Streamlining Farm Bill Conservation Programs to Deliver More Climate Smart Results, Faster

After a bumpy year for the Farm Bill, there may be a chance to land a last-minute bill in the lame duck session. The Freshwater Trust (TFT) remains focused on two key elements related to the conservation title: 1) making sure that “Climate Smart” is implemented rigorously but without too much rigidity; and 2) streamlining the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) so that partners can more effectively deliver more conservation to more agricultural partners, faster.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) added nearly $5B in “climate smart” funding to the RCPP, $8.45B to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and $3.25B to the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP).

Having faced difficulties implementing “climate smart” practices for the last two years, TFT and partners are now advocating for Congress to universally adopt the most effective climate smart “sideboard” and expand it to all Farm Bill programs so that we can get a lot more good climate smart projects on the ground, faster.

In the IRA, Congress instructed NRCS to “prioritize partnership agreements … that support the implementation of conservation practices that assist agricultural producers … in directly [achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) improvements]” (emphasis added). In contrast to this RCPP climate smart “sideboard” language, in the other core Farm Bill programs (EQIP, CSP), Congress instructed that “funds shall be available … for practices … that the Secretary determines directly improve [GHG conditions].” This subtle shift in language has resulted in different implementation outcomes. The EQIP/CSP language has yielded the NRCS’ “Climate Smart Practices List” (CSAF List). Practices must be on that list to be eligible for IRA funding. TFT’s experience has been that even where USDA-approved quantification tools show that a practice will reduce GHGs, if it’s not on the CSAF List or designed to fit the narrow operational instructions in the CSAF List, then states are uncomfortable moving forward. In contrast, those same states have encouraged the exact same kind of practices under RCPP. This small language difference has resulted in record submission volume under RCPP on the one hand, and some states having to give back EQIP and CSP IRA funds that they can’t spend on the other.

With a time crunch to get IRA funds to projects before they expire, adopting the current RCPP climate smart sideboard language for the other core Farm Bill conservation programs could unlock significantly more funding to good projects without reducing GHG benefits. Further still, Congress could make it clear that when NRCS-approved quantification tools show GHG improvements from a project, that this satisfies the sideboard.

While current NRCS leadership has worked hard to create necessary flexibilities to help unlock IRA climate smart funds to projects, these funds will be around through 2031, so it’s important to durably modify these programs in statute.

These implementation-improving policy changes go hand-in-hand with the RCPP amendments TFT and partners have pursued. This year, NRCS released a $1.5B funding announcement for RCPP, and received $5.3B in applications, with more than half of those applications coming in as “alternative funding arrangements” (AFAs). RCPP is the marquee partner-led conservation program under the Farm Bill. Despite this volume and recent NRCS efforts to improve program administration, the program still requires some critical legislative updates that could help partners deliver more high-impact, cost-effective conservation results in a much more streamlined way.

Last year, we described how amendments to RCPP could help deliver faster conservation to a lot more agricultural producers across America.

We think the principles outlined a year ago remain true. Over the last two years, we have worked closely with Senate Agriculture Committee staff on contracting, procurement, and implementation streamlining improvements to RCPP, and we’re excited to see that many of these amendments made it into Senator Stabenow’s Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act (section by section summary – see pages 20-22 of the document).

Key changes in the Senate’s proposed Farm Bill include:

• Expanding the program purpose to include engaging producers and eligible partners in innovative methods of conservation delivery or leveraging of the Federal investment, and linking that purpose directly to AFA eligibility (while also eliminating the 15/year AFA cap, which is now restrictive—and which was not included in the IRA).

• Linking this program purpose to new “conservation benefit” and “performance-based payment” definitions, and clarifying how to implement AFAs that use performance-based payment approaches to secure conservation benefits.

• Implementing several streamlining/accelerating pieces, including new flexibility on how to meet cost-share requirements, setting agency contracting deadlines, clarifying extension and renewal provisions and other administrative items that proved difficult over the years, allowing partners to collect reasonable indirect costs, and authorizing advance payments for costs related to purchasing materials or implementing an eligible activity.

• Emphasizing and providing funding to help improve, standardize, and make conservation benefit quantification models more broadly available.

Notably, these changes to RCPP will make it easier for partners to assemble data-driven, coordinated funding solutions at the watershed scale. Through these RCPP amendments, partners will be able to better leverage NRCS funds with other government efforts including:

• EPA funding, financing and watershed tools. See summary of work with EPA through the Nutrient Funding Discussion Group to catalyze a scalable data-driven, leveraged funding structure that will drive watershed scale solutions with agricultural partners.

• Better integration with Department of Interior programs. See the Watershed Results Act – a Senator Wyden bill before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that also promotes a data-driven, coordinated funding strategy at the watershed scale.

Ultimately, we must maximize this window of opportunity by delivering as much high-impact conservation on-the-ground as soon as possible. These two modest proposals help unlock that outcome.

Image by Jim Black from Pixabay