House Agriculture Committee Schedules Hearings on EPA Regulatory Impacts

The House Agriculture Committee has scheduled two oversight hearings over the next two weeks on the implications of EPA regulatory actions on agriculture, including implications of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL on other watersheds across the U.S.  The full details are not available at this time, but will be posted here when they are.

The scheduled hearings and available details are:

To review the impact of EPA regulation on agricultureFull Committee on Agriculture - Public Hearing
Thursday, March 10, 2011; 2:00 p.m.
1300 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C.

To review the Chesapeake Bay TMDL, agricultural conservation practices, and their implications on national watersheds
Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy, and Forestry - Public Hearing
Wednesday, March 16, 2011; 10:00 a.m.
1300 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C.

Farm Bill Resources

The “Farm Bill” is a compilation of many different Acts that have been passed by the United States Congress to enhance agricultural productivity and conservation on private lands.  It has its beginnings in the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and its most recent iteration is the 2008 Food, Conservation and Energy Act.  That law, enacted in June 2008, governs the bulk of Federal agriculture and related programs, and is slated to be reauthorized in 2012. 

As congressional hearings and discussions on and off Capitol Hill regarding that next (2012) Farm Bill increase, there is a growing conviction in Washington among a variety of interest groups, including members of the Congress, that the next Farm Bill could very likely be fundamentally different than its predecessors.  As a resource for those following the Farm Bill debate and discussions, here are some resources available online (all in pdf file format; through the highlighted Internet links) that provide an overview of the current (2008) and past Farm Bills, as well as perspectives leading into 2012 Farm Bill discussions.

2012 Farm Bill

• Congressional Research Service's report, “Actual Farm Bill Spending and Cost Estimates” from October 7, 2010 (highlights the difficulties facing Congress as it ramps up to work on the 2012 Farm Bill, particularly as that bill relates to the tight Federal budget)
• Farm Foundation Forum's "Budget Implications for the Next Farm Bill" from a September 14, 2010 forum (provided by Farmpolicy.com Inc.) 
• Congressional Research Service's report Farm Safety Net Programs: Issues for the Next Farm Bill (September 10, 2010)

2008 Farm Bill

• This 2008 Farm Bill Comprehensive Overview is provided by USDA's Economic Research Service

• 2008 Farm Bill Fact Sheets from the House Agriculture Committee, arranged by Title:
  Title I - Commodity Programs
  Title II - Conservation
  Title III - Trade
  Title IV - Nutrition
  Title V - Credit
  Title VI - Rural Development
  Title VII - Research
  Title VIII - Forestry
  Title IX - Energy
  Title X - Horticulture and Organic Agriculture
  Title XI - Livestock
  Title XII - Crop Insurance
  Title XIII - Commodity Futures
  Title XIV - Miscellaneous

• Here is a concise explanation of the Direct and Counter-cyclical Payment Program by the USDA Farm Service Agency

Legislation Calls for Expedited Study to Separate Great Lake and Mississippi River Basins

Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) in the Senate and Representative Dave Camp (D-MI-4th) in the House announced today (March 3) that they will be introducing companion legislation to require that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conduct and expedite a study to determine the best way to permanently separate the Mississippi Basin from Lake Michigan, while still permitting shipping and boating passage ("ecological separation").  The bill, called the "Stop Asian Carp Act of 2011," will require the study begin within 30 days and be completed within a year and a half of the legislation's passage.  Both Senator Stabenow and Representative Camp introduced similar legislation during the 111th Congress, last year.  Notably, Senator Durbin did not co-sponsor that Senate bill (important because he is from Illinois), and neither measure was brought up for consideration in committee (see here for the 2010 bill summary).

Among other things, the Stop Asian Carp Act would direct the Army Corps of Engineers to study the Illinois, Chicago and Calumet Rivers watersheds to determine the feasibility and best means of implementing the ecological separation of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basins to prevent the introduction or establishment of populations of aquatic nuisance species into the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Basins through the Chicago Area Water System and other aquatic pathways.

Kicking the Budget Debate "Can" Down the Road

Republicans and Democrats are still far apart on the principles underlying funding of the Federal government through the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011, except for agreeing that certain programs proposed to be cut by President Obama for the next fiscal year should no longer be funded in this fiscal year.  A short-term budget bill (see text here) that will fund the Federal government through March 18 was passed 335 to 91 in the House (House roll call here) and 91 to 9 in the Senate (Senate roll call here), and then signed by the President on Wednesday.  Unlike H.R. 1, the Continuing Resolution passed by the House two weeks ago (see here), the Continuing Resolution signed into law  on Wednesday is a simple piece of legislation, with no riders, but one that cuts $4 billion by eliminating dozens of earmark spending projects and programs, and eight programs that the Obama Administration had identified as unnecessary in its 2012 Fiscal Year budget proposal (see this "Terminations, Reductions and Savings" document that accompanied the President's budget proposal).  This House Appropriations Committee release summarizes those cuts. 

Earmark cuts particularly relevant to Mississippi River Basin concerns include:

• $56 million - Army Corps of Engineers, Investigations
• $341million - Army Corps of Engineers, Construction
• $80 million - Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi River
• $39 million - Army Corps of Engineers, Operations and Maintenance
• $38 million - Bureau of Reclamation, Water and Related Resources
• $41 million - Science and Technology – research projects
• $77 million - Office of Science – science research

The Continuing Resolution provides two full legislative weeks for negotiations to continue on a long-term funding bill before it's spending authority ends and before the March 21 start of the next scheduled week-long Senate and House recess.  But that two weeks is a short time period to bridge the wide gap between the cuts envisioned in the Republican-backed H.R. 1, and the view of Senate Democrats, who have labeled GOP cuts as "draconian," and short-sighted, damaging economic growth and stripping investments in infrastructure, education, research and development.  For a summary of H.R. 1 and a summary of cuts in the bill to programs and agencies central to Mississippi River Basin issues, please refer to the lead article in the February Update from the Northeast-Midwest Institute on Mississippi River Basin issues.

Environmental Organizations File Notice of Intent to Sue over Mississippi River Basin Pollution

The Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Prairie Rivers Network today (March 1) filed a 60-day "notice of intent to sue" with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, notifying the District of their intent to sue it over water pollution impacts resulting from wastewater discharges that reach from Chicago, Illinois, down the Chicago, Des Plaines, Illinois and Mississippi Rivers and into the Gulf of Mexico. The Notice and its attachments (which include correspondences related to the issue and a photo of algae mats on Chicago waterways) are available here.

Key Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Hearings for the Week

At the same time that funding for the current Fiscal Year are being hashed out, hearings begin this week on the Fiscal Year 2012 budget.  Here are some key hearings, with links to the respective hearing web page:

• Hearing on Agriculture budget; House Appropriations Committee; Tuesday and Wednesday 10:00 AM, 2362-A Rayburn Building
• Hearing on EPA budget; Senate Environment and Public Works Committee; Wednesday; 10:00 AM, 406 Dirksen Building (rescheduled from Tuesday)
• Hearing on DOE budget; Senate Budget Committee; Wednesday10:00 AM, 608 Dirksen Building
• Hearing on Interior budget; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; Wednesday 10:00 AM, 366 Dirksen Building
• Hearing on EPA budget; House Appropriations Committee; Thursday 09:30 AM, 2359 Rayburn Building
• Hearing on Forest Service budget; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; Thursday 9:30 AM, 366 Dirksen Building
• Hearing on EPA budget; House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; Thursday 10:00 AM, 2167 Rayburn Building
• Hearing on Interior budget; House Natural Resources Committee; Thursday 10:00 AM, 1324 Longworth Building

Back from Recess, Congress Dives Back into Spending Legislation

Much of this upcoming week in Congress will be spent finding a compromise path toward a short-term (probably two-week) Continuing Resolution (CR) that will keep the Federal government running beyond this Friday's deadline for the current funding measure, leaving the Senate and House breathing room to negotiate a longer-term bill to fund the government through the end of September. The House Republican two-week CR under consideration would cut $4 billion from the budget over that two-week  period, with more than half of the savings coming from 2010 earmarks automatically carried over but not yet spent in the existing CR. The remaining savings would come from the elimination now of programs that the Obama Administration has already proposed to eliminate or drastically reduce, as part of the President's Fiscal Year 2012 budget proposal (see this "Terminations, Reductions and Savings" document that accompanied the President's budget proposal).  In it's 2012 budget proposal the Obama Administration identified 120 terminations, reductions and "other areas of savings" that it said would save about $20 billion each year.

The CR, if passed, would provide two full legislative weeks for negotiations to continue on a long-term funding bill before the next scheduled Senate and House recess period, starting March 21.