Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2004

AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor this amendment, along with my colleagues Senators LEAHY and SNOWE. This amendment will protect the funding for important working lands conservation programs, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, FRPP, the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program, WHIP, and the Grassland Reserve Program, GRP. It will do so by prohibiting the U.S. Department of Agriculture from diverting funds from these working lands conservation programs in order to fund the technical assistance costs of another conservation program, the Conservation Reserve Program, CRP.

Working lands conservation programs provide vital assistance to a large number of farmers, but they are especially critical to small and specialty crop growers, such as the potato and blueberry growers in my State of Maine. These programs help farmers manage their land in ways that improve production while, at the same time, protecting the environment, reducing agricultural runoff, and enhancing wildlife habitat.

Unfortunately, despite the large increase in funding for these programs contained in the Farm Bill of 2002, a significant number of family farmers who wish to participate in these programs-who seek assistance in their efforts to change their farming practices in order to improve water quality and availability in their communities, or to restore wetlands-have been turned away.

They have been turned away because the U.S. Department of Agriculture decided to divert funds from these working lands conservation programs in order to pay for technical assistance for the Conservation Reserve Program. Although the Conservation Reserve Program is itself a worthy program, it serves a different purpose than the working land conservation programs. The most significant of the differences between these programs is that the Conservation Reserve Program provides payments to farmers who take farmland out of production, while the working land conservation programs provide assistance to farmers who want to keep farming their land-but to do so in a way that helps the environment.

When we enacted the farm bill of 2002, we recognized the value of both of these types of programs, the Conservation Reserve Program and the working lands conservation programs, and provided significant funding for both types of programs. The Department of Agriculture's decision to divert funds from the working lands conservation programs in order to pay for technical assistance for the Conservation Reserve Program is not consistent with the carefully crafted balance reached in the farm bill. It is also inconsistent with the commitment made by Congress and the administration to America's farmers and ranchers-a commitment to provide assistance to those who wish to participate in voluntary conservation programs while keeping their land in agricultural production.

This amendment closes the loophole that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has used to divert funds from these working lands conservation programs in order to pay for other priorities that the Department deems more important. With this amendment, we keep the commitment made to our farmers and ranchers in the farm bill of 2002-a commitment to support and assist them as they work to enhance their stewardship of the land. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.