Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief,
Natural Resources Conservation Service,
at the Soil and Water Conservation Society
57th Annual Conference
Indianapolis, IN
July 15, 2002
I’m happy to be with you today to talk about the future of conservation on
America’s private lands. But first, I would like to take a minute to recognize
the long working relationship between NRCS and the Soil and Water Conservation
Society.
I am told that about half of the people here today are NRCS employees. That
certainly is one indication of how closely the interests of NRCS and the Society
are shared. But beyond that, our organizations have worked together on many
issues that are important to conservation.
When NRCS employees and others got together to form the Society, there were not
many conservation organizations in existence. There was a great need for an
organization that would represent the views of conservation professionals,
foster constructive debate, set standards, encourage research and education in
conservation, and recognize the contributions of our profession. The Society has
met -- and continues to meet -- these goals.
The close relationship between chapters and NRCS offices at all levels continues
to be a strong area of cooperation -- as are the numerous joint workshops we
hold, and our close cooperation in publishing the latest on conservation
science.
About 20 years ago, the Society’s leadership decided to take a more active role
in advocacy and policy formation. Norm Berg has been representing the Society in
Washington ever since -- and doing a fine job. As chief emeritus of NRCS, Norm
has really helped me get my feet on the ground as Chief. We meet regularly, and
I value his advice.
The Society and your Executive director, Craig Cox, worked hard helping Congress
craft a good farm bill over the past couple of years. That effort takes your
advocacy and policy role to a new level. I want to recognize the Society and
Craig for that effort.
It gives me great pleasure to talk about Craig’s accomplishments. He is a
fellow son of the northern plains, and a fellow veteran of the policy debates on
Capitol Hill. I’ve known Craig for years, and I have the utmost respect for him.
Craig’s testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee began to lay out for
Congress the needs for conservation on America’s private lands. What Craig was
able to accomplish in his testimony is a tribute to his credibility and stature
in the agriculture and conservation communities. He was taken seriously when he
advocated a level of spending on conservation that only a few years ago would
have been impossible.
Because of the Society’s credibility, the writers of the farm bill took his
advice to heart. The analysis of the issues and advocacy for conservation that
Craig and the Society brought to the table had a profound impact on development
of the farm bill.
I also commend you for your continuing work as the farm bill progressed. Your
“Measure Up” reports provided a valuable comparison of the various versions of
the farm bill. In the end, the Society had an immeasurable effect on the farm
bill.
As you have probably heard, the new farm bill represents a level of investment
in conservation that has not been present in any previous farm bill. The farm
bill contains unprecedented support for environmental stewardship. It builds on
past conservation gains. It represents the single most significant commitment of
resources toward conservation on private lands in the nation’s history. It
applies to all natural resources -- including increased emphasis on air,
wildlife, and energy, in addition to the traditional support for soil and water
conservation. It provides incentives for implementing conservation practices on
working lands. It helps farmers and ranchers improve the environment and meet
the newer and higher environmental standards. And, it greatly enhances the
ability of farmers and ranchers to protect wetlands, water and air quality, and
wildlife habitat.
With an investment of $13 billion over a 6-year period, the farm bill increases
funding dramatically for some of our traditional programs and establishes some
new programs.
I’m sure you are pleased with the many areas in which the farm bill follows your
recommendations, including increased funding, flexibility in implementing
programs within states, simplifying programs and broadening restrictions on
eligibility, balancing land treatment and retirement, and an increased emphasis
on stewardship on working lands.
In addition to its major increases in conservation spending, the farm bill also
permanently reauthorizes the Resource Conservation and Development Program and
provides grants to stimulate innovation. These grants will support new
approaches that use Federal funds as seed money for wider efforts, and includes
special assistance to the Klamath Basin in Oregon and California.
Now that the farm bill is law, our most important job is to implement it. The
work of implementing the conservation provisions of the farm bill falls both to
NRCS and to our partners. We are already working on many parts of
implementation, including informing producers, training NRCS employees to get
the job done, and expediting the rule-making process for provisions of the new
farm bill, as we did last week with EQIP.
We are also finding ways to involve others in farm bill implementation. This
includes expanding the number of private technical assistance providers who help
get the job done. One key to implementing the farm bill successfully is to stay
flexible and delegate as much authority as we can to our professionals in the
field.
We are also working with the Farm Service Agency to make our processes more
efficient. Recently, we agreed to eliminate a concurrence process that sometimes
delayed USDA’s service. In the past, actions in the Conservation Reserve Program
and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program required approvals from both
FSA and NRCS.
We have streamlined that process. Now, CRP final approvals are made by
FSA, and EQIP final approvals are made by NRCS. Neither program now
requires formal approval by the other agency.
NRCS and FSA must, and will, continue to collaborate informally, but the time
consumed by dual formal approvals is a thing of the past. In this case, as
in many others, less government is good government.
We are already working hard to make everyone aware of the conservation
provisions of the new farm bill. I hope you have seen the new NRCS web
site. The farm bill section of our site contains a wealth of information
on many of the new conservation programs.
We've been updating the web site regularly, as new information becomes
available, and will continue to do so. Most recently, we added new
information on EQIP and program manuals for FPP and RC&D. As decisions are
made on other programs, we will get that information onto the web site too.
We have also been putting out news releases on the various farm bill programs to
get information into the hands of producers and the country. Plus, our
offices around the country have been passing out packets of information and
doing presentations in the community, and will continue to do so through the
summer.
It is also important that we train our employees on the conservation
provisions of the farm bill as quickly as possible. Training is well
underway:
WRP, WHIP, and FPP training began before Memorial Day, and there is more to
come.
Implementing the new farm bill will require extensive rule making. In
fact, the farm bill calls for nearly 100 regulations. We have already
started our part of this process.
Getting rules in place quickly is important, because the farm bill includes
over $500 million in additional funding that we must put to work this summer.
We want to make the rules as simple as possible. We also want to make
the rule making process fully collaborative. And, we want to keep as much
decision making as possible at the local level, so that people at the local
level have as much control of the programs as possible.
Accomplishing the technical and administrative workload of the farm bill will
take hard work by USDA employees, our traditional partners, and many others.
The most direct way to say this is that the farm bill is so big, we need lots of
outside help to get the job done. We already have started filling in the
gaps in our field office structure -- gaps caused by retirements and normal
workforce turnover.
In addition, we have recently started hiring under the USDA Career Intern
Program. This program allows us to hire entry-level Professional and
Technical employees without advertisement. Right now, we are the only
agency using this special authority.
We have already hired about 50 employees under this authority. We will,
of course, be using current procedures to continue working with our partners.
Even so, we will have to rely heavily on third-party vendors to provide direct
technical assistance and to deliver conservation activities under the new farm
bill. The process of putting the third-arty vendor program in place is
proceeding on schedule.
The listening sessions we conducted across the country this spring, combined
with many meetings with stakeholder groups, have helped us find out what
producers and providers want from a third-party vendor program. At the
same time, our existing processes for using third-party vendors are helping us
expand the use of outside help, even while we are constructing the new program.
The rule for the third-party vendor program will appear in the federal register
this summer. The goal of the third-party vendor program is to use private
sector resources to help get the job done. Third-party vendors will not
replace NRCS employees.
NRCS will still have plenty to do, providing the service landowners have come
to expect, and fulfilling the inherent government responsibilities assigned to
our agency. Third-party vendors will be important because they will expand
our capabilities well beyond what we can do ourselves.
We will maintain the proud NRCS tradition of service. We have been, and
will continue to be, an agency that is all about service -- service to the land,
service to landowners, and service to America's taxpayers.
Members of the Society can help make the third-party vendor program work.
Some of you are potential third-party vendors. Others of you can talk to
your peers who want to be third-party vendors.
Our efforts to implement the farm bill are already pointing out the strengths
and challenges of the electronic age we live in. All of the material we
put on our web site becomes available instantaneously -- and simultaneously to
everyone -- our customers, our partners, and our employees.
This new speed of access is a powerful tool for reaching our customers, but
it also means we have to be quick to inform our partners and train our employees
before the questions start rolling in. I am proud to say, we are now
creating electronic Field Office Technical Guides that the state offices will
use to put their technical resources online. Soon, all of our conservation
practice standards and technical information will be available on the web -- to
employees, partners, third-party vendors, and -- eventually -- the public.
The advantage will be that the latest information will be instantly available
online. No waiting months -- or years -- for paper updates. Plus, no more
filing, manual updating, or even losing paper materials. The challenge is
that all of us who provide technical assistance will have to know and keep all
of this material up to date -- because the people we are advising will have
instant access to the same information. Anyone who fails to keep up
will not be regarded as an expert for very long.
We have at least one other electronic tool in place: e-forms.
Landowners can now go online to apply for most of our conservation programs.
To get started, the landowner applies for a personal identification number
online. Within a few days, the landowner's PIN arrives by mail, and then,
the landowner is ready to go. All it takes is to fill out an electronic
application form. The local service center accesses the form
electronically. That's it! No office visits, no mailing in
documents.
These electronic tools are available today because of decisions we made a few
years ago. The results of those decisions are ready now, just when we need them
most.
I assure you, we will be looking to the future to see what additional
technologies we will need during the life of the farm bill.
As we near the end of the Federal fiscal year, it is time to set priorities
for the next. Our priorities reflect much of what I have talked about this
morning. We will work hard to: implement the farm bill, implement
the President's management initiatives -- including expanding the use of
e-government, increase our outreach activities and workforce diversity and
strengthen our technical delivery system.
Before I overstay my welcome, I want to say a few words about how important
organizations like the Society are to the continued development of NRCS
employees and other natural resource professionals. NRCS is a
science-based agency. We are proud that America's farmers and ranchers
value and trust the quality of expertise within our Agency. Participation
in the Society and other professional organization is one way -- and I think a
very important way -- that man y of our employees use to develop and maintain
the professionalism that our customers value so much.
Now that we are expanding our use of technical experts outside of NRCS, the
existence of strong professional organizations is even more important. The
Society, and many other professional organizations, will help guarantee that
landowners have access to a reliable pool of technical expertise for planning
and executing conservation practices on their land.
The scientific knowledge fostered by the Society played an important role in
crating the new farm bill, and it will continue to play an important part in
implementing the farm bill.
I look forward to working closely with you in the years to come.
Thank you.
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