[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 63 (Thursday, May 16, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4430-S4434]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SOIL CONSERVATION

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to comment on an 
article that was in the Des Moines Sunday Register April 21 which 
speaks to the point of conservation of farm land. There is nothing in 
the article that is not accurate, but I think some things that are not 
included leave the impression that farmers of the United States are not 
good stewards of the soil. The premise of the article, according to the 
headlines ``Farmers' penalties rarely stick,'' is that under Federal 
law farmers must take certain action to conserve soil. If they do not 
conserve the soil and do it according to a plan, then they would be 
fined. And the article here is based on the premise that only a 
Government policeman from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is going 
to make the farmers conserve soil and that fines that might be imposed 
are the way of doing that because it says here that farmers' 
conservation fines rarely stick.
  The bottom line of the article is that farmers are not conserving 
soil, that

[[Page S4431]]

Government regulation is the only thing that is going to make the 
farmers conserve the soil, and that there is not enough club on the 
part of Government because the fines in too many instances, according 
to the article, are forgiven.
  As I said, there is nothing inaccurate in that, but I have prepared 
remarks in which I want to give both sides of the story. We do have a 
Government requirement for farmers to participate in farm programs they 
must take appropriate action to conserve soil. There has been 
tremendous progress made in the conservation of soil, and it has come 
not because of Government fines that might be imposed against farmers 
but it comes because it is in the farmers' best interests to conserve 
soil because, quite frankly, the soil is very valuable but in the 
process of growing crops you put tremendously expensive chemicals and 
fertilizers on the soil. And when you have soil erosion and that soil 
washes into the streams, then obviously that investment to produce a 
bountiful crop goes with it. So it is to the farmers' advantage to keep 
the soil on their land.
  Over the past year, this body, along with our colleagues in the 
House, has engaged in a protracted discussion about the future of 
agriculture in the United States and how to best ensure a safe and 
stable food supply while providing an adequate safety net for farm 
families. The farm bill was passed and signed by the President very 
recently, which will be the safety net for the next 6 years.
  Now that we have done that, I would like to take a step back and 
address a concern that has been raised by many people I represent. For 
those colleagues who have never had the good fortune to visit my State 
of Iowa, I would like to take a moment to talk about this State. While 
we in Iowa may not be able to boast about majestic mountains or white 
sands on beaches along the oceans, my State has one natural resource to 
which I daresay no other State can compare--our rich, abundant, fertile 
topsoil. This resource has given birth to a deep-seated agricultural 
heritage in every corner of my state. In fact, each year communities 
across Iowa take to the streets to celebrate our rich heritage that 
comes from this rich natural resource, our topsoil.
  For example, the community of Conrad, IA, celebrates what they call 
``Black Dirt Days.'' Gladbrook celebrates ``Sweet Corn Days,'' and the 
little community of Dike celebrates ``Watermelon Days.'' You can go on 
and on with examples of the people of Iowa worshiping our great natural 
resource. And no one in Iowa cares more about this rich heritage and 
our precious natural resources than the farm families who depend on the 
land for their livelihood and their way of life. That is why I was 
disturbed, as I already indicated to you, when the Des Moines Sunday 
Register on April 21 accused Iowa farmers of failing to take adequate 
steps to protect Iowa's soil and water. The article suggested that the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service 
Program, as well as the Farm Service Agency, both failing to adequately 
enforce Federal conservation rules, often let our farmers off the hook 
when conservation violations occur.
  The article suggests that the only way to achieve real conservation 
in rural America is for the Federal Government to carry a very big 
stick. Even more disconcerting, the article fails to address the 
significant conservation achievements that Iowa's farm families have 
already attained in terms of reducing soil erosion and reducing the use 
of nitrogen fertilizers by using it more efficiently.
  The Federal Government first significantly increased the prominence 
of conservation as a national priority in the 1985 farm bill. For the 
first time, that Food Security Act of 1985 required farmers to 
implement sound conservation plans on their farms as a condition for 
receiving Federal farm subsidies.
  We were not controlling the farmers' land, but we were saying in 
effect, through that bill, if they are going to benefit from the farm 
safety net, we expect everybody to be good stewards of their soil.
  More importantly, the 1985 bill also recognized the desire on the 
part of farmers themselves to protect the land on which they live and 
raise their families from abusive farming practices. The bill created 
the Conservation Reserve Program, sometimes called CRP, which allows 
farmers to take our countryside's most highly erodible land out of 
production.
  Since the 1985 farm bill, we have expanded the number of 
opportunities for farmers to voluntarily practice soil conservation 
programs. Today, farmers have a full arsenal of conservation tools at 
their disposal, including the Conservation Reserve Program, the 
Wetlands Reserve Program, the Emergency Watershed Protection Program, 
and the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program, to name a few.
  The response to these programs by farmers and landowners has been 
overwhelming. Today, in Iowa alone, the farmers have enrolled 1.8 
million acres in the Conservation Reserve Program, including 337,000 
acres in the Continuous Conservation Reserve Program, which allows 
farmers to remove our country's most environmentally sensitive land 
from production. The Continuous Conservation Reserve Program helps 
farmers make significant conservation improvements on their land, 
including riparian buffers, grass waterways, filter strips, and 
windbreaks.
  In addition, Iowa farmers are aggressively working to restore our 
Nation's wetlands. Today, Iowa farmers have enrolled over 44,000 acres 
in the Wetlands Reserve Program. Wetlands provide a number of 
environmental benefits, as I am sure my colleagues understand.
  These wetland reserves help filter out nitrates that leech into the 
surface water from nitrogen fertilizers used by farmers to improve 
yields, as well as from naturally occurring nitrogen in Iowa's highly 
organic soil. They filter herbicides that seep into the ground, and 
they provide valuable habitat for Iowa's wildlife.
  As you can see, restoration of wetlands is important to all Iowans, 
both rural and urban. And that is not all.
  Iowa farmers have enrolled more than 60,000 acres in the Watershed 
Protection Program, and nearly 2,000 acres in the Wildlife Habitat 
Incentive Program. These programs have proven to be very successful.
  According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Iowa farmers 
cut soil erosion in half over the past two decades. We used to lose 10 
tons per acre in 1982. By 1997, because of these conservation programs, 
we had cut that loss down to 5.3 tons per acre, and at 5 tons per acre, 
it is renewable.
  Moreover, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, over 
92 percent of Iowa's public water systems meet Federal drinking water 
standards.

  However, some critics of Federal conservation programs have asserted 
that the 1996 farm bill actually weakened conservation efforts. These 
critics may be interested to learn that throughout the duration of the 
1996 farm bill, over 313,000 acres of conservation buffers have been 
built in the State of Iowa.
  In addition, over 106,000 acres of wetlands have been created, and 
there continues to be a waiting list of farmers who are eager to enroll 
fragile cropland in these programs, only kept from doing so because of 
the amount of money Congress will appropriate for these programs.
  It is important to keep in mind that sound conservation practices not 
only improve the environment in rural areas, but they also can play 
into the farmers' bottom line. Since 1996, Iowa farmers have increased 
the use of no-till planting. No-till planting leaves the residue from a 
previous crop on the ground, significantly reducing erosion. By not 
tilling the land, farmers reduce the number of trips across the field 
with their tractors, saving time, reducing the use of limited fossil 
fuels, and reducing harmful emissions into the air.
  In addition, technological advancements have improved the farmer's 
ability to care for land while improving yields. Today, for example, 
many farmers have turned away from the old method of applying 
fertilizer at an equal rate throughout the entire field. In fact, 
because of global positioning equipment, we can apply variable rates of 
fertilizer in different parts of the field in different quantities to 
save money, but not to waste fertilizer as well.

[[Page S4432]]

  One concern I have expressed about the 1996 farm bill is that it 
fails to incorporate effective payment limitations that would target 
Federal assistance to family farmers.
  Mr. President, the Senate has now passed the successor to the 1996 
farm bill. This legislation should be the incarnation of our principles 
and our vision for the role we see America's farm families playing in 
the future.
  I was pleased that 64 Members of the Senate joined Senator Dorgan and 
me in a bipartisan fashion to ensure Federal payments are targeted to 
small and medium-sized family farmers who produce the food and fiber of 
our Nation. Our amendment would have helped curb the overproduction and 
target assistance to family farmers who live on the same land they 
farm. I am disappointed that the agreement reached in conference 
significantly weakens our provision.
  In conclusion, this discussion raises the question of whether Federal 
farm program policy should require farmers to conserve through strict 
enforcement of Federal regulations or whether the Federal Government 
should encourage farmers to conserve through voluntary conservation 
programs. In my State, we have witnessed the numerous benefits of 
voluntary conservation to improving the quality of life and our 
environment.
  It is in every farmer's best interest to conserve the soil, to 
eliminate excessive use of fertilization, and ensure that chemicals are 
applied in an environmentally sensitive manner. After all, the farmers 
live on the same land they farm. Farm families depend on the land for 
their livelihood and their way of life.
  I have to say again, Iowa's rich topsoil is our most prized resource. 
Our economy and our rural heritage depend on it. We have heard much in 
recent years about sustaining agriculture. No one cares more about 
sustaining agriculture in America than our family farmers. Our rich 
soil is rivaled by only one other resource: the hard-working men and 
women who, day in and day out, work the land to feed the United States 
and the world.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record two 
articles.
  There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

          [From the Des Moines Sunday Register, Apr. 21, 2002]

                    Farmers' Penalties Rarely Stick

          (By John McCormick, Jerry Perkins and Perry Beeman)

       In exchange for millions of dollars in federal subsidies, 
     Iowa farmers promise to protect the soil and water.
       But a Des Moines Sunday Register analysis shows farmers 
     almost never lose their taxpayer subsidies, even when federal 
     officials discover they have violated their conservation 
     pledge.
       Three percent of the $7.8 million in potential fines 
     farmers faced for soil and water conservation violations were 
     actually levied from 1993 through 2000. After appeals, 
     farmers were allowed to keep the rest--about $7.6 million.
       ``You have to ask just how serious the enforcement effort 
     is,'' said Kenneth Cook, executive director of the 
     Environmental Working Group, an outspoken critic of U.S. farm 
     policy. ``There is almost no chance that you'll lose a 
     penny.''
       With Congress poised to approve a new farm bill--
     legislation that among other things will provide about $46 
     billion over the next 10 years to supplement commodity prices 
     paid to farmers--few changes are planned for enforcing soil 
     conservation regulations.
       That's probably best for Iowa farmers and agricultural land 
     owners, who between 1996 and 2001 collected $8.7 billion in 
     subsidy payments, more than any other state.
       Federal agriculture officials maintain that they are doing 
     the best they can, within the limits of time and personnel, 
     to ensure that farmers do their part to preserve the 
     environment. Looking merely at enforcement, they say, ignores 
     the impact of effective voluntary conservation programs.
       Though difficult to measure on a large scale, there is 
     little argument that soil erosion has left Iowa with dirty 
     water. There are 157 lakes and sections of river in Iowa on 
     the federal government's list of critically polluted waters, 
     and the state's waterways are known for having some of the 
     world's highest nitrate and phosphorus levels.
       Soil and fertilizer are Iowa's two biggest waterway 
     pollutants. Much of the pollution comes from the runoff 
     that's gradually washing away the state's greatest asset: its 
     rich topsoil.
       After promising starts, no-till farming has leveled off, 
     and conservation tillage has declined. Silt and soil erosion 
     also show few signs of slowing.
       ``Now we're going backward,'' said David Williams, a former 
     soil and water district commissioner in Page County. ``We're 
     seeing more and more black dirt in the fields and they're 
     losing a lot of it, and that's hurting our water quality.''
       Williams said conservation compliance requirements worked 
     reasonably well until passage of the Freedom To Farm law in 
     1996. He said the law made it more difficult to take away 
     farm payments from those who violated their conservation 
     plans, removing the programs's teeth.
       There are no national data available on conservation 
     compliance, but environmentalists say enforcement is probably 
     just as lax in other states.
       ``The problem we have in answering a lot of these questions 
     is that there isn't any real enforcement trace record to base 
     an answer on,'' said Craig Cox, executive director of the 
     Ankeny-based Soil and Water Conservation Society, a national 
     organization.
       Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture 
     Committee, has requested a review of the U.S. Department of 
     Agriculture's conservation programs by the General Accounting 
     Office, the investigative arm of Congress. He has asked 
     specifically for a look at the enforcement of conservation 
     practices.
       ``I've been hearing that, quite frankly, we've been 
     backsliding,'' Harkin said late last week, between conference 
     committee meetings on the 2002 farm bill.
       Harkin has pushed for a new conservation initiative in the 
     Senate version of the farm bill. The proposal would base 
     payments to farmers on their level of soil stewardship, 
     essentially paying more to those who voluntarily agree to 
     work harder on conservation.
       ``They will actually get paid for doing these things,'' he 
     said. ``I think that's a much better way of approaching it 
     than the hammer kind of approach we've had in the past.''


                          roots of the problem

       Tying federal farm payments to sound conservation practices 
     started in the depth of the 1980s farm crisis, when farmers 
     agreed to new requirements pushed by environmentalists as 
     part of a deal to secure a greater financial safety net.
       In return for taxpayer subsidies, farmers were supposed to 
     protect the land for future generations. That meant taking 
     steps such as planting field borders or leaving corn stubble 
     in a field after harvest. Both techniques can reduce erosion 
     of soil by wind and water.
       Farmers who work land prone to erosion are required to 
     follow specifically designed federal conservation plans or 
     risk losing their federal subsidies.
       The loss of federal payments is meant to be a huge club to 
     gain the attention of those few farmers who don't want to 
     protect their land for the long run.
       The Register's analysis, however, shows that 97 percent of 
     the money Iowa farmers were at risk of losing because of 
     conservation violations was restored through ``good faith'' 
     and other exemptions often granted by county committees. 
     Those committees are largely composed of neighboring farmers.
       Farmers were given several ways to sidestep penalties under 
     the Freedom To Farm law. For instance, they could point to 
     financial problems that might have kept them from following 
     their conservation plans.
       Virtually any farmer was given a year to fix problems found 
     by federal inspectors, who say they check about 2 percent of 
     all farmland each year to see whether conservation plans are 
     followed.
       In addition to the new exemptions, there has been a 
     dramatic decrease in the number of annual inspections since 
     passage of the Freedom To Farm law, according to data 
     provided to the Register by the Iowa office of the Natural 
     Resources Conservation Service, a branch of the USDA.
       In 1993, the agency checked 2,536 tracts of farmland in 
     Iowa. The number rose to 3,407 in 1997 before dropping 
     sharply to 1,430 by 2001. Officials blame limited budgets and 
     other department responsibilities for the decline.
       But over the years, farmers haven't been bashful about 
     complaining to members of Congress if their payments were 
     threatened, said Lyle Asell of the Iowa Department of Natural 
     Resources, who also used to work for the conservation service 
     in Iowa.
       ``If they are going to lose payments, they could lose the 
     farm, and the first thing they do is call their 
     legislators,'' Asell said, adding that he still believes the 
     program has greatly improved soil conservation in Iowa.


                         a carrot, not a stick

       Jan Jamrog, a program specialist with the Farm Service 
     Agency in Washington, D.C., said enforcement statistics don't 
     give a complete picture of what's happening to the 
     environment. For example, they fail to take into account 
     farmers who don't bother to apply for subsidy payments 
     because they know they're in violation of conservation rules.
       Given the massive undertaking of policing America's farms, 
     federal farm officials say they've learned that encouraging 
     voluntary conservation improvements can be more effective 
     than dropping the hammer on violators.
       ``There was a move away from the time spent on compliance 
     in favor of voluntary programs,'' said Larry Beeler, a 
     conservation worker in the Natural Resources Conservation 
     Service's Des Moines office. ``Conservation compliance is 
     important, but so are the voluntary programs.''

[[Page S4433]]

       Beeler said the move reflects a nationwide trend to 
     encourage greater soil protection through voluntary programs 
     such as the conservation reserve and wetland reserve 
     programs. Such programs reward farmers for taking highly 
     erodible land out of production and for protecting and 
     enhancing wetlands.
       Beeler said his agency's move toward greater voluntary 
     efforts has not hurt compliance: The proportion of inspected 
     farms found to be in violation in any given year has stayed 
     at 5 percent or less.
       Many farmers agree that increasing enforcement isn't the 
     answer. They say most producers know it's in their best 
     interest to practice sound conservation.
       ``If you don't, you're not going to grow anything,'' said 
     Tom Kohn, who farms 3,000 acres near Cushing. ``It will all 
     go down the river. . . . The farmers who haven't taken care 
     of the land aren't in business anymore.''
       Changes in 1996 that gave local officials broad 
     discretionary powers can help and hurt a farmer, others say.
       Glenn Marsh, who farms 550 acres near Mapleton, said he's 
     found different conservation rules in neighboring Monona and 
     Woodbury counties.
       ``It has to be the same all over,'' he said. Marsh called 
     the linking of conservation inspections and farm subsidies 
     ``the biggest joke there ever was.''
       Other farmers expressed concern about enforcement.
       ``I've had some bad experiences with local, state and 
     national farm officials,'' said Mort Zenor, who farms 900 
     acres in Woodbury County. ``They've got cold ears.''
       Zenor, who received more than $225,000 in federal farm 
     subsidy payments from 1996 through 2001, lost $17,000 in the 
     mid-1990s for tilling 40 to 50 acres that conservation 
     officials had designated as no-till.
       ``I didn't have a no-till planter, and we couldn't afford 
     to buy a new one,'' he said.
       Zenor tried to fight the fine. He hired a lawyer and 
     appealed his case to a county committee, as well as district 
     and state offices, but the fine was upheld.
       ``It's worse than an income-tax audit,'' he said. ``They're 
     right and you're wrong.''
       Woodbury County led Iowa for violations of approved 
     conservation plans from 1993 through 2001, according to 
     federal data. Sixty-four tracts of land were discovered to be 
     in violation during those years.
       Aster Boozer, a conservation worker for the Natural 
     Resources Conservation Service, said western Iowa's Loess 
     Hills make combining farming and conservation in the area 
     more challenging.
       ``They are steep and highly erodible,'' he said of the 
     hills. ``It means our conservation plans are very complex.''
       Jamrog, the program specialist with the Farm Service Agency 
     in Washington, said many violations are accidental.
       ``FSA's goal is to not penalize producers, if they are 
     willing to get themselves into compliance,'' he said.


                            progress is slow

       Even critics of the 1996 changes acknowledge that the 
     evidence that programs aren't working is largely anecdotal.
       Measuring erosion is expensive and extremely technical. The 
     Natural Resources Conservation Service tries to measure 
     erosion every five years. Its last survey came in 1997, just 
     a year after the farm bill changes cited by 
     environmentalists. Results of the 2002 survey may not be 
     available until 2003 or 2004.
       Jeff Vonk, director of the Iowa Department of Natural 
     Resources and a former top Iowa official for the Natural 
     Resources Conservation Service, said that when he talks to 
     Iowa's local soil and water commissioners, he receives 
     conflicting signals.
       ``In some counties, they reflect some frustration on their 
     perception of a lack of enforcement,'' Vonk said. ``In other 
     counties, they say enforcement is maintained.''
       As Vonk drives around Iowa, he can see the good and the 
     bad. Some of the conservation programs begun in the mid-1980s 
     have made a huge difference in soil conservation, but Vonk 
     still sees muddy waters, fish kills and oxygen-robbing algae 
     blooms created by fertilizer runoff.
       Others suggest that changes should have been made in the 
     farm bill currently under discussion to address conservation 
     compliance enforcement.
       ``There seems to have been in this farm bill absolutely no 
     interest in compliance provisions as a way to achieve better 
     environmental progress,'' said Cox of the Soil and Water 
     Conservation Society.
       The answers will undoubtedly come too late for the 2002 
     farm bill, but Harkin is asking many of the questions that 
     would have to be answered before significant changes can 
     happen. His request to the General Accounting Office asks how 
     the USDA monitors producers' use of conservation plans, how 
     many exemptions are granted, and what the USDA does to 
     ``ensure that violations are consistently identified.''
       While he sees problems in the system, Cox and others say 
     Iowa farmers have made great improvements in soil 
     conservation since the policy was initiated in 1985.
       ``We're making progress, although it might be a little bit 
     slower for some,'' said Art Ralston, a soil and water 
     district commissioner in Woodbury County for more than a 
     decade. ``We just have to keep plugging away.''


                      erosion: waiting for answers

       The Natural Resources Conservation Service does an estimate 
     every five years of total erosion on cropland and 
     Conservation Reserve Program land. Environmentalists and farm 
     officials are eagerly awaiting the 2002 results, due sometime 
     in 2003 or 2004, because they might show whether total 
     erosion has been affected by the changes in the 1996 farm 
     bill.

                          [In billions of tons]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Sheet and
               Year                    Wind         rill        Total
                                     erosion      erosion*     erosion
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1982.............................         1.38         1.69         3.07
1987.............................         1.40         1.52         2.92
1992.............................          .95         1.21         2.16
1997.............................          .84         1.06         1.90
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Sheet and rill erosion is removal of soil by water runoff that is a
  fairly uniform, usually imperceptible thin layer of soil.
 
Source: Natural Resources Conservation Service.

                    computer problems plague agency

       Part of the problem in evaluating whether farm subsidiaries 
     are restored too easily for conservation violations lies with 
     the federal computer system.
       Flaws: The federal employees charged with monitoring 
     conservation programs have yet to create a comprehensive 
     record-keeping system. That means they can't determine what 
     farmers on even what counties have lost the most money due to 
     violations. It also means federal officials can't say whether 
     the proportion of money returned to Iowa farmers found to be 
     in violation of conservation rules is greater or lower than 
     in other states.
       Changes: ``We're in the process of developing a database 
     that will allow us to do comparison statistics,'' said Jan 
     Jamrog, a program specialist with the Farm Service Agency in 
     Washington, D.C. ``I really don't know if that is similar to 
     other states.''


                            signs of trouble

       It's hard to measure the impact of the 1996 changes in the 
     farm bill. Since it passed, the percentage of acres using 
     conservation tillage has started to decrease and while no-
     till farming seems to be leveling off:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                          Conservation
                                         tillage in the      No-till
                                         United States   adoption in the
                 Year                    (percentage of   United States
                                         total planted     (millions of
                                             acres)           acres)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1990..................................               26             16.8
1992..................................               31             28.1
1994..................................             34.7             38.9
1996..................................             35.8             42.9
1998..................................             37.2             47.8
2000..................................             36.6             50.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Conservation Technology Information Center.

                           requesting records

       The Iowa Farm Service Agency, which administers U.S. 
     Department of Agriculture farm programs in Iowa, denied a 
     Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Des Moines 
     Sunday Register for the release of the names of Iowa farmers 
     who have lost farm program payments because of a failure to 
     comply with their conservation plans.
       Next: The Register has appealed the denied to the USDA's 
     general counsel. Tal Day, legal analyst in the USDA's appeals 
     and litigants group, said the appeal was being reviewed by 
     the general counsel's office.
       Information: The state Farm Service Agency's Des Moines 
     office did provide the newspaper with an electronic file of 
     farm numbers and the proposed fines and dollars reinstated. 
     That information was used to generate a statewide percentage 
     of reinstated payments.
       Appeal denied: Zenor adjust markers on his machinery for 
     planting corn. He appealed the no-till fine to a county 
     committee, as well as district and state offices, but it was 
     upheld. ``It's worse than an income-tax audit. They're right 
     and you're wrong.''


                       inspections and violations

       The number of Iowa farms inspected by the National 
     Resources Conservation Service, a branch of the U.S. 
     Department of Agriculture, has gone down dramatically since 
     passage of the 1996 Freedom to Farm legislation. As the 
     number of inspections has dropped, so has the number of cases 
     in which farmers have been found to be in violation of their 
     approved conservation plan.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                              Percentage
                                                             of farmland
               Year                   Total      Violations     tracts
                                   inspections     found       found in
                                                              violation
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1993.............................        2,536          102          4.0
1994.............................        2,948          256          8.7
1995.............................        2,946          120          4.1
1996.............................        3,387          117          3.5
1997.............................        3,407           63          1.8
1998.............................        1,488           50          3.4
1999.............................        1,517           67          4.4
2000.............................        1,512           51          3.4
2001.............................        1,430           39          2.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Des Moines Register analysis of data from the National Resources
  Conservation Service.

  
                                  ____
          [From the Des Moines Sunday Register, Apr. 21, 2002]

            Critics See Loopholes in Conservation Provisions

                           (By Blair Claflin)

       Environmentalists and others say a handful of changes in 
     the 1996 farm law, combined with the practical problems of 
     turning federal employees into farm police, have undermined 
     efforts to link farm subsidies to sound conservation 
     practices.
       ``In 1996, Congress put in a whole second set of appeals 
     when somebody got in the penalty box,'' said Kenneth Cook, 
     executive director of the Environmental Working Group, an 
     outspoken critic of U.S. Farm policy. ``There became lots of 
     ways to get out.''
       The changes included:
       So-called good-faith exemptions for farmers who did not 
     have a history of violating conservation provisions.

[[Page S4434]]

       A one-year grace period for farmers to get into compliance.
       An expedited procedure for producers to get variances to 
     conservation plans because of problems deemed to be out of 
     their control.
       More authority for local officials to determine that 
     conservation compliance plans included requirements that 
     would cause ``undue economic hardships.''
       ``The conservation provisions of the 1996 farm bill 
     simplify existing conservation programs and improve their 
     flexibility and efficiency,'' said a U.S. Department of 
     Agriculture summary of the legislation.
       Craig Cox, executive director of the Soil and Water 
     Conservation Society in Ankeny, says conservation advocates 
     reached a different conclusion.
       ``The criticism has been that any one of these changes by 
     itself was not a real cause for concern, but together they 
     opened a number of loopholes for the enforcement of 
     conservation provisions,'' Cox said.
       Even critics like Cook, however, acknowledge that the 
     concept of linking farm subsidies to conservation practices, 
     which started in the mid-1980s, was in trouble well before 
     1996.
       By the early 1990s, environmentalist were complaining that 
     the concept wasn't being adequately enforced. USDA officials, 
     in turn, complained they didn't have the staff or the time to 
     monitor farm practices so closely.
       And in small, tightly knit farming communities, many 
     federal employees who ultimately were responsible for 
     carrying out the new approach were not comfortable with 
     policing their neighbors.
       ``Nobody wants to stick it to somebody who is demonstrating 
     good faith,'' said Dan Towery, natural resources specialist 
     with the Conservation Technology Information Center in West 
     Lafayette, Ind.
       Towery is a former farm official in Illinois who had to 
     investigate compliance cases there. ``Determining what is 
     `good faith' is very subjective,'' he said.
       No definitive studies have been done to determine whether 
     erosion has increased significantly since 1997. The Natural 
     Resources Conservation Service looks at that issue every five 
     years, and its next study is scheduled for 2002.
       However, survey work by Steven Kraft, chairman of the 
     Department of Agribusiness Economics at Southern Illinois 
     University in Carbondale, suggests farmers don't feel as 
     threatened by the concept of linking conservation practices 
     to subsidy payments.
       Kraft, working with other researchers, surveyed farmers' 
     attitudes about conservation between 1992 and 1996. the study 
     looked at farmers in 100 different counties throughout the 
     Midwest.
       Producers were asked, for example, how fair they thought 
     federal officials would be in implementing rules linking 
     conservation to subsidies. In the fall of 1992, almost 29 
     percent said ``very fair.'' By the winter of 1996, the number 
     had increased to nearly 38 percent.


                          how the system works

       Two branches of the U.S. Department of Agriculture play 
     roles in enforcing conservation requirements:
       NRCS: The Natural Resources Conservation Service helps 
     farmers develop conservation plans for their farms. Then it 
     polices their efforts to follow the plans.
       FSA: If the conservation service finds that a farmer has 
     violated a plan, it reports that to the USDA's Farm Service 
     Agency, which can withhold a farmer's government subsidies.
       Appeals: A farmer can appeal the penalty to Farm Service 
     Agency county committees, which are composed of farmers 
     elected by other farmers in the county. Adverse 
     determinations by the county committee can be appealed to the 
     state FSA committee and then to the national appeals division 
     of the Farm Service Agency in Washington, D.C.

  Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Miller). Will the Senator withhold his 
request?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes.

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