From today's release:

WASHINGTON, March 25 - Senate Budget committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) announced yesterday he would reject President Obama's plan to cut billions in crop subsidy payments that flow mostly to large profitable farm operations and wealthy landowners.

Instead, according to a March 24 report by Charles Abbott of Reuters news service, Conrad said he would slash several other programs, among them, two conservation programs that are critical to winning the fight against global warming.

The conservation programs on Conrad's chopping block help farmers reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions and also engage in practices that take carbon out of the air and store it in the soil. Moreover, these programs help farmers protect their land and the environment from the more frequent floods, droughts, and severe weather blamed on global warming.

"Farmers must be on the front lines in the fight against global warming," said Craig Cox, Environmental Working Group Midwest Vice-President. "There is a lot at stake in this fight, not only for U.S. agriculture but also for the rest of us who benefit from smart agriculture practices. "

Congress had already cut the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) by 20 percent this year, and 3 million more acres have recently been removed from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

"Senator Conrad is proposing to take us in exactly the wrong direction by refusing to reform the abuses that funnel billions in taxpayer dollars to large profitable farm operations and wealthy landowners while cutting programs that fight global warming," said Cox.

Conservation programs are chronically under-funded and deserve more federal support, not less.

- Congress has repeatedly appropriated far less for EQIP than they promised to provide in the 2002 and 2008 farm bills; $692 million less than promised in the 2002 bill and already $270 million less than promised in the 2008 bill.

- The latest data available from the U.S. Agriculture department (USDA) shows that North Dakota received nearly $5 billion in commodity crop subsidies between 1995 and 2006.

- Reform of farm subsidy programs enjoys widespread support across America. During the last farm bill debate there were over 450 editorials calling for farm subsidy reform. A poll commissioned by Oxfam America found that that more than six in 10 voters in those districts polled supported farm subsidy reform and a commodity payment system that would provide more benefits to small family farmers who need the help most.

- According to the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS), average farm household income has exceeded average U.S .household income every year since 1996 - 27.5 percent higher in 2007 alone.

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From today's EWG report release:

More Than 40,000 Farmers Denied Funds to Reduce Pollution From Their Farms

WASHINGTON - September 9, 2008. Behind the thin green gloss Congressional leaders spread across the subsidy-laden 2008 farm bill, the Democratic Congress is now hacking away at pledges to expand conservation and other environmental programs.

Data analyzed by the Environmental Working Group show that Congress is trying to roll back funding increases in critical conservation and environmental programs, funding pledged in the farm law passed just weeks ago.

Today, Craig Cox, EWG Midwest Vice-President, released the report: Congress Poised to Cut Conservation Funds that Aided Farm Bill's Passage, from EWG's new Midwest office in Ames, IA.

When the farm bill became law on June 18, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi boasted that it would represent "historic new investments" in programs to protect water quality and wildlife. Those investments helped mute the opposition of many in Congress and some interest groups, who objected to the bill's continuation of hefty subsidies to large, wealthy farm operators now earning record incomes in the ongoing commodity boom.

But within weeks of the farm bill's passage, the Senate appropriations committee sent to the Senate floor a spending bill (S.3289) that would slash conservation measures by $331 million in fiscal year 2009.

Commodity subsidies that provide billions to the richest farmers each year remained untouched.

For every $10,000 in crop subsidies Congress sends to the most heavily polluting counties in the Corn Belt, just one dollar is spent on conservation. In the 124 counties that cause 40% of spring nitrate fertilizer pollution, the ratio between subsidies and conservation spending is 500 to one.

"With cuts like this year after year, it's no wonder that agriculture is the number one source of water pollution in the nation. Democrats in Congress are using bait and switch tactics with conservation funding. This practice mirrors a longstanding Republican tradition of broken promises where pledges to increase money for environmental programs are followed by systematic and dramatic cuts that have left conservation programs billions short over the past decade," said Craig Cox, EWG Midwest Vice-President.

Go to http://www.ewg.org/reports/conservationcuts for the full report.

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