April 15, 2008
index to previous eNotes
- Agriculture Secretary Addresses Agribusiness Club
- Farm Bill Conference Meets
- Save the Date: NACD Summer Board Meeting and Legislative Conference
- NACD Submits Wildfire Suppression Funding Testimony
- Landcare Approach Continues to Advance in the U.S.
- NACD Forges Ag Energy Partnership
- April is Month for Celebration of Our Earth—Celebrate Stewardship Week!
- New Districts on the Web
- NACD Calendar of Events
1. Agriculture Secretary Addresses Agribusiness Club
Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer, sworn in as the 29th Secretary of Agriculture earlier this year, addressed the Agribusiness Club of Washington last Thursday. During his remarks, the Secretary discussed the latest Farm Bill negotiations and the long process of reaching agreement on a bill. The Secretary also reiterated President Bush’s statement in support of a longer-term Farm Bill extension if a substantial agreement cannot be reached by April 18, 2008. The Agribusiness Club is an organization of agriculture associations, agri-businesses and food groups. NACD Director of Legislative Affairs Keira Franz currently serves as Club president.
2. Farm Bill Conference Meets
The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have started the official Farm Bill Conference process. The House and Senate Agriculture Committee staff had been meeting informally to craft a compromise bill with the House and Senate trading “framework” proposals. The House presented an offer during the first conference meeting last Thursday, and the Senate offered a counter proposal over the weekend. Members of the Conference met Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning and are scheduled to meet again Wednesday afternoon.
Still at issue is the funding source for certain tax-related provisions and funding for a permanent disaster program. As the Conference continues to work out these funding issues, Congress will need to pass another extension of the Farm Bill to allow negotiations to continue. The current Farm Bill extension expires April 18, 2008.
3. Save the Date: NACD Summer Board Meeting and Legislative Conference
Be sure to mark your calendar for NACD’s upcoming Board Meeting and Legislative Conference. The joint meeting will be held at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C. this summer. Board activities will take place July 19-20, 2008. The Legislative Conference will kick off with a reception on Sunday, July 20 and wrap up with NACD’s 2nd Annual Congressional Reception on Tuesday, July 22. Check out the draft agenda to scope out the full list of invited speakers. Meeting attendees will also have a chance to tour the Smithsonian Soils Exhibit within its first days of being open.
Include our Save the Date flyer in your next communication to your district or state board, reserve your hotel room and start making plans to bring your family along with you. If you plan accordingly, you can arrive in time to welcome Renovation Ride participants into D.C. on Friday, July 18 as they complete a 258 mile ride from Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania to raise money for NACD’s 509 Capitol Court Campaign.
Check http://www.nacdnet.org/events/legconference/ for more information. Hotel rooms can be reserved at the group rate of $219/night by calling (800) 321-3010 or (202) 628-2100 today.
4. NACD Submits Wildfire Suppression Funding Testimony
Wildfire suppression costs have grown enormously in the recent past and now account for nearly half of the Forest Service budget. As growing costs of wildfires exceed the agency’s budget allocation, the agency has to borrow funds from other accounts, such as State and Private Forestry, to fund wildfire suppression. As a result of this practice, programs important to conservation districts and private forest landowners become under-funded.
To address this issue of “fire-borrowing,” two bills have been introduced in the House: the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (HR 5541) and the Emergency Wildland Fire Response Act of 2008 (HR 5648). Both bills create a separate funding mechanism to alleviate the fire borrowing issue. The bills were the subject of a hearing last week before the House Natural Resources Committee, where there was widespread consensus that action was needed. NACD submitted written testimony for the record, which can be found at http://www.nacdnet.org/policy/input/testimony/wildfire_04-10-08.phtml.
The Committee has scheduled further action on the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enchantment Act for Thursday, April 17. NACD will continue to monitor this issue.
5. Landcare Approach Continues to Advance in the U.S.
NACD participated yesterday in a seminar on U.S. and Australian Landcare. The meeting was hosted by the USDA Council on Sustainable Development and was also attended by the National Association of Resource Conservation & Development Councils (NARC&Ds) and the National Association of Regional Councils (NARC).
The base concept of Landcare is people working together to take care of the land and related natural resources. The Landcare movement in the United States is still a developing concept in which NACD is actively involved. NACD, NARC&Ds and NARC entered into a Memo of Understanding (MOU) two years ago to advance the Landcare concept in the U.S. See http://www.landcarecentral.org for more information and continued coverage on this topic as it evolves.
6. NACD Forges Ag Energy Partnership
NACD recently signed a letter of partnership with EnSave, Inc. with the intent to develop programs that advance the conservation mission for both EnSave and NACD. The partnership between conservation districts and EnSave will focus on agriculture energy issues, and will include the development and promotion of energy conservation, energy efficiency and resource conservation activities. Examples of joint activities currently under discussion include energy audit services for districts and their producer customers, energy audit data collection training, energy-related technical assistance and more. For more information about EnSave, see their website at http://www.ensave.com/. Questions about the partnership can be directed to Brad Ross at Brad-Ross@nacdnet.org.
7. April is Month for Celebration of Our Earth—Celebrate Stewardship Week!
April is a month filled with celebrations of our Earth’s natural resources with Earth Day on April 22 and Arbor Day on April 25. These two days of celebration have a long history; celebration of Arbor Day began in 1872 and Earth Day in 1970. But these days are not the only note-worthy observances of nature in April.
For more than 50 years, NACD has sponsored a national program to encourage Americans to focus on stewardship of the land and our natural resources: Stewardship Week. The program relies on locally-led conservation districts sharing and promoting stewardship and conservation activities. While the program encourages good stewardship year round, Stewardship Week is officially celebrated from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in May. The dates for 2008 Stewardship week are April 27 – May 4, 2008. This year’s theme is “Water is Life.”
Be sure to join forces with local events in your community to spread the word of conservation and the efforts of your conservation district. Visit http://www.nacdnet.org/stewardship/ for more information.
8. New Districts on the Web
To help visitors to the NACD website locate their local conservation districts, NACD maintains a “Districts on the Web” section at http://www.nacdnet.org/about/districts/websites/. Listed below are the latest conservation district websites to be added to the state lists.
If your district’s website is not listed on your state’s “District’s on the Web” page, contact NACD Communications Associate, Mary Hammon at mary-hammon@nacdnet.org to have it added.
9. NACD Calendar of Events
May 14-17, 2008 Executive Directors’ Conference, Saratoga, WY
June 8-10, NACD Northern Plains Region Leaders Meeting, Nebraska City, NE
July 18-23, NACD Summer Board Meeting and Legislative Conference, Washington, D.C.
August 3-5, Northeast Region Meeting, Portsmouth, NH
August 10-12, Southeast Region Meeting, Biloxi, MS
August 21-23, South Central Region Meeting, Hot Springs, AR
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