[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 9, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                WETLANDS RESERVE PROGRAM ENHANCEMENT ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                   HON. CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 8, 1999

  Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to introduce alongside 
my colleagues, Mr. Thompson of California and Mr. Chambliss of Georgia, 
the Wetlands Reserve Program Enhancement Act to extend authority for 
the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) to help family farmers stay on their 
land, and to benefit waterfowl and sportsmen at the same time.
  Across the country, thousands of private landowners have discovered 
the WRP is an attractive alternative to farming high-risk and high-cost 
cropland that is frequently flooded. WRP provides these landowners with 
a voluntary, financial incentive to restore such areas to wetlands. The 
landowner in turn is free to use his or her WRP incentive payment to 
refinance debt, upgrade machinery or to buy additional land to make 
their farming operation more profitable.
  In my hope state of Mississippi, WRP has been a very popular program 
with private landowners, and for good reason. With today's farm crisis, 
WRP is helping Mississippi farmers who could not otherwise afford to 
stay on their land or to pass it on to future generations. To give you 
a better idea of how popular WRP has been with farmers, let me share 
with you some statistics.
  Since 1992, nearly 4,000 landowners from 47 states have enrolled 
655,000 acres in WRP nationwide. My home state of Mississippi has 
benefited through the WRP by enrolling more than 74,000 acres for the 
purpose of wetland conservation. However, due to limited funding, only 
about one-third of all eligible Mississippi landowners could be 
accepted into the program. In some states, landowner demand for WRP 
exceeds available funding 5 to 1. Mr. Speaker, many more wetland acres 
could be preserved nationwide through the provisions of this bill.
  The purpose of the Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Act is to extend WRP 
authority to help more landowners in the future. Specifically, my 
legislation extends WRP authority for enrolling new lands by three 
years to 2005, and replaces the current WRP acreage cap with a new 
250,000-acre annual enrollment limit. This will allow 4,000 to 5,000 
additional landowners to enroll in WRP over the next five years.
  This additional land enrolled in WRP will benefit not only farmers, 
but also waterfowl and other wetland wildlife. In the Mississippi Delta 
states, most of WRP land is planted in high-quality hardwood trees that 
flood in the winter and provide critical habitat for waterfowl and 
other wildlife. In fact, WRP has become one of the largest wetland 
restoration programs ever attempted on private lands.
  WRP is restoring waterfowl breeding habitat in states like South 
Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is restoring migration habitat in 
Illinois, Iowa, Ohio and New York. Most of all, WRP is restoring 
waterfowl wintering habitat in such diverse states as California, Texas 
and Louisiana.
  Where there are ducks, there are duck hunters. Many waterfowlers have 
discovered that private land enrolled in WRP makes for excellent 
hunting. In places like Mississippi that have a proud waterfowling 
tradition, access to quality hunting sites is in high demand. In many 
cases, WRP is creating new opportunities for sportsmen to participate 
in this time-honored tradition.
  My legislation seeks to encourage more of these kinds of partnerships 
and to ensure that WRP takes every advantage of opportunities to 
restore and enhance wetland habitat for waterfowl.
  In summary, this legislation represents a win-win opportunity for 
farmers, conservationists, sportsmen, and wildlife. This is a 
commonsense proposal which I believe my colleagues in the House will 
find good reason to support. The WRP is the kind of non-regulatory, 
incentive based conservation program that landowners want and wildlife 
need as we enter the next century.

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