water scarcity. A personal example on our
farm happened on May 8 of 2006 when the State engineer ordered
over 440 alluvial groundwater wells to be shut down in the
South Platte Basin because they were found to have inadequate
augmentation plans. We had four of those wells on our property,
and we just watched those crops wither away and die that year.
Finally, the most important factor why irrigated lands are
decreasing is due to the tough financial situation most farmers
and ranchers are in. The USDA Economic Research Service reports
that out of each food dollar spent, only 7.9 cents makes it
back to farm production. This 7.9 cents is the foundation of
our food supply and is carrying the rest of society on its
back. We need to make smart investments in agriculture to
protect our future. In my written testimony, I provide an
example on our farm where we invested in new equipment in hopes
of improving soil health, but how costly a mistake that first
year was for us. We were lucky. We survived. Other farmers are
not as lucky.
I have had the opportunity to travel across the State and
see firsthand the variety of challenges farmers and ranchers
are facing. What amazes me is their ingenuity and determination
to stay in farming. What is perfectly clear to me, too, is that
there is no one activity, no one action or single farm practice
that is the solution. The strength of Colorado agriculture is
our diversity. Whether it is the high elevation pastures where
flood irrigation is providing late-season return flows to
support the environment, or drip irrigated vegetables pushing
the irrigation efficiency to the limit, each plays an important
role in the system as a whole and should not be discounted.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the dangers of a limited
supply chain. This highlights the need for us to build
resilience in our food system. An important way to do that is
to support local agriculture. In my written testimony, we will
find examples of the local effective programs helping farmers
and ranchers adapt to the aridification we are seeing, and you
will be hearing about some of that work later today. As the ag
water policy advisor, I commit to work with our tribal,
Federal, State, and local governments, as well as collaborate
with academic institutions, farmers and ranchers, their
communities, and conservation partners, not only across our
State, but across the region to find ways to maintain adaptive
farm and ranch systems.
In closing, thank you for all the work that you do. Thanks
in particular for your support for improving rural mental
health. As stresses in our agricultural communities are greater
than ever, it is important that we focus on this. Moving
forward, I hope that you will commit to increasing your support
of the valuable locally led initiatives like those of our
conservation partners and those in the Colorado Department of
Agriculture that you will hear more about from our commissioner
of ag. It is this local expertise, knowledge, and dedication
that provides the best opportunity for success. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sakata can be found on page
56 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you, Robert, for that
excellent start to the hearing. Mr. Goble, you are recognized
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. PETER GOBLE, CLIMATOLOGIST, COLORADO CLIMATE
CENTER, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY, FORT COLLINS, COLORADO
Mr. Goble. Thank you so much. Senator Bennet, Senator
Marshall, thanks again for holding this hearing. I consider it
an honor and a privilege to give my testimony to you all today.
Senator Bennet. Why don't you lean in a little bit----
Mr. Goble. Yes, of course. As Senator Bennet said, my name
is Peter Goble, and I am a climatologist at the Colorado
Climate Center at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. My
professional background is in researching climate change and
climate variability as well as water availability in Colorado
and the Western United States. The Colorado State Climate
Office has a three-pillar mission of, one, data collection. We
run an agricultural weather station network, similar to the one
you will hear about in just a few minutes from Kansas. Two is
climate research, and then three is education and outreach.
So I have had plenty of chances to discuss climate change
and climate variability with folks all across the State,
including farmers. Our office recently completed a study that
was funded by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, in which
we synthesized the observed and projected changes across the
State in temperature, precipitation, water resources, and
natural hazards. I want to thank my colleague, Dr. Becky
Bolinger, for leading this effort as well as State
climatologist, Russ Schumacher, and Jeff Lukas of Lukas
Climate, for their enormous roles in writing this report.
You do not have to study Colorado's climate long to know
that farming and ranching here is not for the faint of heart.
We rely on an average of only 15 to 20 inches of precipitation
here in Eastern Colorado to grow our crops. That is only about
half of what falls over America's heartland in the area that
Senator Marshall was talking about supporting cover crops
earlier. We also know that that precipitation is highly
variable from year to year. A wet year, like 2015, will bring
over 25 inches of precipitation right here in Burlington,
Colorado, whereas a dry year, like 2002, brings less than 9
inches and is disastrous.
A poor crop like that can really destroy a farmer's profit
margins, and a poor year of forage can force ranchers to make
difficult decisions about whether or not to cull their herd.
Moreover, our precipitation here in Colorado does not all fall
as cold soaking million-dollar rains. Sometimes it is the
severe thunderstorm that are bounties run off the field before
they get to soak into the soil. Sometimes it is hail that
shreds the local crops, and sometimes it might be a spring
blizzard that threatens livestock during calving season.
One other lesson our climate data tells us is that our
climate is warming, a trend that is consistent with warming
temperatures around the globe and primarily driven by
anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The National
Centers for Environmental Information shows us that our average
temperatures here in Colorado have warmed by 2.9 Fahrenheit
over the last 125 years, and that trend has accelerated since
the 1980's. Precipitation has not significantly increased or
decreased long term. However, it is, again, highly variable,
and we have certainly had more than our fair share of drought
recently. On top of that, with the warmer temperatures, we are
seeing lower snowpack values in winter and spring across the
Western U.S., which is a very important resource as that snow
melt is irrigation water for many farmers and ranchers across
the region when it melts in the spring and summer.
Furthermore, these hotter summers that we are experiencing
also have an impact on our water balance. Hotter weather raises
evaporation rates and transpiration rates and can lead to crops
losing the soil moisture underneath them more quickly.
Sometimes in the blistering heat, the crops simply shut down.
Hotter summers indeed do lead to more frequent and severe
droughts, which decrease crop yields and hurt the bottom line
of our honest, hardworking farmers.
The wet years are not without challenges either. 2023 ended
up setting records for severe weather reports across Colorado.
We set records for the most, 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-inch diameter
hail events across the State, and I have actually brought with
me a mold of our previous record hailstone from 2019, which
occurred just down the road in Bethune, Colorado. Last year, we
broke this record with a 5-inch hailstone near Yuma. Of course,
the folks near Kansas have told me that this is not necessarily
all that impressive, but it is new for us.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Goble. This all sounds a little bit grim, but I do want
to leave with a message of hope here. The impacts of climate
change can be combated through both mitigation and adaptation.
From a mitigation standpoint, renewable energy resources have
become much more cost competitive over the last 10 years. Here
in America, we are emitting carbon at rates below what we
emitted 20 years ago, and around the globe we are emitting
carbon at rates below what climate scientists put into their
climate models as the business-as-usual scenario 15 years ago.
We have come a long way, but we still have lots of work to do.
Humans are also highly adaptable creatures. By continuing to
study, update, and adhere to the best crop and land management
practices, we can continue to thrive in the face of
intensifying natural hazards.
Finally, as a scientist, I have to use this opportunity to
advocate the importance of long-term data collection. Long-term
consistent climate observations are the backbone of our
understanding of climate globally and right here at home. It is
vital that we continue to invest in networks like the National
Weather Service's Cooperative Observer Network, State mesonets
like the one we run and the one you will hear more about from
Kansas, and even community science efforts, such as the
Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network, that
allow folks from all walks of life to contribute to our
understanding of weather and climate.
Together we can learn to adapt and ensure that our food
system is resilient to an ever-changing environment. Thank you
so much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Goble can be found on page
65 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Goble, and, Ms. Owen, you
are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MS. CONSTANCE C. OWEN, DIRECTOR, KANSAS WATER
OFFICE, TOPEKA, KANSAS
Ms. Owen. Thank you, Chairman Bennet. Good morning. My name
is Connie Owen, and I am the director of the Kansas Water
Office, and I would like to thank you, Chairman Bennet and
Ranking Member Marshall, and your staffs, and both States for
the partnerships that we have in many levels and for the
ability to appear before you today.
The Kansas Water Office is located in Topeka, Kansas. Our
office is the State policy planning and coordination agency for
all water issues in Kansas. A flagship responsibility of our
office is the development of the Kansas Water Plan. One of the
five guiding principles of the Kansas Water Plan is reducing
our vulnerability to extreme events, which include drought,
flood, and climate change.
In recent years, the increasing severity of drought in
Kansas magnifies the urgency of the need to address this
threat. The Kansas Water Office is responsible for monitoring
drought and assembling the State Drought Response Team to
recommend to the Governor to issue a new drought declaration,
which makes counties eligible for assistance depending on the
level of drought intensity. The latest drought declaration was
issued just June 10, 2024. Although this declaration is not
nearly as dire as in some recent years, the forecast for the
coming summer is for warmer and drier conditions.
In Kansas, the economic driver for most of the State is
agriculture. In a drought, the lost income stream can be felt
down the supply chain, affecting entire communities. The impact
can lead to higher food prices and food scarcity. Ultimately,
national security interests are at risk. Just 2 years ago,
Kansas suffered one of the driest periods on record since 1895.
Many areas in Kansas saw records broken for the least amount of
rainfall since recordkeeping began. That year, extreme heat and
wind contributed to agricultural devastation in Kansas. The
summer of 2022, the intense heat and lack of precipitation, for
example, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of cattle
in several Kansas counties. Kansas suffered another extreme
drought, which peaked in 2012, the warmest and one of the
driest years on record. The Kansas Department of Agriculture
estimated the 2012 drought caused more than $3 billion in
drought-related crop losses in Kansas. More than $1.3 billion
in crop insurance, indemnity payments for failed commodities
were paid to Kansans in 2012.
Temperature increases in the State are also projected to
increase the frequency and severity of wildfires. In December
2021, the warmest December to date in Kansas, devastating
wildfires burned over 165,000 acres of land in Central Kansas.
The increased need for water also worsens the severe depletion
of the Ogallala Aquifer. According to the National Drought
Mitigation Center, droughts also result in negative
environmental and social impacts. Coping with drought also
presents a challenge for public water suppliers. The Kansas
Water Office is responsible for the management of State-
controlled conservation storage in 15 Federal reservoirs. That
supply serves two-thirds of the State's population.
Two hundred and forty water systems or cities in Kansas
rely at least in part on the Federal reservoirs in Kansas.
Within this group, the largest population centers include
Johnson County, Wichita, Topeka, Manhattan, and Salina. Many of
these communities survive drought only because of support from
Federal reservoir releases. Reservoirs filling with silt makes
it harder to help with drought, however. The increase in
sediment shrinks the storage capacity for water. Drought also
affects communities who rely on other sources of water. The
small town of Caney, population less than 2,000, relies
primarily on the flow of the Little Caney River, which
virtually ran dry in 2023. The town employed dramatic major
restrictions. The situation improved, but the city is facing
expensive infrastructure improvements to solve the problem.
In summary, droughts in Kansas have been increasing in
frequency and intensity. Every sector, including agriculture,
municipalities, industry, recreation, and the environment, is
experiencing and will continue to experience negative impacts
of drought. The fact that the State's water supplies are
shrinking from depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer to
sedimentation of Federal reservoirs only accelerates this
crisis. Adaptation and planning for resilience will be
critical. Thank you very much for this opportunity to testify
today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Owen can be found on page 67
in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Ms. Owen. Mr. Redmond, please go
ahead.
STATEMENT OF MR. CHRISTOPHER A. REDMOND, ASSISTANT
METEOROLOGIST, KANSAS MESONET MANAGER, AGRONOMY, KANSAS STATE
UNIVERSITY, MANHATTAN, KANSAS
Mr. Redmond. Good morning, and thank you Chairman Bennet
and Ranking Member Marshall, for this opportunity to speak in
front of you all this morning. My name is Chip Redmond. I am a
meteorologist at Kansas State University, and I run the Kansas
Mesonet Manager. Thanks again for this opportunity, and I am
going to speak today a little bit about the drought in the High
Plains and talk a little bit on, on the Mesonet itself.
You know, the High Plains, as already mentioned, can be an
area of extreme vulnerability of both extreme wet and extreme
dry. When we look at climate over time, we are talking about
averaging over a 30-year period. Typically, over these
extremes, though, drought tends to be the most impactful. Last
year did bring drought relief to a lot of the High Plains in
2023. Unfortunately, this also shifted the drought further east
into Central Kansas. Like Connie mentioned, places like Caney
had significant issues last year.
Drought never completely goes away. It is a part of our
climate, and it tends to shift and move as you go through time,
and does not typically stick to one location for usually more
than several years. As we moved through 2023, that relief was
brought by the change in the Eastern Pacific equatorial water
temperatures. That is what we call the ENSO region, or El Nino
Southern Oscillation. We transitioned from what was a 3-year
period of La Nina that brought a lot of that drought into El
Nino that, thankfully, brought much-needed moisture for this
region. That happened in the spring of last year, so a little
bit over a year ago. Unfortunately, that surplus of moisture
was short-lived. As of early this June, we saw that El Nino
condition in the East Pacific already decrease in warmer-than-
normal temperatures back to neutral conditions, with
projections of potentially La Nina redeveloping by the fall of
2024.
An additional oscillation that we look at typically is
called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. It is a 10-year decadal
transition, so it usually is very persistent. It can also have
a significant impact on the North American climate. The Pacific
Decadal Oscillation has been very negative, basically cooler
waters along the Northern Pacific coast of Canada and America,
and warmer water out in the middle. That negative Pacific
Decadal Oscillation tends to strengthen or enhance the La Nina
conditions. Unfortunately, that means continued drought
concerns, and when we look at La Nina union potentially
redeveloping, it appears this period of increased moisture has
been short-lived, and drought emergence seems very likely as we
move further into the summer of 2024. As a result, we need to
consider some of the longer-term trends of drought as well.
For example, periods between rainfall events are increasing
in length. We typically consider a 10th of an inch, or 0.1
inches, a wetting rain that has impact on the soils and crops
in a positive way. Just looking at Tribune--they have a
National Weather Service cooperative observer site there--those
durations and lengths of periods without rainfall have
increased by over 25 percent since the 1890's. Unfortunately,
the rainfall that we have seen with that has also increased, so
while we are having longer periods of no precipitation, we are
seeing periods of heavier rain when we do get moisture. Just
with one-inch heavier rain events, we have seen a 20-percent
increase at Tribune, at that very important National Weather
Service cooperative site. Again, heavier rainfall, but longer
periods of dry between them. This makes agriculture very
challenging because when we get that heavier rain, it tends to
run off and not infiltrate into the soil, and then we have
drought right after that that makes higher demands on natural
resources like the Ogallala Aquifer.
The need for more efficient water uses increase the demands
for accurate weather and climate data, especially considering
places like Tribune's NWS COOP that we rely heavily on for
these climate records. Unfortunately, since 2000, Kansas has
lost about 36 percent of their long-term cooperative observers
in the State. This makes networks like the Kansas Mesonet or
the Colorado Agricultural Meteorological Network (CoAgMET),
extremely important because they are filling the role that
these COOP observers cannot as we move forward. Not only do
they measure critical things like temperature and
precipitation, but they also measure other variables that are
extremely important to agriculture, like solar radiation, wind,
and soil moisture.
Another is, as Connie mentioned, there have been ag issues
with livestock. Back in 2019 alone, the Kansas Mesonet data
supported 1,600 ag livestock--USDA Livestock Indemnity Program
claims that resulted in $7.6 million back into producers' hands
that year alone. There are a lot of other programs that rely
heavily on weather data, of which I will not digress here, but
I will say that the National Mesonet Program is an oversight
program that aggregates all the Kansas Mesonet, CoAgMET, and
other networks in the Nation together. This is pivotal in
keeping continued good, long-term climate and weather data
records continuing and sustain them long term. This makes
things like the National Weather Service Reauthorization Act
and National Mesonet Authorization Act critical in sustaining
these networks.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak today on behalf of
the Kansas Mesonet and the Kansas Climate Office.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Redmond can be found on page
79 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Redmond, for making the
trip. Mr. Funk.
STATEMENT OF MR. ALEXANDER FUNK, DIRECTOR OF WATER RESOURCES
AND SENIOR COUNSEL, THEODORE ROOSEVELT CONSERVATION
PARTNERSHIP, DENVER, COLORADO
Mr. Funk. All right. Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member
Marshall, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you
today. My name is Alexander Funk. I am the director of Water
Resources and senior counsel with the Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation Partnership, or TRCP. Established in 2002, the
TRCP's mission is to guarantee all Americans a quality place to
hunt and fish. The TRCP is a coalition-building organization
that unites and amplifies the voices of hunters and anglers
around issues that affect fish and wildlife conservation,
habitat, and access.
TRCP encourages Congress to move quickly to pass a
bipartisan farm bill to ensure funding and technical assistance
are available to increase the pace and scale of innovative
drought adaptation and mitigation efforts benefiting
agriculture, fish, and wildlife. Failure to pass a farm bill in
this Congress could jeopardize the availability of certain USDA
conservation programs, which would be a significant blow to
addressing ongoing drought conditions in Colorado, Kansas, and
other Western States. These programs were voluntary, incentive-
based, effective, and, if available, can go a long way toward
addressing water supply challenges affecting both agriculture
and fish and wildlife.
Hunting and fishing play an important economic role
nationally and here in Colorado and in Kansas. Drought and
climate change threaten availability of hunting and fishing
and, as such, our economy many ways. These drought-related
impacts are not just limited to fish. Droughts are known to
reduce waterfowl and upland game bird habitats due to declines
in suitable habitat and food, drought and other extreme weather
conditions, disease. Human impacts, such as roads and fences,
are also known to contribute to declines in big game
populations, such as mule deer.
The farm bill can play a vital role in addressing these
impacts and broader water supply challenges affecting Western
States, and can do so through a multi-tidal approach, meaning
that beyond the conservation title, there are ample
opportunities within the forestry, research, rural development,
and other titles to address water-related challenges. For
example, most Westerners receive their water from forests.
Forests are home to our natural water infrastructure that
source watershed streams, wetlands, and meadows that sustain
drinking and irrigation water across the West. The farm bill
presents an opportunity to enhance the conservation and
restoration of these headwater forests through programs such as
the Strengthening the Water Source Protection Program, which
allows the Forest Service to enter into agreements with water
users to develop and implement source water plans and actions
from fuels management to riparian restoration efforts, both of
which can help enhance water availability.
That said, the conservation title can play a great role in
addressing drought conditions, and there are several
opportunities to help Western farmers and ranchers. The
Conservation Reserve Program, for example, can help address
drought in multiple ways by encouraging the restoration of
perennial cover on environmentally sensitive agricultural
lands, which, in turn, reduces water loss to evaporation and
increases water infiltration rates. The same cover provides
essential wildlife habitat and improves water quality. However,
many aspects of this program have not been updated since the
80's when it was first established, including the ability to
update rental rates to reflect the program's ecological value
and encourage greater program enrollment. Other challenges
include a lack of cost share for managing CRP grazing lands.
The 2018 farm bill also, for the first time, authorized
NRCS to enter into EQIP contracts with water management
entities, such as groundwater management districts and ditch
companies, to implement watershed-scale conservation and
efficiency measures. TRCP supported this provision given the
potential for these watershed-scale efforts to benefit Fish and
wildlife. Despite the promise of this change, there have been
significant challenges with implementation of this provision,
ranging from adjusted gross income restrictions, to complicated
contracting and eligibility requirements, to lack of NRCS staff
capacity and training to implement the program, as well as a
lack of dedicated funding to support these investments.
In early 2023, USDA released a Western Water and Working
Lands Framework outlining challenges and conservation
approaches to support Western farmers and ranchers, including
the modernization of irrigation infrastructure, improving water
supply forecast frameworks, and restoring streams and wetlands.
Still, unlike other targeted USDA frameworks, this Western
framework lacks dedicated resources to support implementation.
We encourage Congress and USDA to continue working
collaboratively to ensure these adequate resources and capacity
are available to implement these existing measures.
So in closing, thank you again, Senator Bennet, Senator
Marshall, other members of the Subcommittee, for the
opportunity today to speak to you about the drought and climate
change impacts facing Western agriculture and our Western
watersheds. The TRCP and our hunting and fishing community
partners are ready to work with you to craft a farm bill for
agriculture, fish, and wildlife, and I look forward to any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Funk can be found on page 86
in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you all for your excellent
testimony. Appreciate your being here. I am going to start with
a few questions. I am going to try to keep it to 5 minutes, and
then I will turn it over to Senator Marshall, and we will see
if we need to sweep up at the end, but thank you. That was
extremely helpful.
Robert, you are both--as every Colorado farmer is, you are
both a farmer and a water expert, and I think if you could boil
it all down, when you think about the future of Colorado, the
next quarter century, or however you want to think about it,
what is it that you are most worried about with respect to
drought, and how should we be thinking about that?
Mr. Sakata. Well, thank you Chairman Bennet. I guess,
first, I would like to preface that, you know, I have siphoned
many siphon tubes and shoveled many furrows and changed a few
gear boxes on the center pivots, but I would call myself more a
water groupie than a water expert, just so you know. Like you
said, I think I am in a great position where I have been on the
farming side and now on the policy side, so I really appreciate
being able to think about this in the broad range.
I am really optimistic, you know. As you know as you travel
across the country, we see how dedicated farmers and ranchers
are, how hard working they are, but I think just like on our
farm, and it may sound kind of counterintuitive, I think we
need to be willing to support experiments that are going to
fail. It does not make sense, right? You are going to support
something that does not work, but really that is what is
happening with farmers and ranchers, that we do not have that
financial buffer anymore. We cannot take risks, and change is
hard, so if you are going to ask us to change and try something
new, we will need assistance to mitigate those risks. On our
farm, you know, like I said, we have invested in some no-till
equipment, and the first year was a--we made mistakes, and it
was a financial nightmare, but luckily we were able to sell
some of our vegetable equipment and make it up. Again, it does
not make sense, but I think we need to be able to fund
experiments that may fail.
Senator Bennet. That makes sense to me. Speaking of
incentives, and, Mr. Funk, you mentioned some of the
difficulties we have been having with the RCPP, which has been
a concern of mine. I think that program has got a lot of
potential. Within the Conservation Reserve Program, CRP, which
you also mentioned, rental payments are based on the ground
value of the land, as you know, so we are paying higher rates
for more productive land, not necessarily the most
environmentally sensitive ground. Could you describe how the
CRP payment structure could better drive key wildlife climate
or soil health outcomes, like keeping the topsoil in place here
in Eastern Colorado or Western Kansas?
Mr. Funk. Thank you for the question, Senator Bennet. We
can actually absolutely do a better job of incentivizing
positive outcomes through the Conservation Reserve Program. I
would highlight two large issues, one being that the annual
payment limit for the program has not been updated since 1985.
Especially when you are facing regions with high farmland
values and adjustments for inflation, it really cramps down on
enrollment opportunities, especially for higher-paying
practices, like the State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement
Program, which does help support riparian buffers and wetland
restoration that helps support drought resilience.
Also, as you just said, you know, rental rates are based on
acreage, dryland rental rates, and soil productivity, and,
therefore, with regions that have lower soil productivity, like
Eastern Colorado, the implication there is that farmers and
producers that would like to potentially participate in CRP
potentially are faced with those lower rental rates compared to
other regions, and that really does affect enrollment rates on
a whole. When you combine that with drought and extreme
weather, that puts soils in this region at significant risk of
either further degradation, which, again, creates a positive
feedback loop of that soil's ability to maintain moisture, and
to help farmers adapt to less water supply generally.
So to address these challenges, you know, we would
consider, you know, reforms that potentially make CRP work from
Colorado to Iowa. We need a program that works for all
producers across the country, not just targeted regions, and
certainly not disadvantage enrollment of highly erodible lands.
I know there are several proposals actively discussing that,
and we would be happy to talk to your office more about some of
those options.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Well, we look forward to that
continuing conversation. I hear about it all the time when I am
in--out here on the Eastern Plains. Mr. Goble, I am going to
ask you one more--one question, then I will turn it over to my
colleague here. We talked--we heard a little bit of testimony
at the outset here about what the effect on our economy might
be as a result of everything that we are facing. I wonder how
Colorado Climate Office is seeing extreme drought or severe
weather events affect agricultural production in this State and
regionally. Could you tell us what those trends look like?
Mr. Goble. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for the
question, Senator Bennet. When it comes to agricultural
production, thankfully, for the most part, advances in crop
genetics to this point have outpaced the degradations that we
would expect in yields from increasing drought, but we do
absolutely see that in drier years, like 2020 or 2022 recently,
that the drought has an adverse impact on yields. That is
something that we are very much concerned about, especially as
these hotter than the historically normal summers become more
consistent. I would also add that we are very concerned with
the way that a warming climate changes our hydrologic cycle
where even if we do get as much precipitation as we have
historically, more of it evaporates or does not make it into
the soils and end up actually being effective precipitation.
That is definitely something we are concerned with.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Senator Marshall.
Senator Marshall. Thank you. My first question is for Ms.
Owen. Ms. Owen, as you know, Kansas has seen an invasion of
invasive species, salt cedars, different species lining our
river, sucking and removing water. We have done several pilot
programs where we have removed cedars and salt cedars from
those rivers and return flow to creek basins that we have not
seen water flow for decades. My farmers and ranchers complain
that they, due the lack of flexibility in some of the EQIP
programs, if you do not take on all the rules, you cannot do
that particular practice. Can you just speak to what practices
could be supported by the Federal Government in mitigating the
reduction of surface water flow?
Ms. Owen. Thank you for the question, Senator Marshall, and
as you know, there is an interrelationship between surface
water and groundwater. When groundwater is being used
excessively, it pulls from the stream and vice versa when there
is an alluvial connection. In effect, helping to restore
surface flow is often a factor--is often impacted by the use of
groundwater. One of the best things we can do to return surface
flow is to strengthen groundwater aquifers and reduce the draw
from the aquifer. The Federal Government does have roles to
play in helping to reduce aquifer use, and one way is to help
with water right buyouts for those who are willing to sell so
that we can reduce the demand on the aquifer. There are
mechanisms for supporting fallowing techniques.
One very important aspect that the Federal Government is
currently involved with--we have some cost share programs in
Kansas--is supporting the use of new technologies for producers
to use, for example, soil moisture probes that can tell the
producers when they need to irrigate and when they do not. That
allows for more precision management and saves an awful lot of
water and reduces the demand on the aquifer. Another thing that
we hear a lot from producers, and I cannot speak to this
personally, but what I am hearing is that the crop insurance
programs at times encourage the use of water when it is not
needed. For example, if early in the season they know their
crop will fail for some reason, whether it is waiting for an
adjuster or an agent, they are required to continue to water a
crop they know will not survive.
Senator Marshall. Thanks.
Ms. Owen. Some of those tweaks could be made to the Crop
Insurance Program. Those are--those are a few mechanisms the
Federal Government can make.
Senator Marshall. Thanks, Ms. Owen. The other--I am on this
kick on this invasive species. Something I learned, thanks to
my friends at KLA and others, is that by removing these
invasive species, it actually improves the carbon sink----
Ms. Owen. Mm-hmm.
Senator Marshall [continuing]. of the soil as well, so that
is great to know. We will turn to Mr. Funk for a question for
you. Continuing on this theme of needing some looser
guardrails, one of the concerns from the IRA farm bill--the IRA
and the farm bill are some of the climate sideboards, that they
are a little bit too tight for us to utilize. In your
testimony, you mentioned irrigation lining and piping as two
conservation practices that help produce unnecessary pumping
and irrigation systems. Do you have any good, I guess,
environmental reason why irrigation piping is an approved
practice under the IRA while irrigation lining is not when they
both could help reduce fuel from reducing pumping?
Mr. Funk. Thanks for the question, Senator Marshall. My
understanding of sort of why certain practices have been added
to the NRCS eligibility list, the IRA funds, largely stem from
basically whether or not NRCS had an existing methodology to
account for those carbon sequestration benefits associated with
the practice. When the initial list was released in Fiscal Year
2023, they lacked that data for a lot of irrigation
modernization improvements. That said, they have offered two
public comment processes since then, and several partners,
including us, submitted, you know, data showing that some of
those on-farm efficiency practices do have carbon benefits, and
they were added. That said, a lot of that--it seems like there
is still a burden of proof on sort of the entities sort of
saying like, hey, there is adequate data for this, and then it
is up to NRCS to kind of weigh that data, but I cannot speak to
how much, like, they put toward, like, any one practice or the
other, yes.
Senator Marshall. Thanks. I will finish up with a question
for Mr. Redmond. Mr. Redmond, growing up, our lives stopped
over the noon lunch hour and the weather report at 10:15,
10:30, but now we have 24/7 access to the weather. What would
be most helpful to my producers is long-term weather reports,
and not just how much, but when the rain is going to fall. It
would impact should I be planting soybeans or corn this year?
Maybe I should go to milo, which uses even less water--I am not
sure if you all call it sorghum or milo here, but we still call
it milo in Kansas--as well. What is the opportunities and the
improvements in long-term forecast look like as a
meteorologist?
Mr. Redmond. Yes, thanks for that that question, Senator
Bennet--or Senator Marshall. There is a couple things to
consider. Our technology and computers has gone much, much
further, whether from the local modeling component at the State
level to large-scale global modeling, has greatly improved our
forecasting for--you know, we can--we used to only be able to
predict the weather for several days out, and now we are 14, 30
days out pretty consistently. That, combined with surface
observations, things like the Kansas Mesonet or the National
Weather Service Cooperative Network, they measure more data
than we have ever measured before. We even have airplanes that
are measuring.
Senator Marshall. Well, what is keeping us from--30 days is
not enough, okay? I need 90 days or 6 months.
Mr. Redmond. Our--the knowledge gained from those
observations has helped us gain understanding in climate
oscillations, such as ENSO or the Pacific Takeda Oscillation,
that help us really get good forecasts out months in advance.
When we look at this summer, for instance, we are already
projecting out that drought is going to develop across the High
Plains this summer, and we expect below normal precipitation as
a result to help people make better decisions like that. I
think that we have really come a long ways in that to the point
where, from the State climate perspective, we are yielding
those questions to producers and we are providing on-the-ground
support.
Senator Marshall. Thank you. Thank you.
Senator Bennet. You have anything else?
Senator Marshall. I am good.
Senator Bennet. Thank you very much to the panel for your
excellent testimony, and we are going to transition now to the
next group of witnesses, please, and I would say thank you, the
audience's patience as well. Thanks.
[Applause.]
[Pause.]
Senator Bennet. If people could grab their seats, we will--
we will start--we will start the next panel. Thank you very
much for--all for being here.
Commissioner Kate Greenberg is our first witness. She is
the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Colorado Department of
Agriculture. She is the first woman to serve in this role.
Commissioner Greenberg has worked in agriculture for more than
15 years. Her department serves producers that are operating
over 36,000 farms and ranches in Colorado. She is a member of
numerous State boards and commissions, past president of the
Western U.S. Agricultural Trade Association, and former chair
of the Western Association of State Departments of Agriculture.
She is also the recipient of the Emerging Conservation Leader
Award from Western Resource Advocates. Thank you for being here
today, Kate. It is great to have you, and I look forward to
your testimony.
Another commissioner, Mr. Don Brown, serves as director of
the Republican River Water Conservation District and is a
third-generation farmer in Yuma County, Colorado. There, he has
run several successful businesses while spending most of his
career managing and growing his family's farming operations of
irrigated crops, dryland crops, and cattle. Don preceded Kate
as Colorado's Commissioner of Agriculture under then Governor
John Hickenlooper. He is active in numerous agricultural
organizations and currently serves as a member of the Farm,
Ranch, and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee to the
EPA administrator. I am grateful for him to be with us at the
hearing today, and I look forward to your testimony, Don.
Senator Cleave Simpson. Mr. Simpson is the general manager
of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. He also serves
as Colorado State senator, representing 14 counties in Southern
and Southwest Colorado. I know a little bit about traveling
this beautiful State of ours from every corner to the other
corner, and I can tell you that Cleave Simpson seems to know
the same--the same routine. I know he is leaving today to go to
Montrose, so this is a busy day for him. I am grateful that he
was able to fit us in.
Senator was born and raised in Alamosa, Colorado. He is the
fourth generation of his family to farm and ranch in Colorado's
San Luis Valley. As general manager of the district, he works
across the San Luis Valley to address the water security issues
in the Rio Grande Basin. He has served as representative to the
Rio Grande Basin Roundtable and the statewide Interbasin and
Compact Committee. Thank you again for being here today,
Cleave. I look forward to your testimony. Then, Senator
Marshall, please introduce your witnesses, and then we will get
started.
Senator Marshall. Well, I am honored--I am honored to
introduce two Kansans to this panel. First is Mr. Earl Lewis.
Mr. Lewis is the chief engineer and director of the Kansas
Department of Agriculture's Division of Water Resources, which
administers some 30 laws and responsibilities, including the
Kansas Water Appropriation Act, which governs how water is
allocated and used. The chief engineer oversees policies
related to these laws, including water structures, stream
obstruction, and represents Kansas in interstate water matters.
Mr. Lewis graduated from the University of Kansas with a
bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. He is a licensed
professional engineer in the State of Kansas. He and his wife,
Sherry, live in Topeka and have two sons.
Then next, I am honored to introduce Mr. Pat Janssen, who
resides on a farm that he operates with his family some 45
miles east of Dodge in South Central Kansas. A majority of
their operation consists of irrigated crop-producing corn,
soybeans, wheat, milo, and grass hay. The farm also has a cow-
calf stocker cattle unit, as well as providing custom farming
and custom irrigation services. Mr. Janssen has been
extensively involved in irrigation and efficiency work for the
last 15 years on his operation and through his association with
Water PACK. We look forward to both of your testimoneys. Thank
you.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Commissioner Greenberg, please
get us started.
STATEMENT OF MS. KATE GREENBERG, COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE,
COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, BROOMFIELD, COLORADO
Ms. Greenberg. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Bennet and
Ranking Member Marshall, for the opportunity to speak with you
here in Burlington, Colorado. My name is Kate Greenberg, and I
serve as Colorado's commissioner of Agriculture at the Colorado
Department of Agriculture under Governor Jared Polis.
CDA serves as a partner with our agricultural communities
in meeting current and future challenges. These challenges
include everything from drought and climate change, water and
soil health, to labor market access, foreign animal disease
response, and training the next generation of farmers and
ranchers. Our focus in tackling these challenges has been on
building producer-led, voluntary, and incentive-based
solutions. Over the past 5 years, we have worked with farmers
and ranchers to create the Colorado Soil Health Program to
advance stewardship, the resilience of the soil to extreme
weather events, and enhance farm profitability.
CDA received a $25 million a USDA Partnerships for Climate
Smart Commodities grant for soil health, which helped us enroll
over 500 producers in the program and advance new soil health
practices on over 65,000 acres. We created the Agricultural
Drought and Climate Resilience Office to mitigate the impacts
of a warming climate. We have expanded our renewable energy
program to include agrivoltaic research, such as integrating
crop and livestock production into existing solar farms and
using bifacial solar panels as fence rows and windbreaks. We
are providing technical assistance for USDA's Rural Energy for
America Program (REAP). Beyond conservation, we have been
expanding market access for producers, both at home and abroad,
with a keen interest in markets that reward climate smart
practices. We have doubled our support for paid internships,
created an ag worker outreach program, and issued over $17
million in innovative financing for beginning farmers. We have
to do more to set young people up for success in a rapidly
changing world.
Farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers are on the
front lines of drought and climate change. They feel firsthand
the impacts of hotter weather, tougher droughts, more frequent
pest cycles, and back-to-back hailstorms, all of which we have
seen in just the past few weeks here on the Eastern Plains. We
live with drought in the West. What we face now is
aridification due to climate change. Conservation, drought, and
disaster relief programs must reflect this reality.
Federal programs need to be flexible to allow for
innovation at the State, local, and producer levels. One way of
doing this is by continuing to partner with States to support
the programs that we are already implementing, such as we have
seen with our soil health and renewable energy programs.
Federal programs also need to be tailored to meet regional
needs, in our case, the needs of the West. For example,
Colorado has been a leader in utilizing voluntary conservation
easements to protect agricultural lands. Increasing funding for
the agricultural Conservation Easement Program and allowing the
program to cover project costs for landowners would allow for
greater use of this tool for land and water conservation. The
Environmental Quality Incentives Program is a vital partner in
our renewable energy efforts. Additional funding as well as
increasing the program's Federal matching contribution
percentage would help drive more innovation in rural energy
production.
We need to ensure that we have a robust technical
assistance network delivered by both USDA as well as partners
on the ground. The Regional Conservation Partnership Program,
or RCPP, is at a point now where we need changes to ensure its
continued success. It requires extensive administrative
oversight and lacks the administrative support for the program
included in the cost, and that can be a big hurdle for
applicants. The structure of the Climate Smart Commodities
grant, on the other hand, offers an example of how to improve
RCPP, such as including the allowance of administrative funding
and technical assistance in the program. Another example of
where we have seen flexibility is in CREP. The 2018 Farm Bill
provided that dryland agricultural uses may be permitted under
the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program with the adoption
of best management practices. While there have been challenges
implementing this, this is an important tool for Colorado to
enroll the necessary acres in CREP to meet our interstate
compact requirements.
Disaster relief programs need to be fully funded to address
the losses that producers face due to the increasing frequency
and severity of natural disasters, including drought. In order
to both encourage building drought and climate resilience and
maintain the long-term financial stability of disaster relief
programs, we need to focus on incentivizing practices that will
be resilient in the future and do so with farmers and ranchers
at the table. Finally, we need to continue to make investments
in research, incentive programs, and technical assistance that
help more farmers and ranchers reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
increase carbon sequestration and water conservation, and adapt
to a changing climate. This is an investment that must be made
at the Federal level to ensure continued food and economic
security for the country.
Our partners at USDA regularly exhibit the kind of
partnership and flexibility that make these programs
successful. We need to continue to build on these relationships
as we adapt Federal programs. I appreciate the opportunity to
discuss this work with you today and look forward to any
questions you have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Greenberg can be found on
page 98 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you so much
for being here today. We really appreciate it, somebody who
knows something about dryland crop. Mr. Brown, would you like
to go next?
STATEMENT OF MR. DON BROWN, DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN RIVER WATER
CONSERVATION DISTRICT, YUMA, COLORADO
Mr. Brown. Thank you. Well, thank you, Chairman, and please
bear with me today. This summer cold has arrived, and so I will
have to--it is okay.
Chairman Bennet and Ranking Member Marshall--it is milo.
You are correct. I am with you there.
[Laughter.]
Senator Bennet. Glad we got that squared away at the
outset.
Mr. Brown. Yes, we got that squared away. I would like to
share a bit of my background, and where the milo comment comes
from is my great-grandfather, Andrew Brown, homesteaded near
Hayes, Kansas in 1874, 150 fifty years ago. My grandfather,
Albert Brown, homesteaded in Yuma, Colorado in 1911. My family
has been a part of this High Plains for a couple hundred years.
I am a third-generation Yuma County farmer and rancher, fourth
generation working with us. We grow irrigated crops as well as
dryland crops, and some have raised several thousand head of
yearlings, all which relies on rainfall.
I think a little bit of history is important as well. As
this arid High Plains was settled in the late 1800's and early
1900's, the push westward into Colorado from Kansas was forged
by surges forward and rapid retreats. This very county we sit
in today lost 36 percent of its population between 1890 and
1900, and was not due to disease. It was due to lack of
rainfall. There are two fundamental and undeniable facts that
still apply today: dryland farming is completely dependent on
rainfall, and those farmers and communities who have some form
of irrigation fare much better in times of drought.
I would like to take a moment as director of the Republican
River Water Conservation District here in Colorado to talk a
moment about the basin itself and the aquifer, which Senator
Marshall so eloquently defined how large it is. The residents
of the Republican River Basin in Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska
suffered from a devastating flood in 1935, and in order to
acquire Federal funds to build dams, the States agreed on the
amount of water each State had to provide down river. Dramatic
expansion of irrigated acreage in the 60's altered flows, and
Kansas felt as though they had no choice but to pursue legal
action in courts. This led to a final settlement stipulation,
and the States agreed each State would be required, per a
complex groundwater model, to provide a minimum number of acre
feet of water each year.
In 2004, Colorado created the Republican River Water
Conservation District, the RRWCD/District, in the State's
efforts to comply. We as basin users here in Northeastern
Colorado have provided almost $120 million of our own money in
fees for this effort. In 2016, the three States agreed that
since Colorado was struggling to meet the South Fork
requirements, that Kansas in lieu of water would accept
Colorado removing 25,000 acres from irrigation in the South
Fork by December 2029. The Colorado State engineer has made it
very clear action is required, that deadlines are real, they
are not optional, and that the worst-case scenario would force
him to shut down all high-capacity wells here in our portion of
the basin in Colorado.
The surest method to compliance is retiring irrigated acres
in Colorado, and typically those retirement programs require a
mix of district and USDA funds. The District is using the CREP
Program, and EQIP is also beneficial but has been unreliable
due to lack of funding. In 2018, as we get to the dryland
farmable CREP, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture and I drafted
language for the farm bill for that year, which allowed the
Secretary to re permit dryland farming on qualified acres.
Secretary Vilsack authorized FSA to create CCP 100, and it
allows farmers to continue to farm after they give up their
irrigation well. In May 2023, the USDA announced the producers
could enroll irrigated land in CP 100, and you were there at
the signing at the Colorado Capital, Senator Bennet.
During negotiations with FSA, we had pointed out that the
requirements are too rigorous, and as of today, 1 year later,
FSA offices have zero applications. Thanks to your bipartisan
and bicameral support of the CREP Improvement Act, hopefully
the compensation hurdle will be remedied. No question, we need
this program. Also updating, as it has been pointed out
earlier, that decades-old CRP payment limitation is a real
barrier in helping us retire these and meet these agreements
that we have made with Kansas and Nebraska.
A couple other things I would like to comment about that
need to be or would like to see remedied is, as I pointed out
earlier, currently, CRP rental rates reward the highly
productive land, and for those who have poor lower yielding
soils to enroll, they do not economically work. One of my
deepest concerns as a producer is the 1985 version of CRP has
morphed into a wildlife program. Prior-approved grass stands
are often required to be destroyed and replaced, and in a time
of climate change, tenuous reestablishment of grasses is
extremely difficult. Prior-approved grass stands from decades
ago should be allowed to remain. I would really like to see, as
a producer, the Subcommittee continue to focus on drought-
related research as it relates to developing increased drought
tolerance in existing and new crops.
I think it is paramount that innovation be included in all
this, but programs which are tried and true should not be
abandoned or edited in such a fashion that they become
unrecognizable over the years. One should not discard the
original purpose of the CRP, forget that providing adequate
water to livestock through pipelines and watering facilities is
essential, or fail to recognize the need for supporting wise
use of the Ogallala Aquifer.
On behalf of the RRWCD, I would like to thank you for
having us here today. I would like to point out that we must
not forget the High Plains region is of value to the Nation and
its food supply. Rural communities are important part of this
Nation's fabric, and most importantly of all, acknowledging
that our--if our region is going to survive, our youth must
have a reason to stay here. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brown can be found on page
103 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Thank you. Mr. Lewis?
STATEMENT OF MR. EARL D. LEWIS, JR., CHIEF ENGINEER AND
DIRECTOR OF WATER RESOURCES, DIVISION OF WATER RESOURCES,
KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, MANHATTAN, KANSAS
Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member
Marshall. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
today on this panel. My name is Earl Lewis, and I am the chief
engineer and director of the Kansas Department of Agriculture's
Division of Water Resources. In that role, I and my staff deal
with water issues across the State as well as with our
neighbors. Just for the record, I would like to point out that,
that we are no longer in any lawsuits with Colorado----
Senator Bennet. No, we are not.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Lewis [continuing]. and worked very diligently with my
co-panelist, Mr. Brown here, to resolve that back in 2016----
Mr. Brown. We did.
Mr. Lewis [continuing]. and Commissioner Greenberg as, as
she came on board as well.
I will go off script for just a minute because I want to
echo and, and reinforce some of Mr. Brown's comments here,
especially as it relates to dryland CREP. We see that as a very
valuable option, not only for Colorado to comply with the
compact obligations they have, but for us to solve a number of
our problems within Kansas as well. Don has obviously
highlighted some of the issues that they are facing. We
currently have a dryland CREP proposal sitting in DC at the
national office that needs some help to try and get it across
the line. We have got producers that are ready to sign up to
help us solve some our water issues, but because of some of the
issues have been highlighted here, it is being held up, and we
probably need a little help to try and get that, again, over
the line.
Again, our primary responsibility is the allocation,
management, and regulation of the waters within Kansas, which
becomes even more important in times of drought. The Federal
Government plays a vital role in addressing drought across the
High Plains, particularly the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Those roles range from data collection to drought response, and
I would like to highlight a couple of things that I think that
are working well but also could be improved.
First, the Federal Government's role in monitoring drought
and bringing consistency and evaluation across the entire
country is critical to the better preparation and response to
drought as reflected in the Drought Monitor. While drought, by
its nature, is a slow-moving event, the situation on the ground
can change quickly. As such, it is necessary to have the most
up-to-date information when that development occurs. I would
encourage efforts that allow submittal of additional credible
information to the National Drought Monitor so the full extent
of the drought can be properly reflected. We have heard from
local constituents, particularly in Western Kansas, that the
Drought Monitor often underestimates severity of the situation
on the ground, and this can delay access to some emergency
programs within USDA.
As has been mentioned earlier, the Ogallala Aquifer
supports a significant amount of the Nation's food and fiber
protection. As such, conserving and extending the life of the
aquifer is critically important to both individual States such
as Kansas and Colorado, but the Nation as a whole. For several
years, USDA's Agricultural Research Service, led by Bushland,
Texas, has been active with research universities and in the
Ogallala States to coordinate research in areas of monitoring,
crop research, water management, and others. I would encourage
the Subcommittee and Congress to provide adequate resources to
expand the ongoing research into other areas and topics.
As our water resource declines, producers will need to
adapt and move to alternative crops to continue the economic
activity that has been vital to the area. Additional research
is needed to better understand how to make that happen, as well
as development of additional markets and incentives to grow
crops like milo, right--we call it milo as well--that use less
water and are more drought tolerant. Crop insurance was
mentioned in the last panel. I would like to highlight that as
well. It is one of the most important and widely supported
programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Like most
programs, there are improvements that can be made. One that has
been highlighted and I would echo is that there appears to be
lack of clarity on the need to continue irrigation of a--of a
covered crop at a time when drought has effectively terminated
its growth. Producers are often told that they need to continue
to irrigate the crop until an adjuster can visit the site in
person and confirm the crop is no longer viable. Whether this
is a policy issue or an education issue is unclear. We have
heard from USDA that that is no longer a policy issue, but it
still happens fairly frequently. Additional education resources
are needed and made available to both the insurers and the
producers on how to deal with this situation. Putting water on
a crop that is already died is in nobody's interest.
USDA Rural Development serves a critical purpose in our
local rural water districts and small towns because droughts
not only affect farmers and ranchers, but our small communities
as well. One change that I think could be helpful in rural
development is when a catastrophe happens and we have a drought
emergency in a local community, Rural Development does have
options available for either expanding or extending a
transmission line or development of a new well. However, the
caps and the time to get those resources often do not match up
with the ability of the local community to pay or the situation
that is happening on the ground and the need to respond
quickly. I would encourage the caps to be increased, the
covered practices to be expanded, and the red tape be reduced
so that we can get that money to the people that need it more
quickly.
In summary, addressing the impact of drought across the
High Plains takes all of our efforts. Whether it is the
Federal, State, and local governments or individual producers,
it takes all of us to work together to find solutions that are
going to serve our farmers, ranchers, and local communities. I
appreciate the opportunity to be here and be happy to answer
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lewis can be found on page
114 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Well said. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Mr.
Janssen, you are next.
STATEMENT OF MR. PATRICK MILAN JANSSEN, PRESIDENT, KANSAS WATER
PACK, KINSLEY, KANSAS
Mr. Janssen. Okay. I did not disclose this in my bio, but I
am a member of PETA, and that stands for People Eating Tasty
Animals.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Janssen. All right. I have been asked to speak to CREP
initially. CREP has met its initial goals in water-stressed
areas where we had already experienced depletion in aquifers.
Senator Bennet. Could I ask you just to lean in a little
bit to your microphone? Thank you very much.
Mr. Janssen. Okay. The CREP Program has achieved its
initial goals of going into stressed aquifers, stabilizing
water quality and the water quantity available there. Since
then, we have tried to move this program into areas that still
had abundant water and were viable for irrigation. At that
point, we started running into issues with funding. Currently,
in Stafford County, Kansas, an acre of irrigated ground is
worth $7,000 an acre. A comparable acre of dryland is worth
about $2,400 an acre. That is a $4,600 spread in property
value, and currently, the CREP price for that ground is $2,250
an acre, or about 51 percent of what the fair market value of
that water is at an auction.
Other issues we have got is presently, we do not have a
dryland CREP option in Kansas. To sprawl this one a little bit,
in the 1980's, in my part of the world, when the initial CRP
Program came out, it effectively skipped a generation of
producers because there was no place for those young people to
go and farm to expand their family operations. I would urge a
bit of caution there because CRP rental rates also impact what
landowners expect to receive for ground that is still in
production, so that can be an unintended consequence of that.
OK. We also have no option in CREP for partial water right
retirements. We really need flexibility in the type of covers
acceptable for grass seedings, specifically on irrigated ground
in sandy areas. We need the ability to be able to use
established alfalfa stands as cover for these crops rather than
going in on ground that no longer has access to irrigation
water, destroying an existing crop, and then attempting to
produce something else to stabilize and protect that land from
soil erosion. I found out this week that to make any
modifications at a dryland program to the CREP in Kansas, we
now have to go through an environmental impact assessment. We
continue to make things more complicated rather than making
things simpler and easier to implement. Crop insurance, it is
definitely necessary. We had a board meeting of a cooperative I
serve on, and for the second year in a row, our wheat receipts
are 30 percent of our 15-year average in our area, so
maintaining crop insurance is critical to keeping a viable
national food security.
We seem to be suffering from a disconnect in communications
and culture within NRCS, and I do not want this to come off as
I am down on everything they are doing because I am not. We
have gotten away from our NRCS offices or NRCS policies being
drafted by farm boys with a college degree who wanted to make
things better. We now have biologists, people with other
specialties, extremely intelligent people, but they do not have
the boots-on-the-ground experience in production ag to go out
and make the connection between a hillbilly like myself and
what they hope to achieve on a wildlife management level. The
rigidity of these programs continues to increase as the
disconnect between program, policy, and producers has widened.
There is more emphasis placed on the process rather than on the
outcomes. There are many ways to reach a destination, and there
are no straight lines in nature.
If I cover up the timer, I can ignore it.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Janssen. I would encourage a lot more producer-level
input, you know, focus groups, things like this. We do not
necessarily need to drag gentlemen, such as yourselves, into
it, but you guys need to hear from those of us on the ground
who are trying to implement these projects. One of the other
things I keep hearing is cover crops, things like that. If a
producer has tried that on their own and reported that to NRCS
as is acreage planted to a cover crop, they are no longer
eligible for cost share because that is a preexisting practice.
If they want to expand that practice on their property, you
know, neighbor Joe who is still dragging a mold board, he can
get the funding, but the person that is progressive cannot, and
that carries through in a lot of programs.
I guess I would ask as a group, NRCS, USDA, to establish a
spirit of cooperation rather than a spirit of strict
administration moving forward. That is my testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Janssen can be found on page
119 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Janssen. Thank you very much
for being here. Senator Simpson, please finish out the panel,
and then we will have some questions.
STATEMENT OF MR. CLEAVE SIMPSON, GENERAL MANAGER, RIO GRANDE
WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT, ALAMOSA, COLORADO
Mr. Simpson. I am going to go ahead and cover up the timer
right away.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairman Bennet and Ranking Member
Marshall.
Senator Bennet. You guys have all been so good that we are
in good shape, so take the time you need, and do not feel a lot
of pressure.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you again, Chairman Bennet and Ranking
Member Marshall.
So like some of the other members, I want to offer a little
bit of a personal perspective. I am here as the Rio Grande
Water Conservation District general manager, and we run a CREP
Program, but you touched on it in the bio. I am the fourth
generation of my family to farm and ranch in the San Luis
Valley. I feel very blessed for the opportunity. On a daily
basis, I get to farm and ranch with my dad, who is 81, and my
33-year-old son, and I got a little three-year-old grandson as
well. It is important to me that we manage this new paradigm
shift appropriately to give my son and my grandson an
opportunity to be the fifth and sixth generations of my family
to do this.
I operate a farm in the driest part of Colorado. We get
less than seven inches of precipitation a year, so all of
that--my community is the San Luis Valley. All of the culture,
economy, and the communities are driven around irrigated
agriculture, and the supply of water is just diminishing over,
really, the last 20 years. My farm, I utilize surface water
diversions out of the Rio Grande and groundwater from a
confined aquifer system, very similar to what my dad and my
grandpa did. Uniquely, my surface water priority is an 1879
priority. You would think, man, that is--that is pretty good,
that is senior. Not in my basin. That is like a junior water
right.
I looked this morning, and that water right is now, this
morning, the calling priority, which means it is not getting
its full diversion. If the river drops another a hundred cubic
feet per second----
Senator Bennet. Amazing.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. that water supply is off. I have
acres on my farm that solely depend on surface water, so it is
done with its irrigation. The rest of the year, I am just
subject to whatever natural precipitation we can get.
My wells were drilled in the 1960's, and, historically,
they have been a steady supply of water, but it also is
challenging in that a whole history of--you know, the doctrine
of prior appropriation and us pumping water in the Valley,
truly out of priority. There were ways to mitigate that over
time, but it really has culminated, and I will touch about that
in a minute. The San Luis Valley is about 8,000 square miles
and about 500,000 irrigated acres, and it is recognized as
highly over appropriated. The surface water was over
appropriated by 1900. The groundwater were really over
appropriated by 1970 and early 1980's, and the Colorado Supreme
Court has affirmed that. There is no unappropriated water left
in the San Luis Valley.
A highlight: 2002 was really an inflection point for us. It
is the driest year in recorded history on the Rio Grande River.
We have the second oldest continuous gauged point on the--in
the State of Colorado on the Rio Grande at del Norte.
Historically, that flow averages between 700,000- and 800,000-
acre feet of water a year. In 2002, it was 135,000-acre feet of
water. Really, from that point forward, we are--we are now 22
years post-2002, and 2018 was the fourth worst drought in our
recorded history, and we just continue to be well below average
in snowpack and runoff over that 22-year year period.
What that really led us to was instrumental in the Colorado
General Assembly in 2004 was Senate Bill 222. This was a bill
that directed the State engineer to craft rules and regulations
about groundwater use in the--in Division 3 in the Rio Grande
Basin that required producers to do really two things: remedy
or mitigate the injury that your surface water withdrawals--I
am sorry--your groundwater withdrawals have on surface water
rights. Then uniquely, we are tasked with creating and
maintaining sustainable aquifers in the Rio Grande Basin.
Nobody else in Colorado was doing that. Really nobody in the
Western U.S. was doing that in 2002. That really led us to a
process to establish subdistricts of the Rio Grande Water
Conservation District, tasked again with creating and
maintaining sustainable aquifers. The first subdistrict to be
formed was about 170,000 groundwater irrigated acres that came
together to assess themselves fees to run programs, to create
and maintain a sustainable aquifer system.
The centerpiece of that plan was CREP, the CREP Program,
and I always kind of characterize it, it feels like to me, that
CREP--that program was really kind of written for the
breadbasket of the United States, and we were trying to figure
out how to utilize it, not for soil conservation efforts
exclusively, but more about managing water and groundwater. It
has been this odd kind of fit to try to take CREP and make it
applicable to our groundwater situation.
When we started our efforts, the subdistrict came together
and started managing for aquifer conditions in 2012 with the
intention of, again, that centerpiece of CREP, identifying we
could take 40,000 acres out of production voluntarily and
compensated. Really, at that time period, if the next 20 years
in 2012 would have looked like the prior 20 years prior to
2002, if we take 40,000 acres out, we can recover our aquifer
to a standard that we set. We are 22 years into our--into our
program. I am sorry. We are 12 years into our subdistrict
program. We have not able to get 40,000 acres out of
production. We are really, under the CREP Program, about
20,000, and I will highlight some of the, you know,
circumstances behind that.
Commodity prices played a big role, and farmers do not get
into this not to farm, and when high commodity prices occur,
the CREP Program just was not competitive. It had regulatory
challenges. Look, just dealing with the Federal Government is
hard. I have had producers come to me and say I want to sign up
for CREP, and I will say, all right. First process is you got
to go down to Farm Services Agency because we are partnered
with USDA and FSA and the Colorado Division of Water Resources
to create this CREP Program. If I tell them they got to go to
FSA, their immediate response is, I am not--I am not doing it.
I do not want to do it.
Some of the other challenges some of the other folks have
talked about as well, but having the flexibility and the
uniqueness to adapt to our circumstances, whether it is the
seed type we use, how much water we can put on it. payment
limitations were challenging, uniquely alfalfa as well. We are
trying to do this for water conservation efforts. Alfalfa is
the most water-consumptive use crop we have. That is what I--
that is what I raise as well. The CREP Program requires some
sort of--you have to have rotated out of your crop within a
certain window, a period--time period of time. Sometimes my
alfalfa crops will go 10 years, and they do not qualify for the
CREP Program.
I will--I will kind of finish up and wrap up since I am 2-
and-a-half minutes over already.
Senator Bennet. I do not dare gavel you down.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Simpson. It is so important, and farmers are resilient.
They are innovative in partnering with the Federal Government
and the State government in trying to figure--this is not
drought anymore. This truly is the aridification of the West,
and I feel it on a daily----
Senator Bennet. Yes.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. a daily basis on my farm, but
some efficiencies. We can gain some ground inefficiencies,
different crop types. I have heard others talk about it. I
have--like Robert Sakata was pointing out, I am fortunate
enough, I can assume an incrementally little bit more risk in
my farming operations because I have two other jobs. Growing a
different crop, I have tried raising hemp for fiber. I am
raising some barley under regenerative practices. I did not go
buy a no-till drill, but that is in the cards. The other kind
of key thing for us is the introduction of a conversation about
groundwater conservation easements, and those have really come
to fruition in my basin----
Senator Bennet. Got it.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. and afford an opportunity for
further discussion.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Simpson can be found on page
122 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Let me--I am going to call--thank you for
that, Cleave, and I will solve this problem by asking you my
first question----
[Laughter.]
Senator Bennet [continuing]. which is could you talk a
little bit about what the producers in the Valley are beginning
to think about the use of groundwater conservation easements
and how that could be a powerful tool for water conservation if
we are able to figure out how to write some farm bill language
that could support that.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairman Bennet. Great question,
and this is a conversation really unfolded in the Rio Grande
Water Conservation District. In 2019, I approached the
conservation community and said, look, you have a great
template and model for conserving and protecting surface
values. Help me think about a model that what would a healthier
aquifer system mean, you know, to both the surface values that
you are--you are enduring to protect and the viability of
agriculture here. It really set us on a path--and I know you
have folks from Colorado Open Lands on a panel coming up--that
really put us in a spot to really dig in, and for first of its
kind two years ago, had a producer enroll his 12 center pivot
systems, his farm into a traditional conservation easement that
included a groundwater conservation component where there is a
recognition of the value of him leaving the water into the
aquifer and not pumping it out. It was a great collaborative
effort to get this ball kind of rolling.
There is tremendous effort in the San Luis Valley,
particularly if we can nuance it a little bit, to go maybe it
is not a complete suspension of your groundwater withdrawals,
but maybe a portion of it.
Senator Bennet. In my mind, this is a perfect example of
what we are trying to get to in the conversations that we are
having, which is how do we make these programs work better for
the reality of the Western United States, not how they look on
paper necessarily back in DC. We are going to need that kind of
flexibility, we are going to need that kind of innovation,
which brings me to my second question, and I am going to have a
third one for you, Kate, after this. What do we do to get this
dryland CREP moving, now moving away from Cleave's situation in
the San Luis Valley to the situation, you know, we are facing
more locally here in the Republican River?
By the way, we noted, we wanted to--yesterday we identified
the fact that Republican is pronounced the same way in Kansas
as it is in Colorado, unlike the word ``Arkansas,'' which is--
--
Senator Marshall. ``Arkansas.''
Senator Bennet [continuing]. different in in Kansas. What
can we do to help move this forward, do you think? Don, let's
start with you, and, Mr. Lewis, happy to hear you, too, and
there are three States that we have got here.
Mr. Brown. Yes. We have got this three-State----
Senator Bennet. Lean into that microphone.
Mr. Brown. Yes, I have got a--well, I do not have the
answer. I wished I did. The bureaucracy is an interesting
thing. When I tried to wade through it eight, nine years ago to
open Colorado's CREP up in order to make--be able to use the
irrigation well for domestic well, go from a hundred-acre feet
a year to one-acre foot a year, DC pushed back big time because
they thought on a bunch of these irrigated circles, we were
going to use the water for apartment buildings. Apartment
buildings in the middle of out here, right? That is the type of
pushback we get with the bureaucracy.
I think that where you are headed is very helpful with your
Improvement Act bill. I think that will help a great deal. One
concern I have is the bureaucracy, I think to a certain degree,
does not want this to happen. I think it is simple, and without
Secretary Vilsack's help, we would not even have it today, and
so I think that we will just have to continue to apply
pressure. I do not understand what the reluctance is to
conserve the Ogallala Aquifer. I do not understand what the
reluctance is to keep young people on the farm by having
ground-to-farm.
Let's talk about bureaucracy very quickly here. I want to
show you a file from 1972 where my grandfather got an NRCS
stock tank plus grass seeding. This is it. It is this thick. It
is letter size, right? This is today's program, inch thick, and
we have not got the project completed yet. I am anxious to see
if I will need another one.
Senator Bennet. Mr. Lewis, do you have anything you would
like to add?
Mr. Lewis. Yes, I appreciate.
Senator Bennet. I will enter the thickness of the folders
into the record, without objection.
[The document can be found on page ??? in the appendix.]
Mr. Lewis. No, I thank you, and I agree with Don on this
that the level of documentation, bureaucracy has certainly
increased across all levels of government and across all
agencies within USDA.
To answer your question, I think there are--there are two
things. One is clarifying what the purpose of the CREP and CRP
is really about. I think, as Don has correctly pointed out, I
think there is a resistance to it because there is kind of a
history of CRP, when it went in 1985, that is what it is really
about. Well, times change and the resources we are trying to
address change, and we need to be able to clarify to the
leadership in FSA and USDA what that is about. There are other
resources besides just making sure that we are keeping that
soil in the same place it was.
The other thing is, I think, where is the decisionmaking
point at? You know, we have, and this, again, is not only a
USDA issue, it is a Federal agency issue. We have really good
relationships with our State partners, our State
conservationists, State FSA directors that really understand
the situation on the ground, what we are trying to achieve,
what our producers are facing, and they are often having to
argue within their own agency at a higher level to try and get
something done. I think if we can move decision-making point
down a level or two to the people that are interacting with us
on daily basis, we would get a better result.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. I have to gavel myself then
because I am over time, so am going to actually go to my
colleague for the next couple questions. I will come back to
you, Commissioner.
Senator Marshall. Well, Senator Bennet, as I heard the
interaction between Mr. Brown and Mr. Lewis, I was reminded
that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting. What is
so impressive, I think, since becoming a member of the Senate
diving deep into these water issues is seeing the level of
collaboration that I do not think has always been there,
whether it is our State offices working together or the USDA. I
think the CREP Act that two senators--two Democrat senators
from Colorado and two Republican senators from Kansas--have
tried to sit down, as Mr. Janssen suggested, with the
producers, and figure out how do we take something and make it
better. That is exactly how legislation is supposed to work,
and we sure hope we make it--we hope that makes it into the
final farm bill. It is not perfect. Maybe we got time to make
it better, but I certainly am proud of the work that we have
done.
I want to ask Mr. Lewis a little bit about the Rattlesnake
Creek Basin, and just for the edification of folks back in DC,
that Stafford County is also home to Quivira Wildlife Refuge, a
wetland of international importance for many, many reasons,
something that I have enjoyed for decades now. On the other
hand, 80, maybe 90 percent of the economy in Stafford County is
dependent upon irrigated corn and raising a little bit of
cattle. There is--this is one of the best examples of something
you and I have worked on and Mr. Janssen as well. What, in your
opinion, could USDA do to help our producers in the Rattlesnake
Creek Basin to solve this riddle?
Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Senator Marshall, and I appreciate
it. That is certainly a tough, tough issue for all of us to
deal with. You know, certainly NRCS is already working with the
local groundwater management district under a watershed plan to
try and--to bring some resources to bear. Much like what was
talked about with CREP, the environmental evaluation of that
has been very significant and, I think, very costly. I think if
we can try and speed that up a little bit, that would be
helpful. Certainly the process, assuming that that moves
forward, they are going to find something that is
implementable. We need to be able to move that through the
process very quickly so we can get those resources to the
producers and on the ground quickly.
The dryland CREP option is--also overlaps with this area.
Certainly, you know, directed funding, that maybe there is not
a program that fits exactly, but we certainly have a very--as
you point out, a very unique resource that we try to find some
balance between our agricultural producers and the natural
resource and the wildlife refuge. A lot of times there is not
necessarily a program that fits very well, and I think we need
some flexibility for some of our programs to make sure that we
can come up with creative solutions.
Senator Marshall. Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Lewis, and
I will go with Mr. Janssen now and kind of a followup to the
same issue. Some producers are early adopters of technology and
some not so much. I guess I have always tried to figure out,
well, why, why that is because we are going to have to adapt
some new technology in the Stafford County and this Rattle
Snake Creek Basin to make this thing work, right? Is it--how
much of it is the cost, and how much of it is just the
bureaucracy of trying to check the boxes to implement this
technology? Why do farmers, ranchers not adapt some of these
technologies?
Mr. Janssen. A lot of the struggles we have had with the
technologies, I have been involved in a couple of different
grant and water technology programs over the years. Several
years ago, we had--probably 10 or 15 years ago, we had John
Deere Fontanelle. Everybody had moisture probes, and, you know,
if you bought seed, if you bought a green tractor, you got a
moisture probe, and they came out, they put them in, and at the
end of the year, they came and took them out. Nobody did any
producer education, nobody did any followup with them, so they
kind of--some of the technology, due to lack of follow-through
on the part of the people providing it, left a bitter taste in
the mouth of some people.
Through our--the last grant I was involved with, with the
Nature Conservancy in K State, we had 30 cooperators. We had 36
separate fields. One of the things we found out was that boots
on the ground, meeting with those producers, spending time
going through, you know, the probe data, going through their
irrigation scheduling, those type of things, is critical to the
success of any of these programs. What we discovered through
that thing based on producer engagement, is we think that a
culture of efficiency and irrigation is somewhere in the
neighborhood of 40 percent mechanical. We can hang stuff on a
pivot until it glows in the dark, and it is not going to make
any difference until we make that breakthrough with that
producer, that they start to engage and get interested in what
we are trying to do with them. That is the challenge is, you
are--you know, you are fighting 50 years of it worked for
granddad, it worked for dad, why would I want to do anything
different? We are in a--we are in a new world. We need to
figure out how to do the same or better with less.
Senator Marshall. Thanks. A quick question for Mr. Lewis,
and if you--maybe you should refer me to somebody else, but I
sat down with a producer in the Eastern third of the State
earlier this week, one of those young families that we are
trying to keep in the farming business, right? He has some EQIP
funds to build a terrace, but he has been waiting over a year
to get a cultural assessment done. He would gladly pay for the
cultural assessment, he wants the cultural assessment, but we
have got maybe one person that can do that. What could USDA do
or we do to empower the process and not let some of these
assessments hold up the process?
Mr. Lewis. Well, I am certainly not familiar exactly with
that situation, but we have run into that situation in other
places, and I think one thing that NRCS and others could do,
there are certainly other folks that can do that work outside
of State or Federal agency. As you say, if he is willing to pay
for that, I think having a list of folks that they are
comfortable that they--those folks know what they are doing,
they would accept those results, then they can refer that to
somebody locally to do that work.
Senator Marshall. Mr. Brown, go ahead.
Mr. Brown. May I answer?
Senator Marshall. Please. Sure.
Mr. Brown. We are quite--we are quite familiar with that in
Colorado. NRCS in Colorado has the capability of fulfilling the
cultural resources component of the evaluation. If you are
putting in a pipeline, NRCS will come and evaluate that for you
and with you, and then that box is checked. Farm Service Agency
does not have the trained personnel or technicians that have
that certificate, so you have to go outside of and hire your
own individual to do that for you. It is a three-hour drive. It
is difficult. It is quite expensive. I would think and I would
recommend that FSA contract with NRCS to have the NRCS
individual conduct that--typically, it is the same project
anyway--conduct that portion of it.
Senator Marshall. Thank you. What a reasonable, commonsense
solution.
Mr. Brown. Just saying, right?
Senator Marshall. Thank you.
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Senator. I did have one more
question for the commissioner. You mentioned RCPP in your
testimony, which I do think has enormous potential but has
fallen short of that potential in the rollout and seems to me
to be a place where we simply have not been able to achieve
what the legislative intent was. I wonder whether you could
take a minute to talk a little bit, as long as time as you
want, talk a little bit about the changes you would want in
RCPP, what is it about, what is it about the partnership of
Climate Smart commodities you mentioned earlier that seems to
be working better, and how do we make the whole thing better
for producers?
Ms. Greenberg. Absolutely. Thank you. I think you have
heard up here actually a lot of the conditions that we would
like to see change in RCPP when it comes to administrative
burden. We have talked a lot about that. We see that as a
significant barrier in RCPP projects. The intent behind RCPP, I
agree, is admirable and, I think, very applicable, especially
the focus on regional scale, focus on partnerships, but that
administrative barrier is immense for a lot of organizations to
participate. Also, the lack of administrative costs included in
the program, the overhead, the commitment--the 5-year matching
commitment. Looking at relaxing some of the matching
requirements is certainly something we have heard would be very
beneficial
Something we have seen across the board, of course, are
project delays. This is out of our hands in some regards, but I
think it is key that our Federal programs stay focused on
keeping the timelines. Even if we are pushed back 18 months, 2
years, we see an incredible increase in costs that can make
those projects very difficult to implement given that time. We
have also talked a lot about technical assistance. That is
another key piece for RCPP. Something we have seen with climate
smart commodities, we have seen a lot of these changes in
Climate Smart that have really eased the path to participating
and to getting a lot of diverse and really important partners
included in those projects. Making sure we are investing in
technical assistance, both through USDA and local and regional
partners, is key.
All of this, I think about, is our role to help absorb
risk. Much of what we have heard today from producers across
the State is the limited margins we have in ag, hardly any
margins, so it is our role to really help absorb that as we
look to change. RCPP can really do better by following what
Climate Smart Commodities has done.
Senator Bennet. Good. Great. Well, what a fantastic panel.
It is actually hard to believe that you were not preparing your
testimony together. We deeply, deeply appreciate it. Thanks for
being in Burlington today.
We are going to now transition to the last panel, and we
are going to try to move as quickly as possible, but please be
patient. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
[Pause.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you. We are going to get started for
the third panel and try to end as on time as we can. Thank you
all--thank you all for being here today.
I will begin by introducing Mr. Curtis Sayles, a fourth-
generation farmer and owner and manager of CFS farms in
Seibert, Colorado. He and his wife, Carrie, bought their first
farm in 1985 and currently own 5,000 acres of dryland farm
ground on the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Curtis employs
regenerative agriculture where they emphasize soil health
practice while producing a variety of specialty and commodity
grains. His farm also incorporates cattle to further improve
their land and provide natural fertilizer for growing crops.
Thank you for being here today, and we look forward to your
testimony.
Mr. Carlyle Currier is the president of Colorado Farm
Bureau and a fourth-generation rancher in Molina, Colorado,
where he raises beef cattle, alfalfa, grass, hay, and small
grains. Following his father's example, he quickly became
involved in farm organizations to support the local
agricultural industry, including the local Colorado Cattlemen's
Association and Farm Bureau. Carlyle has extensive experience
in water policy, representing the Colorado River Basin
Roundtable on the Colorado Interbasin Compact Committee since
2006, and in that role was very involved in writing the
agricultural portions of the Colorado Water Plan. I am grateful
for the number of times he has come to visit in Washington in
his official capacity, grateful that he is here today. Carlyle,
I look forward to your testimony as well.
Ms. Sarah Parmar is the director of conservation at
Colorado Open Lands, where she has led private land
conservation work for over a decade. In this role, she has
moved the organization to think and work strategically to align
land conservation with water challenges. Sarah has also led the
development of a technical guide for Colorado's land trust
community on collaborative water sharing agreements, and led a
feasibility study on using conservation easements to enable
voluntary, compensated reduction of groundwater. Her passion
for Western land protection stems from her background growing
up as the fifth generation on a cattle ranch in Southeastern
Arizona. Sarah is the immediate past chair of the Colorado
Conservation Easement Oversight Commission. Thank you for being
here today, Sarah. We really appreciate it. I look forward to
your testimony, and Senator Marshall will introduce the other
two witnesses.
Senator Marshall. Well, I have the honor to welcome and
introduce two more witnesses from Kansas. First is one of the
living legends of the cattle business, a true pioneer in
cattle, one of my mentors that has taught me so much about
understanding the modern cattle business, Mr. Jeff Sternberger.
Jeff grew up on a cattle and farming operation near Hardtner,
Kansas, which is on the Oklahoma-Kansas border, on the Kansas
side. Somehow we lost him to Oklahoma State University where he
got a degree in ag economics, but that has not held him back.
He has still been successful.
[Laughter.]
Senator Marshall. He went on to work for another great
innovation team, the Farm Credit System, now over a hundred
years old, another great partner for agriculture, and he was
making production loans to Oklahoma farmers and ranchers.
Today, Mr. Sternberger is the general manager and co-owner of
Midwest Feeders at Ingalls, Kansas. Jeff and his lovely wife,
Colleen, also own farming and ranching operations in Kansas and
Oklahoma. Jeff has served as the president of the Kansas
Livestock Association in 2014 when I met him, and he is a past
member of the National Cattleman's Beef Association Executive
Committee, and currently serves on the U.S. Premium board of
directors.
The next young lady I had the opportunity to introduce, she
is a budding superstar in agriculture. Amy France is the vice
chair of the National Sorghum Producers, otherwise known as the
milo folks, from Scott City, Kansas. She is the first woman to
hold a leadership office position on the National Sorghum
Producers board of directors in the organization's 68-year
history. She has served the industry on the NSP board of
directors since 2018. She and her husband, Clint, are third-
generation farmers working alongside their oldest son on their
family farm in semiarid Western conditions, mostly on the arid
side, I think. They grow grain, sorghum, corn, wheat, and raise
Angus cattle. Amy, welcome to you as well.
Senator Bennet. Thank you all for being here, and, Mr.
Sayles, please kick us off.
STATEMENT OF MR. CURTIS E. SAYLES, OWNER AND MANAGER, CFS
FARMS, SEIBERT, COLORADO
Mr. Sayles. Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member Marshall, I was
glad that Senator Bennet said we had plenty of time. I wrote
down all my thoughts, did a read-through, and it was only 16
minutes, and I thought maybe I better whittle it down.
Senator Bennet. That is short for the Senate.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Sayles. Anyway, I hope I do better. Thank you for
letting me speak to you today on the tools and processes we
have been incorporating over the years to combat the erratic
weather patterns that seem to becoming the norm. Our farm is
entirely dryland. This means we do not irrigate any of our
crops, so we are completely at the mercy of nature for our
moisture. As stated before, I am fourth-generation farmer from
Seibert, Colorado, just about 30 minutes west of here, where we
are today. I returned to the family farm in 1980. I married my
beautiful wife in 1982. She is with me today. Thought I better
mention that. We have three lovely daughters, two great son-in-
laws, and six charming grandchildren.
We purchased our first farm in 1985, practicing
conservation tillage, meaning leaving as much residue on the
surface as possible. 1997, we decided to pursue a no-till
farming system, sold all of our tillage equipment, bought a
sprayer, no-till drill, and started continuous crop zero till.
At that time, soil tests indicated that our soil organic matter
was less than 1 percent. In 2014, we were introduced to this
new regenerative agriculture at the No-till on the Plains
conference. By this time, our soil organic matter had increased
to 2 percent over the years of zero till. In addition, our
fertilizer recommendations continued to decrease as nutrient
cycling matured.
As we looked at the advantages of healthy soil over
chemical and fertilizer, we decided to adopt the suggested
regenerative principles. We were already keeping the soil
covered and had minimum soil disturbance. We added cover crops
and began integrating livestock into our cropping rotation. We
now routinely score soil organic matter in the upper 2 percents
with some fields exceeding 3 percent. Utilization of the Haney
and PLFA soil tests indicate that our soil biological
populations are increasing with a corresponding nutrient credit
being created. We have utilized some government programs along
the way. We were enrolled in the Conservation Stewardship
program in 2015. Unfortunately, this program was not patterned
for large-scale utilization and did not fit our scale.
In 2016, we were introduced to Dr. Meagan Schipanski, a
researcher from Colorado State University. Her team wanted to
study the holistic system that we were building from a system-
based approach instead of the traditional research model. This
research was invaluable. Following this project, we were
enrolled in the Farmer Advancing Regenerative Management
Systems program, FARMS for short. This was funded by a USDA
NRCS grant. This program supported producers who were building
comprehensive soil health management systems on their farms.
Last year, we were asked to participate in another program. It
is a Western SARE grant-funded project called Farms Beyond
Yield, helping indigenous and black farmers understand and
utilize regenerative techniques. Last, we have been recently
enrolled in an NRCS Transitional Organic Program. What we have
learned from all of this is simply that the soil must have
carbon--must have a carbon reserve if we hope to build
resilience in our cropping system.
Earlier this spring, Dr. Jerry Hatfield, Agricultural
Research Service senior researcher, addressed the 2024 High
Plains No-till conference and shared that, most if not all,
farmers in our region are now farming the B horizon. To quickly
explain, the soil is divided into layers known as horizons. The
A horizon is more commonly known as topsoil, while the B
horizon is a more basic substrate and so on. The topsoil is the
rich, high-carbon layer of soil buildup over eons of natural
processes long before man started tilling the soil. The topsoil
layer functions as a whole ecosystem, the foundation of which
is soil carbon. Tillage exposes this soil carbon to the
atmosphere and triggers its loss as carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere.
In the High Plains, the intact short grass prairie had no
more than 5 percent organic matter. In the hundred years since
the prairie was broke, tillage agriculture has reduced the
levels of soil organic matter to less than 1 percent. For many
years, conventional tillage was the normal cropping system. It
still is for farmers today. However, tilling the ground is a
consumptive system, meaning the system is always being used up
without the ability to rebuild the resource. Dr. Hatfield's
comments really hit a note with me and likely resonates with
other farmers who grow crops in the former Dust Bowl region.
Conventional cropping systems work, as indicated by
successful producers in agriculture, but at what long-term
cost? If we keep treating the soil like a growing medium
without regard--without the thought of regenerating it, we will
be locked into a spiral of increasing fertilizer and chemical
usage. Without carbon in the soil, we are never going to have
the resilience to moderate a changing climate. This has to be a
philosophical change. I would like my legacy to be a farm where
I watch my grandchildren grow up healthy, I would like to not
worry about them around the farm getting into something, and I
would really like to pass on a farm that is not yoked to
chemicals and fertilizer for productivity--for profitability.
Some areas need to be addressed as we move forward
regeneratively. As we have heard several times today, Federal
crop insurance must be modified to give incentive to farmers to
adopt regenerative systems, increase the number of crops it
covered. Non-traditional crops are discouraged if the farmer is
forced to use the totally inadequate MAP Insurance System.
Revisit the regulations concerning the usage of cover crop,
maybe performance-based premium discounts for farmers
incorporating regenerative practices, and, in general, the
diminishing APHA issue will become a problem if the climate
continues to deteriorate and crop insurance is used more often.
Additional research is necessary. The research model needs to
be a holistic, long-term, system-based research. On farm, in
the real world. is the most realistic. A regenerative produce
standard, much like organic needs, needs to be adopted. We are
currently working with an organization called the Soil Carbon
Initiative as they work toward this goal.
In conclusion, regenerative agriculture is a farmer-driven
movement. That is why I think it will succeed. If society wants
agriculture to go this way, government has a responsibility to
assist. If our environment continues to track toward the
erratic, farmers are going to have to adjust to protect the
soil to continue to produce. That is the resilience we must
foster. Drought resilience, economic resilience, and agronomics
resilience must all be pursued. Thank you for letting me
testify about a movement that I am passionate about. I have
thrown a lot on the table. Maybe I have not provided solutions,
but I hope I have suggested places to start looking. I look
forward to watching the results of this hearing. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sayles can be found on page
126 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Sayles. Mr. Currier, you are
next.
STATEMENT OF MR. CARLYLE CURRIER, PRESIDENT, COLORADO FARM
BUREAU, MOLINA, COLORADO
Mr. Currier. Thank you, Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member
Marshall. My name is Carlyle Currier. I serve as president of
the Colorado Farm Bureau, our State's largest general farming
organization representing all four corners of the State and all
commodities. I also serve on the board of directors of the
American Farm Bureau Federation. I want to thank you for the
invitation to participate in today's proceedings as we discuss
the compounding challenges and opportunities ushered in by a
dryer future and a more arid future.
I am the fourth generation on my family ranch located in
Mountain Valley near Molina, Colorado. My son, Joel, will be
the fifth generation to raise beef cattle and grow hay and
small grains from our home in Mesa County. In my volunteer
capacities, I have been fortunate to work with many groups
intent on finding adaptions to hotter, drier times. The need
for innovation becomes increasingly urgent with each drought
cycle. Here in Colorado, our farmers and ranchers have adapted
because wind and water supplies have demanded it. Where I am
from, our high-elevation pastures are often flood irrigated.
Our producers have improved efficiencies in flood irrigation
over the years, and, in doing so, we provide a couple of
important low-cost tradeoffs for the irrigation water we use.
For example, we slow water down and provide water for
downstream ecological benefits like water for wildlife and
shallow mountain aquifer recharge. We also benefit downstream
users. This tradeoff provides consistency whether we are
talking about our role in delivery through Colorado River
Compact compliance or sustainability of our ecosystems. We
produce the most nutrient dense, consumable, and affordable
protein in the world. Our ability to use water to grow forage
that we feed the livestock results in dividends that shore up
our food security issues domestically. The insurance tradeoff
need to not be dismissed. Additionally, farmers and ranchers in
the West play a critical role on Federal lands to improving
range conditions, preventing wildfires, and maintain health--
maintaining healthy watersheds through grazing. Ranchers with
Federal grazing permits utilize land that is often ill suited
for other kinds of production.
Because we are here to talk about water, I would like to
offer that, specifically, grazing on Federal lands increases
water yields, improves soil structure, and assists with water
storage and filtration. A strong partnership between Federal
agencies and local grazing permits is key to maintaining these
ecosystem services. I have been fortunate enough to have a good
working relationship with personnel in Grand Mesa National
Forest where I run my cattle in the summertime. Again, they
recognize the important tradeoffs and contributions of multiple
use on Federal lands as opposed to an exclusionary preservation
system.
There are many other ways agriculture is part of the
solution for a future we are facing. Our continued
contributions depend on the continuing respect for our State's
administration of water rights and the private property
protections that the prior appropriation system provides.
Often, this system creates tensions between growing urban
centers that need water resources and an agricultural industry
that may be hurting during difficult times. Buy-and-dry
programs as a stopgap for conserving water during periods of
peak urban municipal expansion has severe consequences. Buy-
and-dry imperatives do not bode well for a State's economy that
depends on agriculture's $9.2 billion of sales contributions.
We at Colorado Farm Bureau think buy-and-dry programs are to be
cautioned against because of the consequences to our rural
communities and economies.
USDA is certainly recognizing the importance of rural
investment when it comes to helping farmers in rural areas
experiencing distress from drought, but there is surely more we
can do. We need solutions that fuel long-term economic
development and provide multiple benefits like Senator Bennet's
Healthy Watersheds and Healthy Communities Act. I recently
heard our Colorado Congresswoman Caraveo say, when speaking
about our Nation's transition to renewable energy sources, that
it must make sense for farmers' and ranchers' economic bottom
line to be successful. I believe that is equally true when we
talk about management of our water resources. I agree there
must be a balance between resources and stewardship and
economic viability. If farmers and ranchers are expected to
take the risk of modifying with new precision and conservation
technologies, there must be incentives. The Healthy Watersheds
and Healthy Communities Act provides commonsense incentives
that leveraging Federal investment against private and public
partnerships provides.
As a founding member of the Colorado Agricultural Water
Alliance and past chairman, I know intimately the needs of
water are diverse, and we must avoid a one-size-fits-all
approach to water resources and water rolls. By simply reducing
cumbersome paperwork requirements and streamlining ideas, CAWA-
secured funding from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and
support a diverse group of water projects, all with the
targeted objective of drought resiliency. They gather data from
respective projects and are now leading the way in solutions
that we know will help us through this hotter and drier future.
They are varied in methods, but the projects, in shapes and
sizes and duration, they are all part of the equation.
We must have more permanent funding for current and ad hoc
disasters, and my written comments will tend to talk a little
more about those. I will move on and just thank you for your
time today and opportunity to contribute to this discussion. I
hope that you will consider myself and the Colorado Farm Bureau
as a resource when it comes to ideas to help protect and
support our Nation's resources and rural communities.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Currier can be found on page
130 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Currier. We will keep your
complete record or complete statement in the record. Thank you
for that very much. Mr. Sternberger.
STATEMENT OF MR. JEFF STERNBERGER, OWNER AND GENERAL MANAGER,
MIDWEST FEEDERS, INC., INGALLS, KANSAS
Mr. Sternberger. Chairman Bennet and Ranking Member
Marshall, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify
today. My name is Jeff Sternberger, and as Senator Marshall
mentioned, I am the general manager and co-owner of Midwest
Feeders Incorporated, located in Southwest Kansas near Ingalls.
I am the past president of the Kansas Livestock Association, a
member of the KLA Water Committee, a member of the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association, and I also serve on the board of
directors of U.S. Premium Beef, a producer-owned, vertically
integrated beef system. My wife, Colleen, and I also own
farming and ranching operations in Kansas and Oklahoma. I do
have a bachelor's of science degree in agricultural economics
from Oklahoma State University, and I am proud of it.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Sternberger. Midwest Feeders is a 90,000 head custom
cattle feeding operation. The majority of the cattle owned in
our feed yard are owned by other cattle producers. Our team
provides feed and animal care during the finishing phase. While
we raise some of the forage and grain needed to feed the cattle
in our care, the vast majority is purchased from farmers in the
region. My testimony today will focus on our efforts to
conserve water.
The primary source water source in Southwest Kansas is
groundwater from the Ogallala Aquifer. Depletion of the aquifer
has received considerable attention in the last few years. As
stakeholders have developed a better understanding of the rate
of depletion, discussions around water use reduction and
conservation have accelerated. While efforts have accelerated
recently, our operation has been implementing practices to use
water more efficiently for many years. These efforts go back
30-plus years as irrigation and water rights were converted to
stock water rights. These water rights were exercised using
flood irrigation technology. Water was conserved simply by
shifting away from the less efficient flood irrigation system.
Converting water rights from irrigation to stock water also
results in reduced water use.
In 2018, we enrolled multiple water rights in a water
conservation area, or WCA. The WCA allowed us flexibility in
how we utilize our water rights in exchange for reducing our
historical water use by 10 percent. The flexibility allowed us
to more efficiently use water from multiple rights in our
integrated system that supplies water to the cattle in our feed
yard. In 2019, we completed an expansion that added additional
capacity to our feed yard. As part of that expansion, we
installed a water recycling system that captures overflow from
the waters in part of the feed yard. The water savings from the
recycling system has averaged between 1 and 2 gallons per head
per day. For comparison, our typical water consumption across
the feed yard averages 9 to 10 gallons per head per day. We
completed another facility expansion in 2022 that included
another recycling system. We have seen similar water savings in
that system as well.
The investments we have made allowed us to use water more
efficiently. That is essential to the long-term viability of
our operation. Our viability also is dependent on the forage
and grains produced by farmers in our area. Last year, we began
meeting with neighboring farmers to discuss the potential of
extending water conservation efforts to farms in the area. We
believe there is potential to use a WCA or LEMA to realize
water conservation while still providing the revenue necessary
for the farming operation and growing the forage and grain we
need in our cattle feeding operation. If we are successful, we
know other feed yards will take a similar approach in other
areas.
We have been fortunate to be able to make significant
investments in our operation to achieve water conservation.
From a policy standpoint, support from the Federal level will
accelerate investment across cattle feeding, dairy production,
and farming. I suggest you consider cost share programs and tax
credits as options that would support investment in
technologies that provide water savings. The upcoming farm bill
discussion would be an opportunity to expand conservation
programs to include these types of investments.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sternberger can be found on
page 137 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you very much, Mr. Sternberger.
Thanks for being here. Mrs. France. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MRS. AMY FRANCE, VICE CHAIR, NATIONAL SORGHUM
PRODUCERS, SCOTT CITY, KANSAS
Mrs. France. Thank you, Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member
Marshall, and members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity
to speak at today's hearing. My name is Amy France, and my
family and I farm and raise livestock in Western Kansas. We
primarily raise grain sorghum--milo--corn, wheat, as well as
Angus cattle. I also serve as vice chair of National Sorghum
Producers, a/k/a milo.
As third-and fourth-generation farmers in Western Kansas,
we live with the impact of drought and limited water resources
with firsthand experience of the importance of water
conservation efforts in agriculture. Today's hearing provides a
great opportunity to discuss water conservation and, more
importantly, the need for irrigation water savings to protect
the Ogallala Aquifer. First, I want to express my gratitude to
Senators Bennet and Marshall for your bipartisan leadership and
commitment to agriculture at the Federal, State and local
levels. The High Plains is a harsh climate that includes
limited precipitation and extreme temperatures. Precipitation
falls short of evaporation rates, leaving areas in the Western
U.S. in a moisture deficit, and the U.S. Drought Monitor shows
that. In Scott County where I live, it has consistently
experienced drought conditions for the past several years.
Because sorghum is more efficient in the use of water than
other crops, it is a key tool for enhancing the overall
sustainability and profitability for my family farm. As the
resource-conserving crop, sorghum is a hearty, drought
tolerant, high-residue crop that conserves soil moisture and
reduces soil erosion. Despite the harsh and fragile nature of
High Plains, the region still produces, on average, three-
fourths of the U.S. sorghum crop under these challenging
conditions. While USDA NRCS policy does recognize sorghum's
contribution in a crop rotation, it should provide more
compensation and greater incentives for resource-conserving
crops such as sorghum.
I want to speak today about the importance of work being
done at the local level organizations, like the Southwest
Kansas Groundwater Management District Number 3. GMD3 has
actively engaged with farmers in Kansas and neighboring farmers
in Colorado, helping producers benchmark their irrigation
efficiency against the other area producers, providing
technical, educational and financial assistance to drive
improvements and performance. Other GMDs have taken different
approaches. For example, farmers under the Northwest Kansas GMD
self imposed irrigation pumping guidelines. In the years
following implementation, area farmers increased sorghum
planting by over 400 percent, reduced water utilization by over
25 percent, and reduced water decline by 78 percent. In this
case, crop choice was a vital tool for preserving groundwater
and helping keep farmers farming. My groundwater management
district, the West Central Kansas GMD, has implemented similar
measures with results that double what expectations were at the
beginning of the program.
We appreciate the efforts of Senators Bennet, Moran, Lujan,
and Heinrich for introducing legislation that allows farmers to
convert irrigated acres to dryland by placing their water
rights into voluntary conservation easements. This creates
water savings that are attributed directly back to the aquifer,
helping to reduce over appropriations and to stabilize this
important resource. From my perspective, Federal, State and
local policies need to incentivize action which effectively
deliver actual water savings in the Ogallala Aquifer. It is
vital to preserve critical resources for agricultural,
industrial, and municipal uses. Mr. Chairman, we can do this by
adopting new technologies, improving practices and policies,
and harnessing inherent attributes of lower water crop uses
like sorghum.
With my time remaining for my testimony today, I would like
to emphasize how critical it is that the Senate Ag Committee
commit to farm bill reauthorization this year. The impact of
lower commodity prices and high input costs coupled with
prolonged drought in some areas make the need for update to the
farm safety net more important. National Sorghum Producers has
shown and offered its support in the framework released by
Ranking Member Boozman earlier this month. Conversely, our
analysis of the Democratic framework shows that sorghum and
wheat industries actually lose significantly in the commodity
support. We need a farm bill this year, not next year. The farm
safety event hangs in the balance as well as farm families.
I want to thank you and the Subcommittee for your time
today and for your proactive collaborative approach to these
issues that are so critical for agriculture. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. France can be found on page
139 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mrs. France. Thank you very much
for that testimony. Ms. Parmar, you have the last word. No
pressure.
Ms. Parmar. Oh, lots of pressure.
Senator Bennet. Then we will have some questions.
Ms. Parmar. I am already terrified of the red button.
Senator Bennet. No, no, do not worry about it.
STATEMENT OF MS. SARAH PARMAR, DIRECTOR OF CONSERVATION,
COLORADO OPEN LANDS, LAKEWOOD, COLORADO
Ms. Parmar. Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member Marshall,
members of the Subcommittee staff, thank you so much for the
opportunity to be here to talk about the nexus between your
work and mine. My name is Sarah Parmar. I am director of
conservation for Colorado Open Lands. We are a statewide
nonprofit that has worked for over 40 years to conserve land
and wildlife--for land and water for people and wildlife, and
since that time, we have conserved over 680,000 acres together
with 720 associated water rights across the State of Colorado
using conservation easements.
We have focused on irrigated agricultural land because we
recognize that continued irrigation in rural communities is the
cornerstone of the economy, ecology, and heritage that we all
value. We recognize, as Senator Marshall so eloquently said
earlier today, that issues of water are overshadowing issues of
land and are critical, and that we as a land trust need to
innovate our tools that we bring to the table for producers in
facing these challenges. We have worked to adjust and adapt our
conservation easements to add flexibility for water rights to
combat buy and dry, and we have looked at ways to support
aquifer recovery.
You heard from our illustrious State senator, Cleave
Simpson, earlier today about the herculean challenges and
matching efforts, I would say, of his home community in
bringing their groundwater supplies into a sustainable level
and avoiding a regulatory shutdown, a shutdown that would hurt
economy and ecology equally. In 2019, we began working with Mr.
Simpson and other really creative water managers in the San
Luis Valley to explore whether we could take a traditional
conservation easement and adapt it to support aquifer recovery,
and we started with listening sessions because we wanted to
understand what would work for farmers. What we heard from
folks overwhelmingly was that there were so many people who
want to be part of the solution, who want to do the right
thing, but they are farming because they love farming and they
do not really want to be paid not to farm. They want to be
become compensated for reduction.
What came out of these conversations was this idea of a
groundwater conservation easement, a tool that is both
permanent and enforceable, a tool that qualifies for tax
incentives and funding programs, a tool that can be tailored by
region and actually by farm, and a tool that does not dictate
how producers achieve those water savings on their own farm.
Colorado Open Lands worked with the farmer to complete the
first groundwater conservation easement, as Mr. Simpson shared,
and the savings from this groundwater conservation easement
will allow all of his neighbors, all of the other irrigators in
this groundwater subdistrict to continue in production, and
will benefit wetlands on the nearby national wildlife refuge.
Now, we explored funding for groundwater conservation
easements through the Agricultural Conservation Easement
Program, but national headquarters staff had concerns about
alignment of program purpose. We were instead encouraged to
apply and were awarded a Regional Conservation Partnership
Program grant. We have incredible staff working for the Natural
Resources Conservation Service here in Colorado under the
leadership of State conservationist, Clint Evans. We have
significant experience implementing farm bill programs
successfully, and I will say that we found it exceptionally
difficult to utilize our CPP for conservation easements.
On the other hand, the Agricultural Conservation Easement
Program is a known and trusted tool with staff who have real
estate experience. I would advocate that the creation of a
groundwater conservation easement program under ACEP, as
envisioned by Senator Bennet in the groundwater--the Voluntary
Groundwater Conservation Act that he sponsored last year, would
create the necessary program purpose alignment for USDA and
provide an impetus for the Agency to build expertise in water
rights. The creation of even a pilot program in the upcoming
farm bill reauthorization would enable NRCS and partners to
undertake some of the necessary trial and error involved with
the implementation of this program. By both highlighting the
need to address water and integrating it into existing farm
bill programs, you really give us as partners the ability to
innovate alongside producers.
I would say that agriculture has always been an inherently
risky occupation, much more about love of lifestyle than
certainty of returns. I am the fifth generation to get to grow
up on my family's ranch, and most of my childhood memories were
wet playing in the creek, getting stuck on the road between our
house and school, which was 30 miles away. Now I have
incredibly difficult conversations with my father about how 2
out of the last 3 years were the driest that he ever
experienced in his 50 years on the ranch. The well that serves
my childhood home, the home that I hope to return to 1 day to
take over management of the ranch, is currently dry. At 72
years old, my dad is still constantly working to find new ways
to align his management of the ranch with what Mother Nature
provides. He has not given up and neither can we.
Water is messy and it is complicated, but to solve the
looming issues that threaten our agricultural industry, we have
to be prepared to dive into that messiness and complexity, and
we have to bring USDA in with us. I would argue that we need to
facilitate reduction with production as we look to support
producers and keep communities alive while we recover aquifers.
I want to thank Senators Bennet and Marshall for hosting
this and for looking beyond bipartisan lines to really get to
the heart of these issues and for asking how the next farm bill
can support the innovation we need to create the resiliency in
our communities. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Parmar can be found on page
147 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thanks for bringing us home. You
did a great job. Sarah, I am going to actually start with you
if that is all right.
Ms. Parmar. That is all right.
Senator Bennet. As you know, we have been talking to USDA
and to folks in DC about how to get this groundwater
conservation program started. One of the things that I hear
from USDA sometimes is that they are just saying that Western
water law is just too complicated for them to be able to
administer a nationwide program. I realize there are questions
about maybe a pilot, not a pilot, but in the broadest sense,
could you talk a little bit about that because it does--we do
want our water law respected. We do not want it changed in any
way by what they do, but I am worried that the attitude of
throwing up their hands and saying it is just too complicated
is not going to allow the creative people in the Valley, for
example, to be able to achieve the benefits that you have
described.
Ms. Parmar. Well, I really appreciate the question, and I
do not blame them for being intimidated. I believe that folks
at USDA really want to ensure program integrity, and I
appreciate that. I do think that there are ways to create
national program criteria around monitoring and enforcement
being required for implementing groundwater conservation
easements. Being able to delegate the authority to the States,
to the State conservationists who do understand the State law
and the water regimes that they are operating within to be able
to demonstrate how they can meet that national criteria of
monitoring and enforcement, I think are very important. I think
it is--it is very much possible, and I think that there are
farm bill programs that we have talked about today that already
rely on State water law or subject to State water law. I do not
think we are paving totally new ground, but I think we have to
try.
Senator Bennet. I do think that it is really important for
us, when we think about the kind of easements that you are
talking about and other conservation easements, that they are
not tied up in the bureaucracy in DC where people may not know
exactly what people on the ground are wrestling with or the
expertise that the State and water districts and others have,
so we look forward to continuing to partner with you on that.
Carlyle, I just cannot resist it because you are here,
whether you know it or not, representing the Upper Basin of the
Colorado River. I know you know it. Could you talk a little bit
about what you and other producers have already done to cut
back on water use in your operations in drought years? I know
there are not a lot of big reservoirs in the mountains above
where you farm. Just give the country a little bit of a sense
of what it is like from a water perspective to produce at the
elevation that you produce and that high up in the Colorado
River Basin.
Mr. Currier. Well, thank you for the question, Senator
Bennet. Yes, that certainly is a major issue as ongoing
discussions on the Colorado River Compact and the protocol for
operation of the river has not only allowed, but really
encouraged, I think, overuse of the river in the Lower Basin by
sending water down to Lake Mead and encouraging people to use
that, even though it is creating a situation where the
reservoirs are at crisis level. In the Upper Basin, we do not
have that option. In my area, I am 100 percent dependent on
annual snow pack, so we have a year with low snow pack, I do
not have the water. It is not there. In 2021, I raised less
than a quarter of my normal crop because I was out of
irrigation water by this time of the year and could not--could
not raise any alfalfa after that, and had to buy lots of
expensive hay to feed my cows.
We are doing things to try to help with that situation by
using water more efficiently. There have been a lot of proposed
projects, some of the drought management projects that have
been proposed as far as paying farmers to forego part of their
use. You know, I think it is an important tool that that should
be considered and should be tried. I do not have a lot of hope
that there will be a lot of solution there, but if we do not
try it, we certainly will not know whether it will work. You
know, anything we can do to expand the availability of that
precious resource of water, to use less of it for what we are
doing with it and allow more for other uses, is certainly going
to be a benefit.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. In the last few seconds that I
have--take your time, Mr. Sayles--but you ended your testimony
with such a hopeful sense of what the future could bring. I
wonder if you could just talk a little bit at the end here
about what we could do to the USDA conservation programs that
you think would be most helpful to folks that were just
starting out in or wanting to start out in regenerative
practices, the kinds of conservation practices you described.
Mr. Sayles. I think probably the most important thing would
be continuing education. Anybody that is involved in a
government program, especially if it is focused on regenerative
ag, it should be a requirement that we have plenty of great
conferences around. I think young guys need to--I think there
is education thing. Another thing we learned through the farms
program was a lot of times, young guys, of course, grandpa and
dad are still on the farm. There is a lot of that is not how we
have done it, we do not want to do anything new, yada yada. We
even had some young guys say that their neighbors treated them
different if they are doing these new things. I do not think
the government can handle that. I think it would be better that
the government incentivize programs like farms that allow the
mentorship-mentee type of a deal.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Marshall?
Senator Marshall. All right. Thank you. I want to spend my
last few moments here talking about the terms ``climate smart''
and ``climate friendly,'' and, in particular, how they are
defined and being used by the IRA and the USDA. Mrs. France,
what would you say to those in DC that say unless the
conservation practice you implement on your operation of a
greenhouse mitigation or sequestration effect, those practices
are not climate friendly?
Mrs. France. Well, I would say farmers are the first to be
climate friendly, and I will stand by that forever, but I would
say one size does not fit all for climate friendly. You know,
we heard about cover crops earlier, and for Western Kansas, as
you mentioned in your opening, that just does not fit. Things
that we have done is leaving stubble, and so what that does is
that keeps the moisture in the soil. It helps with soil
erosion. Although that is not seen as a cover crop, that is
certainly what works best for us, so we have to be very careful
in defining ``climate friendly'' and making sure that term is
widely encompassing all areas. My challenge would be putting a
true definition to that to fit all regions.
Senator Marshall. Would you agree with me that agriculture
is only able to use about 40 percent of that IRA conservation
funding, and if it was opened up, that, indeed, there are some
real practical uses agriculture could use that would make--that
would indeed be climate friendly?
Mrs. France. Yes. National Sorghum Producers has publicly
supported moving IRA funding into the conservation title. That
just gives more runway for those funds to be put into growers
pockets when they need them the most.
Senator Marshall. Then, Mr. Sternberg, I want to talk to
you about climate smart practices. Can you describe how USDA
has engaged with the Kansas Livestock Association to learn
which livestock production practices should be included in this
list of climate SMART IRA practices?
Mr. Sternberger. Yes, Senator Marshall. Thanks for the
question. In a conversation with a KLA staffer, he indicated
there was, oh, likely one cursory conversation with the USDA in
regards to that in this past year. They felt like that they
were overly focused on checking the box of--the appropriate box
as far as climate change or carbon sequestration. It is my
personal belief, and I believe that it is KLA policy, direction
would be that they would be a lot more in favor of conserving
our resources that we currently have. For example, in Western
Kansas where we get less rainfall than we do in the eastern
part of the State, we rely on a lot on the Ogallala Aquifer,
and there are efforts there we could be doing to conserve that
water to raise more crops for the livestock industry as well as
making the farmers a lot more economically viable by doing so.
In the eastern part of the State, they are more concerned
with water quality and rangeland health and focusing on
programs like that. I feel like that if the American farmer and
rancher are more focused on producing food more economically,
we could possibly get a little better control over the food
inflation that we have got in this country.
Senator Marshall. Thank you. Mrs. France, let's talk about
the future. You have got three kids. Is that right?
Mrs. France. Well, blessed with two marrying into, and then
have three of my very own, yes.
Senator Marshall. There we go. Talk about the future of
agriculture. Where does conservation meet agriculture 30, 50
years from now? What are your children and grandchildren going
to be doing that we are not doing today? What are you excited
about?
Mrs. France. Well, to speak about my children now, our
oldest son is running truck, my oldest daughter is running
combine, my 12-year-old is running grain cart----
[Laughter.]
Mrs. France [continuing]. and my daughter is working as a
teller, and then we will take meals at supper, so that is the
generation right now, already hard in the field. They are very
aware of what is coming down the pike. We talk about it. Even
though we live in rural Kansas, rural America where agriculture
is the heartbeat, there are still many people that surround us
that do not understand what it is going to take to keep
agriculture moving forward.
We talk about the Ogallala Aquifer, and I can echo what
Sarah is saying about, you know, wells going dry, and so when
wells go dry, farming goes dry and cities go dry. That is a
conservation that I am looking at is actually a personal
conservation, keeping rural America alive, and that is keeping
agriculture alive, and conserving that aquifer and doing all
that we can do. It will look very different, I am sure of it,
but these kids are anxious to keep on the tradition, and I am
excited to see what they do.
Senator Marshall. Last question, I think is, we made it
through a whole hearing and no one has mentioned high-speed
internet. How important is that to conservation practices and
the future of your farm and your family?
Mrs. France. It is everything. We can speak to it. You
know, last year, we sat on--I believe it was 2022--sat on the
side of the field because we could not connect to start
planting, and so we lost valuable time. I actually mentioned to
Sarah when we lost Wi-Fi and electricity, I said, welcome to
Western Kansas/Eastern Colorado.
Senator Marshall. Yes.
Mrs. France. It is very vital. I do not know anything that
works without it, and our kids are very fortunate to have what
they do, but we keep saying, we are going to pull GPS out of
your tractor and you are going to learn to follow the line so
that when things go wrong, you can still farm.
Senator Marshall. Yes, but certainly to, to do the
conservation practices today with precision agriculture more
than ever, and that--all that precision agriculture leads to
conserving water as well as using less inputs, less
fertilizers, less pesticides, and we cannot do that without
high speed internet.
Mrs. France. Absolutely.
Senator Marshall. Thank you.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Well, thank you very much to
the--to our last panel. It was just as fantastic. Let's give
them a round of applause, too.
[Applause.]
Senator Bennet. Senator Marshall, would you like to say a
word of closing before we wrap up?
Senator Marshall. No, again, Senator Bennet, I am just
honored to be here with you and your commitment to leaving this
world cleaner, healthier, and safer than we found it. As we
went through the discussions, well, you know, what did we miss?
I wish we had time for one or two more panels, and I think we
would probably bring up some more people like Sarah, and I just
want to thank my conservation partners in Kansas. The Nature
Conservancy does a great job. Ducks Unlimited does a great job,
Kansas Land Trust, Kansas Wildlife Federation, Kansas Gracing
Lands Coalition, all those people that we kind of touched on
today that are so important as well, so thank you to all those
folks and their practices.
We did not talk about playas and I wanted to--I was hoping
someone would bring those up, vitally important. I think that
we have seen great progress in Kansas. There are opportunities
here. I think we need to emphasize that the playas and how we
can take--set aside--if you set aside four acres of ply, it is
going to recuperate an acre foot every year, and, again, we
will be using less inputs. We will not be wasting fertilizer,
and it is good for the--all the birds and all those things as
well.
I think if I would have a message from today, it is that we
have a plan. Sometimes we make it over complicated, but we need
to use--take this simple plan and then implement it perfectly,
and by ``perfectly,'' it is going to be through volunteerism,
but somehow bringing the other people aboard. I do not think we
have really touched 10 or 20 percent of the conservation
opportunities that are out there that have been--that are
being--that could be implemented even further. I think that is
our goal and our challenge is how do we be better educators.
How do we better communicate the opportunities from a
conservation standpoint? We cannot make it rain anymore, but we
can certainly figure out better ways to conserve water.
I am honored to be here with you today and look forward to
getting a farm bill across the finish line, and I think we
learned, again, valuable information from today where we set
our priorities. Thank you for having me and my staff.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Senator
Marshall. Colorado, let us give Senator Marshall a round of
applause for being here today.
[Applause.]
Senator Marshall. Thank you.
Senator Bennet. Really appreciate your making the trip, and
next time we will flip it. We will do the hearing over there.
We will--we will--we will spend the evening over here the night
before, but this has been really tremendous. I want to thank
all the witnesses that have traveled here, the people that have
come from across the States of Colorado and Kansas and the High
Plains.
We have heard a story. I think if you listen to the people
talking about the history of the region, that this has been a
story of innovation from the very beginning. As Amy was just
saying at the end, for her children, things may look very
different, you know, years from now, but the important thing is
they are going to still be on the land producing the food and
fiber that we need. That is not going to happen without farmers
and ranchers being able to innovate, but it is also not going
to be able to happen without a USDA that can innovate as well
in real time and in a way that can match the innovation of the
producers that are facing these enormously difficult decisions
and scarcity just like their forebearers did.
I think what I heard a lot today was not so much how new it
was all going to be, but it is a--it is continuity of the
innovation we have already had. We have got to bring that to
bear in an urgent way in the--in the drought conditions that we
are facing. I think part of what our challenge is, to make sure
that the innovation here
can be calibrated by what is going on in Washington, DC,
and that is where all of you come in. That is why your
testimony is so important today. I think it is why it is
important for you to stay in touch with Roger and stay in touch
with me and the other members of the Agriculture Committee
because that is where that syncing up is going to happen.
I agree. I think Robert Sakata said this very well at the
very beginning. We have to figure out a way when margins are as
thin as they are, to give people a chance to make mistakes
along the way, too, and to learn from those mistakes. That is a
very hard thing for anybody to do. It is a particularly hard
thing for a bureaucracy like the one we have in DC to do. I
could not be more grateful for all of you that made this
possible. I want to thank, in particular, the witnesses for
providing their perspectives today, Senator Marshall for your
partnership both in and outside of the gymnasium back there in
the Capitol.
To all of our fellow Subcommittee members that are not
present today, I would like to tell them to please submit any
additional statements or questions for the record to the
committee clerk five business days from today, or 5 p.m. next
Wednesday, July 3, 2024.
I also, on behalf of Senator Marshall, want to thank
Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Boozman for their
leadership of the committee. I know they have staff here as
well, and we are grateful to have the chance to do this field
hearing because I think it is really is an opportunity for the
committee to hear directly from people here on the Eastern
Plains of Colorado and in Western Kansas.
With that, I hope everybody travels safely this afternoon.
Thank you very much for coming here, and thank you for all you
do to keep our rural economy alive. We have a decision to make
in this country about whether or not we are going to keep rural
America, whether we are going to keep rural hospitals, and
rural schools, and agriculture that is the backbone of our
rural communities. I know Senator Marshall and I are committed
to doing everything we can to do our part. Thanks for being
here today.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
June 26, 2024
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
June 26, 2024
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