Washington Outlook.

Legislative debate on the 2002 Farm Bill came to a close in early May when Congress passed and President Bush signed the "Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002" (H.R. 2646).

Many in the media focused on the broad politics of the bill. Congressional leaders and the Administration ultimately supported great boosts in subsidy programs for farm-state commodity production during this election year, while support fur conservation programs fell far short of that hoped for by many in the environmental and conservation community. The Forestry Title provided new assistance and outreach programs to encourage nonindustrial private forest landowners to practice sustainable forestry.

Farm Bill discussions began in earnest in early 2001 as the House began moving its version and urging the Senate and the Administration to take swift action. The discussions' dynamics several times appeared to favor a major shift in Farm Bill spending away from price supports for commodity production and toward incentives for conservation actions.

A broad conservation amendment sponsored by Reps. Sherwood Boehler (NY) and Ron Kind (WI) posed a serious challenge to the House bill sponsored by Agriculture Committee leaders Larry Combest (TX) and Charles Stenholm (TX) before narrowly losing.

Despite this loss, momentum still seemed strong for a shift to greater conservation spending as Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman expressed the Administration's support for more emphasis on conservation, and the Senate leadership promised to direct more support to conservation. The Senate did increase conservation spending in its version of the bill, which passed in early 2002, but the momentum seemed to shift when House-Senate conferees began negotiating a final bill.

Election-year politics then took hold and attention turned to the economic plight of farmers and the importance of Midwestern farm states' votes. Like many others in the media, the Wall Street Journal characterized the final 10-year, $173.5 billion conference bill as a "farm-state pig-out."

Environmental Defense, a nonprofit that worked long and hard with a broad range of organizations to build support for increased conservation spending, finally decided "regretfully" to oppose final passage of the HouseSenate conference bill. Its letter states that the bill "will cause extensive overproduction of farm commodities" and "create lucrative subsidies for large farms that hurt family farmers."

Environmental Defense's letter also states that the bill devotes only 18 percent of overall payments-to-farmers to conservation programs. That's only about half as much as the #996 Farm Bill, which committed one-third of payments-to-farmers to conservation. The letter also notes that many key conservation reforms included in the Senate version of the bill were stripped out of the conference bill.

The Forestry Title of the Farm Bill (Title VIII) establishes three new programs directed toward the nation's private forests. The Forest Land Enhancement Program is a cooperative "federal, state, and local sustainable forestry program for the establishment, management, maintenance, enhancement, and restoration of forests on nonindustrial private forest land." The bill provides $100,000 for this program over its 6-year life through the Commodity Credit Corporation, a funding mechanism that does not requirc annual appropriations. The bill also repeals two existing cost-share programs: the Forestry Incentives Program and Stewardship Incentives Program.

The second new program is the Community and Private Land Fire Assistance Program, which promotes firefighting efficiency, augments federal landscape-level fire-protection projects, expands outreach to communities and landowners, and encourages defensible space around homes and properties. Implemented through state forestry organizations, this program seeks to enhance community fire protection through federal, state, and local cooperation under the National Fire Plan.

The third program, a "Sustainable Forestry Outreach Initiative," amends the Renewable Resources Extension Act and increases the funding authorization to $30 million to educate landowners about the benefits of sustainable forestry and the resources available to assist them.

A number of forestry provisions were dropped during final HouseSenate negotiations, most of which had been included in the Senate bill. These provisions are noteworthy as policy ideas that almost made it-or ideas whose time had not quite arrived. They included authorities for initiatives such as:

* Long-term stewardship contracting and a related biomass-energy grants program to help implement hazardous fuels reduction activities under the National Fire Plan.

* A competitive grants program to nonprofit organizations to support sustainable forestry cooperatives.

* A watershed forestry assistance program to improve public understanding of the relationship between water quality and forest management, enhance source-water protection in watersheds that provide drinking water, and address watershed issues through partnerships on nonfederal lands.

A "suburban and community forestry and open space initiative" to engage communities and carry out projects aimed at conserving private forests and maintaining working forests in suburban environments.

AMERICAN FORESTS developed a set of community forestry priorities for the Forestry Title during the summer of 2001 and shared them with congressional staff, interest groups, and agencies. Our priorities did not make their way into the bill, but we were asked by congressional staff to help with various provisions, especially those dealing with stewardship contracting and biomass energy.

These provisions, which were very important to a number of our rural community partners, became controversial particularly over the "scale" of expanded stewardship contracting authorities.

Conferees ultimately dropped the stewardship contracting and biomass energy provisions from the Forestry Title. We hope, however, that the intense debate heightened awareness of these authorities and that Congress will continue to talk with diverse interests to address the unresolved issues.

We hope that other forest policy ideas that did not make their into the Forestry Title will nevertheless benefit from the discussions and return for further development through future legislative vehicles.