Efforts to enact a new long-term farm bill will pick up steam this week as the Senate Agriculture Committee marks up its farm legislation on Tuesday, followed by the House Agriculture panel considering its own bill a day later. Drafts of the House and Senateproposals were each released late last week.
The Conservation Titles of the respective draft measures largely reflect the bills produced by each panel last year. Those bills would have saved billions of dollars by streamlining and consolidating 23 existing USDA conservation programs down to 13 – a proposal that is repeated this year.
The new House and Senate bills each propose folding the existing Agricultural Water Enhancement Program (AWEP) into a new Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). AWEP currently allows water systems to partner with local farmers on water quality protection projects eligible for USDA assistance, and the proposed RCPP would continue to offer these opportunities.
The draft Senate bill includes language, added as an amendment last year with AMWA’s support, making clear that projects to manage nutrients in water bodies will be eligible for assistance through the RCPP. The draft House bill currently omits this explicit mention of nutrient management activities, though these efforts would still be eligible for assistance if USDA determines that they advance water quality conservation goals.