OPENING STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN DICK LUGAR

CONSERVATION HEARING

FEBRUARY 28, 2001

Beginning our Committee's work to reauthorize the Farm Bill, we started out this year receiving testimony from the Commission on 21st Century Production Agriculture about its recommendations for future farm legislation. Today our Committee begins two days of hearings on conservation, a very important issue for the Farm Bill debate.

Conservation programs were significantly expanded in the conservation title of the 1985 Farm Bill. The establishment of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in the 1985 Farm Bill was due to recognition by many of us in Congress of the need to address serious erosion problems facing agriculture. The 1990 and 1996 Farm Bills further strengthened agricultural conservation programs. This is one area of the past farm bills where there has been strong bipartisan support in Congress.

In my view, there are at least three fundamental questions to consider as we begin debate on the conservation title:

* What should be the environmental goals the next farm bill should be designed to attain through voluntary incentive-based programs?

* What will be the costs and benefits to landowners and producers of achieving these broad goals?

* What will be the cost and benefits to society of achieving these broad goals?

Hopefully, the testimony presented at these two days of hearings will help us to answer these questions.

One of the challenges facing agriculture today is how to provide food, fiber, and industrial raw materials without jeopardizing the future productivity of our natural resources. Private landowners are the stewards of over 70 percent of our nation's land. Our nation's farmers and ranchers are facing increasingly complex environmental problems and regulations. Increasingly, taxpayers have been demanding and expecting increased conservation achievements from farmers and the agricultural sector. Given this situation, we have another question to consider: Should there be a substantially larger investment by the federal government in conservation cost-share and incentive programs?

As we try to answer these questions, it will be important for our Committee to hear about how the current conservation programs are managed, the use and distribution of funding for the programs, the types of agricultural producers and landowners who participate and the geographic distribution of participants.

We are also seeking suggestions for improvements and changes to the current programs and asking whether there is a need for new initiatives. We will be trying to determine the appropriate role for the federal government in assisting farmers, ranchers and other landowners in achieving conservation goals.

Today we will gather testimony from representatives of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Congressional Research Service about the administration and funding of our current conservation programs. At tomorrow's hearing, witnesses will include representatives of farm organizations, conservation and wildlife groups, and state agencies, and we will seek views on current programs as well as suggestions for improvements and new approaches.

I welcome our witnesses today and look forward to hearing their individual testimony.

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