[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 170 (Tuesday, October 31, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16364-S16366]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE CONSERVATION TITLE

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, it is my pleasure today to introduce a 
bill with the distinguished majority leader, Senator Dole, the chairman 
of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Senator Lugar, and the chairman of 
the Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Senator Craig. This bill 
amends the conservation title of the farm bill that will be considered 
later in this Congress.
  Madam President, my experience with this legislation that has been on 
the books for the last 10 years has generally been very favorable. I 
say that as a farmer, and I say that as a person who visits, as I have 
occasion to do now, at harvest time with my neighbors at the local New 
Hartford cooperative grain elevator in my State of Iowa; I say that 
with 10 years of experience of having hundreds of town meetings around 
my State, whereas, I do not find much opposition to what we passed 10 
years ago.
  So my legislation that we are introducing is not finding fault in any 
way with the basic premise of the legislation 10 years ago, but to make 
sure that that legislation fits, with the premise that existed 10 years 
ago, the intent of Congress at that particular time; and also at a time 
when we are in the process of cutting back Government support for 
agriculture, as we intend to balance the budget.
  Last week, as you remember, the Senate approved the reconciliation 
bill, and that will bring the Federal budget into balance by the year 
2002. And we do not wait until 2002 to start that. We started that last 
fiscal year when, earlier this calendar year, we passed the rescissions 
bill.
  Now, in order to achieve the savings necessary to balance the budget, 
many difficult decisions had to be made, many difficult votes had to be 
cast, and all Federal programs were examined to save money. The farm 
programs, then, were no exception. Throughout the entire budget 
process, I have argued that farmers are willing to share in the effort 
to balance the budget because they have a lot to gain if the budget is 
balanced. However, I do feel that it is vital to rural America and 
family farmers that any cut in farm programs be coupled with, on the 
first hand, tax reform, and on the second, a reduction in the 
regulatory burden placed on farmers.
  I want to emphasize, with regard to the legislation of 1985, the soil 
conservancy provisions and the antiswampbusting, antisodbusting 
provisions. When I talk about regulatory reform, I do not mean changing 
the original intent of that legislation. I simply mean in keeping the 
enforcement of that legislation to its original intent.

  Put simply, then, Madam President, this bill will dramatically cut 
the red-tape and the regulations that farmers have to deal with while 
continuing, then, to maintain the conservation gains that we have made 
since the passage of the 1985 legislation.
  I want to emphasize, regardless of the rhetoric you may hear, this 
bill does not jeopardize in any way the environment or the conservation 
gains that farmers have made since 1985. These conservation gains have 
been tremendous.
  They have been made basically because of a timeframe that farmers 
could adjust economically to the requirements of the law and an 
opportunity to educate people about the process so that it could be 
self-enforcing.
  What this bill does, then, is give farmers and the Department of 
Agriculture additional tools and flexibility to meet these conservation 
objectives.
  Madam President, the bill addresses four major areas within the 
conservation title. What is called a CRP program, the conservation 
reserve program, the wetlands reserve provision, the conservation 
compliance provisions and swampbuster.
  I want to briefly discuss those areas as it relates to the reforms 
that the four of us--Senator Dole, myself, Senator Lugar, and Senator 
Craig--propose.
  Madam President, since the 1985 farm bill, farmers participating in 
the farm program have been required to comply with two regulatory 
mandates regarding conservation. The program referred to as the 
swampbuster program prohibits farmers from converting wetlands for crop 
production. No argument with that.
  The program referred to as the sodbuster prohibits farmers from 
producing a crop on highly erodible land unless they comply with an 
approved conservation plan. It does not mean you cannot operate your 
farm the way you want to, but it does mean that if you do it you will 
do it in a way that shows good stewardship of the soil. Also, good 
stewardship of the soil means better economic return; most importantly, 
a good resource for future generations is preserved.
  In general, the sodbuster program has been received favorably by 
farmers, and the compliance rate has been very high. Again, I want to 
emphasize that. That is what I hear on Saturdays when I take grain to 
the local New Hartford cooperative grain elevator where I visit with my 
neighbors, but it is also something I hear in 99 counties around Iowa 
that I hold town meetings in each year.
  That is because in Iowa there has been a willingness to cooperate. 
There has also been some lever--if you want to participate in a farm 
program, you have to have good soil conservation practices or you will 
not get the safety net of agriculture. Compliance has been very, very 
good because it is estimated in my State that 95 percent or better of 
farmers have compliance with soil conservation plans.
  These are plans that they have determined will cut down on erosion on 
their own farm, and all they have to do is get that plan approved and 
then farm according to what they felt was a plan that would best fit 
their farming operation.
  This is not one-size-fits-all approach. If you got 98,000 different 
farming units in the State of Iowa, you would have 98,000 different 
individual plans. Quite frankly, there is probably more than that. 
There must be, I guess. Anyway, there are that many individual farming 
operations. But you could have more than that number of plans.
  Now, after 10 years of working with the program, it is obvious that 
improvements can be made to streamline the regulations and give more 
flexibility to both the farmer and the Department of Agriculture.
  Even more significantly, Madam President, this bill attempts to put 
Natural Resource Conservation Service, which used to be known as Soil 
Conservation Service from the 1920's, until 2 years ago, it will put 
this segment of the Department of Agriculture back into the position of 
working with farmers instead of working against them.
  Let me digress for a minute to explain that this situation now is 
kind of contentious between the farmers and Soil Conservation Service. 
It used to be you go into the Office of the Soil Conservation Service. 
You would sit down across from the desk of these State and Federal 
employees, and you go in and say to them, ``Joe, I have a problem here 
on my farm. I have this tremendous amount of erosion here. What can I 
do about it?'' Joe, being an expert trained in soil conservation would 
say to Chuck Grassley, ``Well, I think this is what you need to do. You 
can do it this way, that is less expensive and might be able to 
accomplish the goal, or you can put in terraces, much more 

[[Page S16365]]

expensive, but you will be able to accomplish this. Or there are 
certain tillage practices you can do that might accomplish the same 
goal.''
  Probably Joe would come out to your farm another day and would put 
flags out in the field saying this is where you have to put contour 
strips, or this is where you have to put terraces.
  It was seen very much as a cooperative, working relationship as you 
would sit across the desk from Joe at the county seat Soil Conservation 
Service.
  Today, farmers do not want to go in to the Soil Conservation Service 
and sit down across from Joe because they might bring up something that 
triggers to Joe, who is now a regulator rather than a consultant and a 
friend, that maybe Chuck Grassley did something that violated the law 
and he can be punished for it.
  So we want to get this relationship reestablished as a cooperative 
relationship, a friendly relationship where this person is going to be 
a consoler and a help to the farmer rather than somebody who is seen as 
an enemy.
  I just described to you how farmers in my State and most States work 
very closely with the Soil Conservation Service for six decades--60 
years. Much of the progress made in conservation on farmland is due to 
that good working relationship between the farmer and the Department of 
Agriculture. It was a relationship based on trust and cooperation.
  Unfortunately, as I indicated, in the last few years, the farmers 
have begun to look at people that are now named the National Resource 
Conservation Service--not the Soil Conservation Service--as a potential 
adversary.
  Some farmers are reluctant to call on the NRCS for assistance due to 
the fear of being penalized for a possible violation.
  On the other hand, the NRCS has had its hands tied to some extent, 
both by Congress and its own regulations. So we have contributed some 
to this problem that exists of this relationship of where neighbor 
could be helping neighbor.
  So, Madam President, this situation cannot continue to exist. It is 
not good for the farmer. It is not good for the NRCS. Most importantly, 
it is not good for the environment.
  There must be a renewal of a partnership between the farmer and the 
NRCS if we expect the gains in conservation on private property to 
continue.
  The NRCS must work with farmers to assist them, to educate them, 
instead of just regulating farmers. I sincerely believe, Madam 
President, that the NRCS wants to play this role as a farmer's helper 
and this legislation shows that we want to help them do that.
  Madam President, now I want to turn to the swampbuster provisions--
the issues of wetland protection.
  It has become a very emotional issue in my State. Not because the 
original legislation in 1985 was wrong, it is what bureaucrats have 
tried to do with it, probably in just the last 3 or 4 years.
  While farmers share the goal of protecting valuable wetlands, the 
scope of swampbuster has been extended far beyond its original intent 
through the rulemaking process to the detriment of what farmers have 
wanted to do, sharing this goal. A study of the legislative history 
shows that Congress never intended to regulate land that had been 
cropped regularly in the past.
  Just think, on a century farm--which means it has been in the same 
family for over 100 years--until a couple of years ago you could have 
not had any problems, if that land had been regularly producing, or 
attempting to produce for a farmer. But now you can have problems. 
There is another problem. That land that had been converted prior to 
the passage of the 1985 act was never intended to be regulated. Both of 
these principles have been eroded through regulation and agency action, 
not through the basic legislation. This bill restores the original 
intent of Congress. The bill removes from swampbuster regulation land 
that has been cropped at least 6 out of the last 10 years.
  The bill also eliminates the concept of abandonment--a regulatory 
concept, not a statutory one--that has been used by the Department to 
bring prior converted lands back under swampbuster regulation. In other 
words, we pass the bill, it takes effect on December 28, 1985, and 
everything that happened before then was history. But not to 
regulators. They will use some devious means to get back to affect 
something that took place prior to that magic date.
  So, this bill sets a 1-acre minimum for wetland regulation. And most 
of the conflict here, that has happened between the farmers and the 
NRCS, has occurred because the Government has literally attempted to 
regulate every acre of farmland under the farm program. This 1-acre 
minimum also corresponds with the Army Corps of Engineers' general 
permit for nonagricultural property.
  Just explain to me how we, as a Congress, making law so that the law 
applies equally across the country to different segments of the economy 
in the same way, can have the Army Corps of Engineers in 
nonagricultural land, with something less than 1 acre not being 
regulated and probably not producing any food for the city slickers of 
this country, and go over here to agricultural land administered by a 
different agency and say 1 square foot of wetland can be regulated.
  We, again, go back to the intent of Congress not to be nitpicking in 
1985. This 1-acre minimum, in conformance with the way it is for the 
Army Corps of Engineers, ought to solve our problem. It will be 
perfectly consistent.
  Madam President, even though the bill is intended to restore the 
original intent of Congress on swampbusters, some in the environmental 
community may criticize these provisions because they want this 
expansion through regulation and administrative edict beyond what the 
original 1985 law intended. So I want to say to those who criticize our 
motives that we agree that the protection of wetlands should be a 
priority and it should be encouraged. But reasonable people can differ 
on the means of accomplishing this goal. When the Government is 
attempting to regulate private property it is vital that the landowner 
have the proper incentives in order to voluntarily satisfy the policy 
goals. So this bill provides for several tools that can be used by 
farmers to voluntarily protect wetlands.
  If you do not think that this works, voluntarily protecting wetlands, 
there has been a massive amount of agricultural land at the incentive 
of the farmer to put it into wetlands, that have come in under this 
voluntary program. Tens of thousands of acres have gone into wetlands 
because the farmers have wanted to put it there.
  So this bill, first, expands the existing mitigation provisions and 
encourages farmers to restore, enhance and create new wetlands. Second, 
the bill directs the Secretary of Agriculture to pursue mitigation 
banking, so that farmers will finally be on the same playing field as 
other landowners. Both of these mitigation provisions ensure that new 
wetlands will continue to be created.
  Last, the bill permits up to 1.5 million acres of cropped wetlands 
into the Conservation Reserve Program, that is the CRP. So this a 
strong incentive for farmers to continue to protect valuable wetlands. 
This provision, along with the reauthorization of the Wetlands Reserve 
Program, is indicative of this bill's commitment and its sponsors'--
Dole, Craig, Grassley, Lugar--to protecting wetlands on private 
property.
  This bill also focuses on a renewed commitment to water quality 
protection. The conservation reserve provisions of the bill establish 
water quality as a coequal criterion with soil erosion for determining 
eligible lands. Furthermore, at least 1.5 million acres of filter 
strips, grass waterways and other riparian areas will be enrolled in 
the program.
  These modifications to the CRP will allow farmers to play an active 
role in protecting water quality in the rural areas.
  So, before closing, I want to just add that all of us share the goal 
of conserving soil, improving water quality, enhancing wildlife, and 
protecting wetlands. In fact, the farmers themselves have the highest 
stake in conserving the land because there is better economic return, 
there is a responsibility to be a steward for the next generation, and 
besides, it is a very pretty picture, to have good farmland with good 
conservation practices. It is just beautiful, from an aesthetic 
standpoint.

[[Page S16366]]

  But the land is our livelihood and most of us farmers know that we 
want to pass the land on to our children and our grandchildren.
  Sometimes public servants here in Washington who are elected, and 
bureaucrats who were unelected, forget that the farmers want to do the 
right thing and that right thing is to protect the environment. The 
unelected bureaucrats also forget that we are dealing with private 
property and that private property rights are truly the foundation on 
which freedoms are built--political freedoms, primarily.
  So there must be a balance between the regulatory limits placed on 
farmers and their private property rights. I believe this bill strikes 
this delicate balance in a way that will continue to preserve this 
Nation's most valuable natural resources, our farmlands.
  Before yielding the floor, I thank Senator Dole, Senator Craig, and 
Senator Lugar for working on this bill with me.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, let me first of all associate myself with 
the remarks of the Senator from Iowa in the introduction of the 
legislation that he has just, in a very thoughtful and important way, 
gone through for the Record and for the American people.
  I think the Senator from Iowa said something very important a few 
moments ago that is oftentimes missed. He is a farmer. I am a former 
farmer and rancher.
  And he, I, Senator Dole, and Senator Lugar, who also have farm 
heritage and background owning farmland, recognize the phenomenal 
valuable asset this land is to the American people. Farmers have been 
foremost, along with ranchers, environmentalists and conservationists.
  The legislation we have introduced today speaks to those interests in 
recognizing the important balance between conserving the land, 
protecting water quality, ensuring the environment, and allowing a 
productive environment also for the purposes of being able to farm in a 
profitable manner.
  I think this legislation does it, and it allows the farmer once again 
to take the initiative with USDA and its affiliate agencies as those 
who cooperate instead of regulators, as the Senator so clearly spoke 
of.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Craig pertaining to the introduction of S. 1368 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I may be allowed to 
proceed as if in morning business for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.

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