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.