[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 119 (Tuesday, September 28, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9816-S9817]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. COCHRAN (for himself and Mr. Harkin):
  S. 2856. A bill to limit the transfer of certain Commodity Credit 
Corporation funds between conservation programs for technical 
assistance for the programs; to the Committee on Agriculture, 
Nutrition, and Forestry.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of 
the bill be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 2856

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE.

       (a) In General.--Section 1241 of the Food Security Act of 
     1985 (16 U.S.C. 3841) is amended by striking subsection (b) 
     and inserting the following:
       ``(b) Technical Assistance.--Effective for fiscal year 2005 
     and each subsequent fiscal year, Commodity Credit Corporation 
     funds made available for each of the programs specified in 
     paragraphs (1) through (7) of subsection (a)--
       ``(1) shall be available for the provision of technical 
     assistance for the programs for which funds are made 
     available; and
       ``(2) shall not be available for the provision of technical 
     assistance for conservation programs specified in subsection 
     (a) other than the program for which the funds were made 
     available.''.
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) 
     takes effect on October 1, 2004.

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to join my colleague and 
Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Mr. 
Cochran in introducing this piece of legislation to correct a 
continuing problem at the U.S. Department of Agriculture with funding 
for technical assistance for agricultural producers and landowners 
participating in agricultural conservation programs.
  The 2002 farm bill contains a historic increase in funding for 
conservation programs, including for the Environmental Quality 
Incentives Program (EQIP), the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program 
(FRPP), the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), the Wetlands 
Reserve Program (WRP), the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the 
Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) and the Conservation Security Program 
(CSP). These programs provide our nation's producers and landowners the 
financial and technical means to protect and enhance natural resources, 
including water, air, soil and wildlife habitat.
  To realize the environmental benefits made possible by this large new 
investment in conservation, it is essential that farmers, ranchers and 
landowners receive professional technical assistance to help them plan, 
design and carry out effective and workable conservation practices in 
their specific operations. This technical assistance is provided by 
employees of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service and, under 
the 2002 farm bill, private sector providers.
  Because technical assistance is so crucial to the effectiveness of 
conservation programs, the 2002 farm bill included sufficient money for 
technical assistance as an integral part of the mandatory funding 
provided for each of the conservation programs. The legislation 
requires USDA to use mandatory funds to carry out the conservation 
programs, ``including the provision of technical assistance.''
  By providing funding in this manner, Congress acted to remedy the 
substantial and continuing shortfalls in technical assistance for 
mandatory conservation programs under the 1996 farm bill--which on 
several occasions necessitated limited stop-gap funding in 
appropriations measures. These shortfalls resulted from application of 
a limitation on transfers from the Commodity

[[Page S9817]]

Credit Corporation (CCC), often referred to as ``the section 11 cap''. 
The only conservation program not affected by this limitation was EQIP. 
That is because the statutory language creating and funding EQIP 
specifically identified technical assistance as an integral function of 
the program, thereby creating a funding stream through the program 
funds directly and outside the limitation on Section 11 transfers from 
CCC.
  In drafting the 2002 farm bill, Congress was thus fully aware of the 
recurrent shortages of technical assistance funds which plagued the 
1996 farm bill's mandatory conservation programs and the manner in 
which EQIP technical assistance had been exempted from the limitation 
on CCC transfers. The wording and structure of the 2002 bill closely 
track the 1996 bill's EQIP language to specify clearly that technical 
assistance is an integral part of the bill's mandatory funding for each 
of the conservation programs, and hence not subject to the limitation 
on CCC transfers. Further, the 2002 farm bill's statement of managers 
unmistakably indicates that technical assistance is an integral part of 
mandatory funding, following the model used for EQIP in the 1996 bill.
  We believed that the language in the 2002 farm bill solved the 
problem by fully funding technical assistance through the mandatory 
program funds without the limitation on transfers from the CCC. 
Nevertheless, the administration, through the Office of Management and 
Budget and the Department of Justice, construed the bill so that all 
conservation technical assistance fell under the Section 11 cap--even 
for EQIP. The U.S. General Accounting Office disagreed with the 
Administration's position and concluded that under the farm bill 
technical assistance is a part of the mandatory funds for each 
conservation program and not within the limitation on CCC transfers.
  The limitation on technical assistance under the administration's 
interpretation meant that much of the investment we made in the farm 
bill conservation programs would go unused for lack of technical 
assistance to plan for and carry out the conservation practices on the 
ground. To move beyond the impasse created by the misinterpretation of 
the farm bill by the administration, Congress added language to the 
2003 Consolidated Appropriations Act specifying that certain transfers 
of funding from the CCC for technical assistance are not subject to the 
Section 11 cap if the funds come directly from the funds provided for 
several of the conservation programs.
  This was only a partial solution. To limit the budget cost, technical 
assistance funds for all conservation programs (except CSP) are 
transferred from the funds provided for a subset of programs, namely 
EQIP, WHIP, GRP and FRPP, that have annual funding limits in the farm 
bill. As a result, technical assistance funds for WRP and CRP have been 
taken from the annual mandatory funds provided for the four dollar-
limited programs. This has resulted in a diversion of over $200 million 
to pay for technical assistance for CRP and WRP that would otherwise 
have gone directly to agricultural producers and landowners through 
EQIP, WHIP, CRP and FRPP.
  The legislation we are introducing today will take the next step and 
permanently fix the technical assistance funding problem. It will cure 
the shortage of technical assistance funding so funds will no longer be 
taken from EQIP, WHIP, GRP or FRPP to pay for technical assistance for 
CRP and WRP. And, it will finally restore the original intent of the 
2002 farm bill to have technical assistance funding come out of the CCC 
funding provided for each conservation program.

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