1. URGENT ACTION: PROTECT FUNDS FOR THE CSP

Senate Budget Committee this week passed an amendment by Senator Grassley (R-IA), instructing the Department of Agriculture to enact a strict payment limit law at $300,000 max per farm, saving $1.4 billion annually. Under Grassley's proposal this money would be transferred to the new Conservation Security Program widely heralded as an innovative new working lands farm conservation program. The amendment closes loopholes: payments made as generic certificates are brought under the limits, and large farms could not exceed these limits by dividing into several corporations. There is certain to be an attack on the Grassley amendment when the Senate Budget Committee resolution goes to the floor next week. 

Please take a moment TODAY to call your senators and ask them to support the Grassley provision that enacts solid payment limitations and uses the savings to restore funding to the Conservation Security Program. The Capital Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. Calls are especially needed from the following states: California, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wyoming.

2. HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE TAKES USDA OFFICIALS TO TASK

In a hearing yesterday on the proposed FY 2004 Bush budget, leading Members of Congress took USDA officials to task for undercutting provisions of the Farm Bill to the detriment of conservation programs. Congressman Henry Bonilla -23rd/TX), Chair of the House subcommittee that oversees USDA budget and appropriations, made clear to USDA Under Secretary Mark Rey that technical assistance for Farm Bill conservation programs is to be paid from mandatory funds. Rey, in turn, touted the Administration's proposed new discretionary Farm Bill Technical Assistance Account - a plan that is now facing wide opposition.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-9th/OH) expressed her strong disapproval of the Administration's proposal to slash the Conservation Security Program and faulted the Administration for making conservation programs a scapegoat in the disaster assistance funding debate. Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson (R-8th/MO) stated that in one county in Missouri, 40 producers applied for EQIP FY 2003 funding, but nearly all of the county's funds went to one producer with relationships with local NRCS officials. She instructed the USDA officials to provide her with a written explanation of how they will act to prevent this problem from occurring in the future.

3. ENVIROS SUE OVER CAFO RULE

The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the Waterkeepers' Alliance filed suit last week challenging the EPA's rule on confined animal feeding operations. 

The groups contend that the rule, finalized by the EPA last December, violates the Clean Water Act by allowing large-scale farms to pollute waterways with animal waste. Under the rule, which has dramatically weakened ince its original drafting during the Clinton administration, large animal factories would be allowed to continue to dump millions of gallons of liquefied manure into open lagoons, and then spray the liquid over fields. 

The rule exempts from the Clean Water Act the polluted runoff that typically results from these practices by calling it "agricultural stormwater." 

The new rule also allows CAFOs to write their own nutrient management plans without public input or agency oversight, and fails to mandate monitoring of waste seepage into groundwater supplies. Not everyone thinks the new rule is too weak, however -- the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Chicken Council have filed suits "questioning the EPA's authority to require pollution permits."

For more information, visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2003/2003-03-10-10.asp

4. COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABELING UNDER ATTACK

With the last Farm Bill passage family farm producers were able to force a provision requiring mandatory country of origin labeling for agricultural products. Now, this provision is under attack by different commodities groups who see the measure cutting into their ability to "source" commodities from the cheapest global producers. Most recent in the barrage against mandatory country of origin labeling (MCOOL) is an attack by the National Cattleman's Beef Association - a group supposedly representing the interests of beef producers but more closely aligned politically with meat packers than meat producers. 

According to a report at www.meatnews.com, the NCBA has now "directed its Washington staff to work towards a repeal of the COOL provision of the 2002 Farm Bill, and to work with the US Department of Agriculture to develop a more workable voluntary program." 

See the story at www.meatnews.com.

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