House Committee Approves Cuts for Agriculture Conservation and Energy Programs

On May 31, the House Appropriations Committee approved deep cuts in funding for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) food and agriculture programs for next year. Nutritional assistance, conservation, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture programs would be especially hard hit.

Overall, the FY 2012 agriculture appropriations bill would cut $2.7 billion (13.4 percent) from the USDA’s FY 2011 funding levels. These reductions would follow deep cuts Congress recently enacted in the USDA’s budget for FY 2011. If enacted, funding for food and agriculture programs in FY 2012 would fall more than 25 percent below FY 2010 spending levels on average.

The Committee proposes to:

• Cut $1 billion from conservation programs, including the Conservation Stewardship Program, the Watershed Rehabilitation Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Farmland Protection Program, Grassland Reserve Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, and the Wildlife Incentives Act;
• Cut $100 million (11 perent) from the Natural Resources Conservation Service;
• Cut more than $3 million (15 percent) from sustainable agriculture research, education and extension;
• Cut $73 million (97 percent) from the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP);
• Eliminate (100 percent) the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), for which funding was cut from $246 million in FY2010 to $112 million in FY2011; and
• Cap the Bioenergy for Advanced Biofuels Program at $55 million, $50 million below the president’s request.

The bill moves next to the House floor for a debate and vote. Then it will be up to the Senate, where the appropriations process is not yet under way.

These cuts would be a major setback for the nation’s efforts to address climate, energy, economic and environmental security. Although addressing the nation’s fiscal deficit and debt is an important priority, addressing the nation’s gaping deficits in employment, trade, energy security, climate and the environment is arguably just as urgent, if not more so. Cutting the budget in this way may address the fiscal problem in the short term, but it will make these other deficits even bigger and more difficult to deal with in the future.

Another approach is needed. Instead of just cutting the budget, why not make strategic investments to help the nation grow its way out of all of these deficits at the same time?

REAP is one such strategic investment. According to the Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC), “Each year more farmers and rural businesses have used REAP, with demand far outpacing the available funding. Since 2003, REAP has helped nearly 6,000 farmers and rural businesses in every state in the U.S. with grants and loan guarantees to help finance new clean energy and energy efficiency projects, drive private investment and save many millions of dollars each year on energy costs.” For example, REAP has helped finance dozens of anaerobic digesters on farms to help transform polluting livestock waste streams into renewable heat and power and useful co-products while improving local air and water quality. Reducing energy costs and producing local renewable energy are keys to future prosperity and competitiveness for rural America, while also being keys to protecting public health and the environment.

BCAP and the Bioenergy for Advanced Biofuels Program are other strategic investments that can help create jobs, advance the nation’s energy security, reduce the nation’s oil import bill, and help rural America grow its way out of recession. BCAP supports the establishment of new renewable energy crops that can be used to produce advanced biofuels, bioheat, biopower, or bio-based products . On May 5, the USDA announced the selection of the first biomass feedstock project area for the BCAP program spanning 39 counties in Missouri and Kansas. Developing next generation biofuels will help reduce U.S. dependence on imported petroleum and help keep more of the nation’s energy dollars invested here at home. Federal support for developing sustainable biomass feedstocks and biorefineries is especially critical now when the industry is just getting started.

Conservation programs help restore healthy ecosystems and ecosystem services and protect soil and water resources for current and future generations. A recent report from the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service found that conservation programs are making a significant difference in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Soil erosion and pollution from fertilizer and pesticides are being reduced dramatically across landscapes where USDA-sponsored conservation practices are being used and where the most highly erodible land is being taken out of production. These conservation programs and practices in the Mississippi River Basin – and in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and elsewhere – are key to reducing soil erosion and restoring local clean water supplies. In addition, conservation programs help capture millions of tons of climate change -forcing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it in plants and soils.

Much more still needs to be done through expanded conservation programs to further reduce soil erosion and water pollution from agriculture. However, in the future, these efforts could lead to restoring productive fisheries downstream in the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay, and elsewhere along the nation’s coasts, where today there are only polluted dead zones.