Take your seats for the '95 farm bill
Excerpt
Predicting what might happen with conservation and the environment in the next farm bill is very difficult, and what seems obvious this year may be unlikely next. Remember the pundits who virtually guaranteed George Bush's reelection after Desert Storm, 18 months before the 1992 presidential election. But for this part of the farm bill, three things are almost certain. First, attention will center on reauthorizing the CRP.
Second, if a Clean Water Act reauthorization has not passed, the farm bill will contain significant water quality provisions in order to steal the march on stronger environmental provisions.
Third, budgets and staff reductions will constrain what is possible, regardless of new and changed mandates, and promotional pronouncements of “can—do” to the contrary.
We will also see a broad mix of ideas and approaches discussed-and many of those will be authorized. Easements, the green ticket, and innovative ways to extend CRP contracts hint at the contents of the suggestion box. In addition to traditional themes like voluntary approaches and avoiding regulation, some of the newer phrases will …
Footnotes
Jeffrey Zinn is M senior analyst with the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.
- Copyright 1994 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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