[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 10449-10451]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          MARYLAND AGRICULTURE

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, about 2 weeks ago I had a chance to meet 
with the leaders in the agricultural community to go over certain 
issues that are available to our farmers. I met with the NRCS chief 
Jason Weller. I met with the Maryland State agriculture secretary Buddy 
Hance and Lee McDaniels, who is a Harford County, MD, farmer and 
president of the Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.
  We were talking about ways in which the agricultural community, and 
those citizens who are concerned about our environment, can work 
together so we can have a clean environment and a healthy agricultural 
industry in our State. I found the discussion to be extremely helpful. 
We talked about the

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Regional Conservation Partnership Program.
  I thank Senator Stabenow for her incredible leadership on the farm 
bill. When we reauthorized it, we consolidated a lot of the 
conservation programs--particularly for specific great water bodies--
into the Regional Conservation Partnership Program. It provided new 
energy and tools available for conservation within agriculture so we 
can have a clean environment and also have sustainable agriculture in 
our country.
  Recently, the Chesapeake Bay watershed was designated as one of the 
critical conservation areas. That becomes important because that allows 
a certain amount of the funds under the Regional Conservation 
Partnership Program to be available to the critical conservation areas 
in our country and will be used by our farmers to conserve their land, 
and to be better stewards of the land and our environment, and at the 
same time have a sustainable agricultural program.
  The Chesapeake Bay Program first started many years ago under the 
leadership of then-Governor Harry Hughes of Maryland, who worked with 
the Governors of Pennsylvania and Delaware and then expanded to include 
the States of New York, West Virginia, and of course Virginia, to 
establish the Chesapeake Bay Program. They understood that in order for 
the program to be successful, they had to deal with development issues 
and storm runoff, the hardened surface, the loss of forestry land in 
the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and the causes of the pollutants in the 
soil and our environment through surges which rush into our water 
system, our streams, and rivers, and into the Chesapeake Bay. We have 
to do a better job of development in dealing with storm runoff.
  It also recognized the responsibility of local governments. They are 
the primary entity responsible for how we treat our waste with the 
wastewater facility plants and how we can do a better job of preventing 
pollutants from entering our water system.
  We also dealt with business growth and the pollution coming in 
through business activities.
  One of the major focal points was how do we deal with agriculture. In 
one sense agriculture is very positive for our environment. Maintaining 
open space is important, and agricultural activities are generally open 
space. That can be good because it gives us a larger tract of land in 
order to filter rainwater, to filter the pollutants from perhaps never 
entering the bay but, if they do enter the water system, they enter in 
a way that has already been filtered. So in that sense agricultural 
preservation is important for the conservation of the bay, but because 
of farming activities that use nitrogen and phosphorus, it can cause 
significant challenges for the bay.
  I think Maryland farmers have done a good job. They have done a good 
job for many years. But I wish to speak about one farmer particularly 
because I was very pleased--before this meeting, I had a chance to meet 
Hank Suchting. He is a farmer in Baltimore County, MD. That is pretty 
close to the urban centers. The Presiding Officer was referring to me 
as being the Senator from Baltimore. I am a proud resident of 
Baltimore, and Mr. Suchting's farm is only a few miles from my house. 
It is interesting. He has a beef-farming cattle activity. It is in the 
Oregon branch of the Gwynns Falls River, which has been dammed to 
provide for the Loch Raven Reservoir to deal with our water supply. In 
other words, that stream, which is part of his cattle production, is in 
the watershed that goes into the drinking water that the Presiding 
Officer and I drink in the Baltimore region. So we all have a 
significant interest in making sure that water supply is kept safe and 
that when we turn on our tap and when we drink our water, it is fresh 
water.
  Mr. Suchting's farm activities produce about 30 beef calves a year. 
That is an important number because in order for that cattle population 
to be properly grazed, it needs to have a water supply, and it needs to 
have a place where the cattle can cool off, particularly on a hot day 
like we had yesterday. So the traditional farming activities for this 
cattle production were to allow the cattle--as I said, the stream goes 
right through his property--to use the stream for the purpose of 
cooling off and for the purpose of the drinking water for the cattle. 
However, that was not the best way to do it for the purposes of 
protecting the water supply of Baltimore and to deal with the 
Chesapeake Bay and to deal with our environment because, as the 
Presiding Officer knows, free access for the cattle to the river meant 
that the cattle manure, the phosphorus would go into the waters, 
causing a challenge for the water system, and it caused significant 
erosion to the streambed itself.
  So Mr. Suchting felt a commitment to help the environment, so he 
said: Look, why don't I look at fencing in the riverbed so my cattle do 
not get direct access to the stream and producing a supplemental water 
system through a water trough--as we see in the photograph. It works 
through gravity. It uses the aquifer, works through gravity, and 
produces direct water for the cattle to drink.
  Here is the interesting part. His principal motivation was that he 
wanted to do something that would help the environment, but he still 
wanted to be able to produce his cattle. He felt an obligation to do 
this.
  The State of Maryland had help for him. In partnerships with the 
Federal Government and conservation programs, there were funds 
available to help him fence in the property to have a sensible 
crossing--because he was on both sides of the creek--so that he could 
have a way for the cattle to cross safely and still protect the water 
bed itself. That program made it more financially advantageous for him 
to put in the fencing so the cattle did not have direct access to the 
stream and to put in the water trough so they could get fresh water.
  But guess what. He put a pencil to it and found out it was better 
economically for him to do this. It actually made his farming practices 
more financially viable. How did that happen? Well, he was losing 
calves every season to storms when there were water surges and they 
would get caught in the stream and they would actually drown. He was 
losing calves because of extreme weather. Being in the stream caused 
hypothermia for the calves, and they would die. Every time he lost a 
calf, he also lost about $1,000. This was a sound investment from the 
point of view of the financial viability of his cattle production.
  Also, he found it was healthier for his cattle in two respects. 
First, the water supply did not include the pathogens that can be found 
in the streams, so he found it was healthier for his cattle to get 
water through the trough rather than through the stream itself. 
Secondly, he said the growth around the stream increased dramatically 
because the cattle were not in the stream, and it gave better shade on 
the property to allow the cattle to be able to cool off in the shade in 
a more efficient way than going into the stream itself.
  My point is this: This is just one example. I could give hundreds of 
examples where conservation makes sense for agriculture and our 
environment.
  My reason for being at this farm and my reason for bringing together 
the leaders in agriculture in Maryland is to talk about this new 
program that is now available. It is the Regional Conservation 
Partnership Program, which is available under the farm bill, which 
makes hundreds of millions of dollars available competitively--it is 
not earmarked--for farmers to be able to do what Mr. Suchting did 
through similar types of programs to help themselves and help our 
environment so we can have a safer environment for our community.
  Working together, we can have a cleaner environment and successful 
agriculture. There are now new tools available. We want people to know 
about them. We want farmers to know about them. We want conservation 
districts to get this information out to our farming community because, 
quite frankly, agriculture is critical to Maryland, it is critical to 
New Jersey, it is critical to this country. It is the largest single 
part of our local economy, and I expect it is the same in New Jersey 
and around the Nation. We want

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viable agriculture. We outcompete the world in production. We want to 
be able to continue to do that, but we also want to pass on a cleaner 
environment to our children. We can do both.
  Thanks to the leadership of Senator Stabenow and thanks to the 
leadership of this body, we now have new tools available to help our 
farmers in conservation. I hope they will take advantage of them for 
the sake of our environment and for the sake of agriculture.
  With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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