12/2/03

Great news! Congress has restored full funding for the Conservation Security Program (CSP)!

Thank you to everyone who called and wrote members of Congress in support of full funding. Now we need to capitalize on this victory and get the rules out and the program implemented. Please call Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman today.

CALLS ARE NEEDED NOW TO GET CSP UP AND RUNNING. TELL USDA TO IMPLEMENT THE CONSERVATION SECURITY PROGRAM

Take Action
TODAY: Call the office of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman at 202-720-3631.

Tell the person answering that you need to leave a message for the Secretary. They will most likely ask if it is about CSP. Once they find out it is, they will try to transfer you to a lower office, to a person who does not have the power to make the decision to issue the proposed rules for the CSP—which doesn’t help us. We need to reach the Secretary herself with the message that she needs to issue the proposed rules for the Conservation Security Program immediately, so farmers and ranchers can begin putting it to use in 2004. So, if you get transferred, don’t be bashful! Call back and let the Secretary’s staff know you need to leave a message for Secretary of Agriculture Veneman, because she is the one with the authority to issue the rules and get the ball rolling on implementation. Tell them there is no excuse for further delays—USDA was required by law to issue the final rules in February 2003, and here it is December and the proposed rules has not even been issued for public comment.

The message is simple—get moving, issue the rules, no more excuses or delays. Make sure to leave your name and the state you are from.

Thank you. THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT CALL. Even if you have called in the past—or if you have never called on CSP—this is a call to make. We can’t let the USDA kill this program with lengthy delays and administrative inaction.

More Details
In the omnibus-spending bill pending before Congress, the CSP is restored to full multiyear funding. Early in 2003, Congress, at the insistence of the Bush Administration, cut the CSP funding nearly in half in order to “offset” agricultural disaster aid for farmers affected by drought or flood. Recognizing the error of cutting conservation spending—of all things—in response to stresses on natural resources, Congress has now reversed gears and returned the CSP to its full 2002 Farm Bill entitlement status. The omnibus appropriations bill funds CSP at $41 million for the remainder of fiscal year 2004.

Supporters of the most important and innovative program of the 2002 Farm Bill—CSP—are thrilled. Last week, Congress tentatively agreed not only to support CSP funding for FY04, but also to remove the multiyear funding cap that had been wrongly imposed last February. Grassroots support resulted in a clear message to Congress: WE WANT THE CSP. This important program has made it through the Farm Bill and two grueling appropriations years (if both houses pass the pending omnibus appropriations bill as expected), thanks to its diehard grassroots supporters, who’ve fought for its survival and full funding.

Funding is one battle, but the CSP also needs rules before it can be launched. Grassroots support needs to be heard yet again—this time by the Bush Administration. By not issuing rules, the Administration is denying farmers and ranchers access to technical and financial assistance from the only farm bill program to simultaneously promote family farm profitability, resource conservation and environmental enhancement.

Background on timing of rules
Following passage of the CSP in the Farm Bill, the rules to implement the CSP remained stuck at USDA for 16 months—eight months longer than the legal limit established by the Farm Bill for final rules —before being sent as proposed rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in August 2003. The OMB then held onto the proposed rules for 90 days, the legal limit for it to respond to USDA’s proposal and publicly issue the rules. As of November 28, the day after Thanksgiving, OMB exhausted its legal right to amend the rules and full legal authority to issue the rules returned to Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman.

Enough is enough! The ball is now in USDA’s court. Tell USDA Secretary Veneman to issue the rules now, without further delay!

Call USDA Secretary Ann Veneman at 202-720-3631.

CSP in Brief
The CSP provides financial and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers who develop and maintain conservation systems on working lands that solve critical natural resource and environmental concerns. These stewardship incentives encourage and reward farmers and ranchers for creating public benefits such as clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration, rangeland improvement, and wetland restoration and enhancements. Unlike the Farm Bill’s commodity programs, CSP payments are capped at a modest amount per farm per year, are fully compliant with “green box” requirements under our international trade obligations, and are available to all types of farms in all regions of the country.

The CSP is about changing the agricultural landscape toward real land stewardship, and it’s about the kind of food system we want. The proper implementation of this program will have a positive effect on our entire society. With all the Administration’s delays, insider influence by agribusiness and commodity groups may take hold, leaving out conservation-minded family farmers again while the factory farms and the maximum-production mono-crop operations are given the money.

Please call today.

For more information contact: Mark Schultz, LSP Policy Program Director, at 612-722-6377 or marks@landstewardshipproject.org. More information on the Conservation Security Program is also available at www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs_csp.html.