The Ecological Society of America encourages members to contact their representatives to sustain several important conservation programs as a new farm bill is authorized.
The Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-234) expired in 2012. Congress and the White House enacted a temporary extension of most farm bill programs, which expire Sept. 30. The extension did not include conservation programs. While the Senate has passed legislation to reauthorize a number of critical environmental programs, the House-passed alternative either severely curtails or zeroes out funding for these programs. If this concerns you, please contact your Members of Congress and Senators requesting they maintain critical conservation provisions included in the Senate bill, including: Fund the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Reserve Program. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program gives financial assistance to farmers who implement conservation practices that preserve natural resources and ecosystems and save energy. The Conservation Reserve Program is a rental-payment program that provides farmers with incentives to remove environmentally-sensitive land from agricultural production to preserve water, soil quality and wildlife habitat. Include the Senate bill's conservation compliance provisions. Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill includes a provision requiring that farmers comply with basic conservation requirements in order to receive federal subsidies for crop insurance. Include the Senate bill's bipartisan sodsaver provision. The sodsaver provision was originally added at the committee level as an amendment by Sens. John Thune (R-SD), Mike Johanns (R-NE) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH). The provision preserves native prairie through various subsidy reduction measures intended to discourage farmers from agricultural production on native grasslands. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the reforms in the Senate farm bill cut $12.9 billion in spending over the next 10 years. The above measures help farmers, sustain valuable agricultural production, create wildlife habitat and improve the water quality in our rural communities and beyond. To contact your US representative, click here: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ To contact your US Senator, click here: http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/general/one_item_and_teasers/contacting.htm
