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September 22, 2009
Health Care Debate Dominates Congressional Schedule
House and Senate leaders are hard at work managing a busy
September legislative agenda. Top on the list is the debate
surrounding health care reform.
Health care has emerged as the issue of the day, and as a
result many other priorities are being held for future
action. Among those issues are climate change legislation
and annual appropriations. Last week, Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid indicated that Senate action on the climate bill
could be postponed because of the health care debate,
potentially extending into 2010.
While work on fiscal year 2010 (FY10) appropriations had
proceeded smoothly over the summer, the appropriations
bills will not be completed by the end of the fiscal year,
September 30. A continuing resolution is expected from the
Congress to continue funding federal agencies. One such
appropriations bill is up for consideration this week in the Senate—the
FY10 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies
appropriations. NACD alerted members on Monday to support
an amendment to the Interior appropriations bill. The
amendment, offered by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), would
insert provisions of the FLAME Act to create an emergency
fire suppression fund.
NACD continues to ensure conservation districts are heard
as debate continues on these issues in Congress.
Joint Forestry Team Extends Charter
NACD President Steve Robinson joined other executives from
the National Association of State Foresters (NASF), USDA
Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service
in signing a five-year extension to the charter for the
Joint Forestry Team. They signed the document following a
panel discussion at the annual NASF meeting on September 21
in Albuquerque, N.M.
During his presentation, Robinson urged all of those with
forestry interests to work together and recognize that
conservation districts have the ability to work with all
landowners regardless of the setting—rural or urban—and in
all states. Presently the work of the national Joint
Forestry Team is being replicated both at the regional
level like that of the Western Joint Forestry Team and at
the state level such as in Montana, where cooperators are
preparing a memorandum of understanding.
To learn more about the Joint Forestry Team, visit
http://www.jointforestryteam.org and see the article in
the next issue of NACD's Forestry Notes.
Have You Checked Out the New CSP?
NRCS is conducting a sign-up under the new Conservation
Stewardship Program (CSP) until September 30, 2009. The
NACD Legislative Committee held a call with NRCS last week
to clarify some of the questions they were hearing at the
field level. The following are some of the issues the group
discussed.
The five-year CSP contract requires owners/operators to
address priority resources of concern on the operation.
These priority resources are established by your state.
NRCS can enroll over 12 million acres, but needs the
applications by September 30. Applications submitted today
are not commitments to final contracts—those will be
reviewed, processed, and should the applicant choose,
signed in November. NACD encourages producers to check out
this new program and submit an application to ensure that
the full 12 million acres can be used and is not a missed
opportunity for conservation.
This new program applies to your entire agriculture
operation, but if you have rented land and cannot produce
written approval from the landowner that you have control
of the land, that portion of your operation is excluded
from the contract. Ten percent of a state’s CSP acreage is
set aside for non-industrial private forest land. The
interim final regulations in place today will be the basis
for your contract; once you have a signed contract, it will
be in place for five years. Two types of payments can be made
under CSP—annual payments and supplemental payments for
adopting a resource conserving crop rotation. The estimated
payment ranges are: cropland $12-22; non-industrial private
forest land $6-12; pasture $7-14; and range $5-10. However
the first enrollment period will help establish the payment
rates in the future.
Please visit the NRCS website or view
the Farmer’s Guide to CSP developed by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition for additional information.
Department of Interior Initiates Climate Response
Strategy
The Secretary of Interior recently ordered all bureaus and
agencies within the Department of Interior (DOI) to work
together with other federal agencies, local and state
partners and the public to address the impacts of climate
change. The Department will establish a high-level Climate
Change Response Council to coordinate the DOI bureaus’
responses to impacts of climate change and oversee the DOI
Carbon Storage Project that is developing geological and
biological methods to sequester carbon. Additionally the
Department will organize eight regional Climate Change
Response Centers to gather and synthesize data and
management strategies to be used by land managers to
address the issue of climate change when they implement
projects. These Centers will also provide information to the
public using education initiatives. Finally, DOI and other
federal agencies, local and state partners and the public
will work through a network of Landscape Conservation
Cooperatives to develop practical, landscape-level
strategies to address the impacts of climate change. To
learn more, click here.
EPA Launches TMDL Program Results Analysis Website
EPA has developed a new website to communicate information
about the Clean Water Act’s Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)
Program results to technically specialized audiences,
including conservation districts, TMDL developers, state
water programs, academia and other state and federal agency
programs. The TMDL Program Results Analysis Project is a
multi-year effort directed at measuring and analyzing
programmatic and environmental results of the program. Over
37,000 TMDLs have been developed, and this project seeks to
improve understanding of TMDL-specific program results
patterns and explain these patterns. The website provides a
Clean Water Act Impaired Waters Program Pipeline navigation
feature; fact sheets; EPA reports and websites; EPA grantee
reports and websites; publications; and datasets related to
this effort. Whether you are well versed in the issues of
TMDLs or just want to learn, this website has a wide range
of information for all users.
The TMDL Program Results Analysis website is available at
http://www.epa.gov/owow/tmdl/results.
Submit Your Nominations for the NACD Awards
The deadline is fast approaching for you to recognize
outstanding individuals, districts and partners for
conservation by nominating them for an NACD Award.
Nominations must be received by September 30 to allow for
winners to be decided upon, announced and registered for
the NACD Annual Conference in Orlando, Fla.,
January 31–February 3, 2010.
The award categories, descriptions and links to nomination
forms are:
• 2009 NACD Friend of Conservation Award
• 2009 NACD Distinguished Service Award
• 2009 AEM/NACD Partnership Awards
For more information on all the NACD Awards and Partner
Awards, please visit http://www.nacdnet.org/news/awards/ or
contact Beth Mason at beth-mason@nacdnet.org or
317-782-0600.
Mitigation Conference Calls for Presentation Proposals
The 13th Annual National Mitigation and Ecosystem Banking
Conference has issued a call for presentations. This
meeting is the only national conference that brings
together every aspect of mitigation banking from regulators
through the entire marketplace.
The meeting is scheduled for May 3–6, 2010 in Austin, Tex.
Submissions for presentations are due October 14, 2009. The
conference is known for its quality hands-on presentations
and the tremendous networking opportunities. Participants
will also have the opportunity to tour banks in the Austin
area.
NACD is a co-supporter of this meeting. For more
information on the meeting or submitting presentation
proposals, visit http://www.mitigationbankingconference.com. You can also
call (703) 548-5473 or send email to cbahler@comcast.net.
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