Most of Iowa remains parched this week, with triple-digit high temperatures and not enough rain in the extended forecast. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced new steps yesterday to help farmers and ranchers facing the worst drought in decades. Details are after the jump, along with related news involving members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation.

A USDA press release of July 23 spelled out the new policies designed to help farmers and ranchers. Excerpt:

The assistance announced uses the Secretary of Agriculture’s existing authority to help create and encourage flexibility within four USDA programs: the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), and the Federal Crop Insurance Program.

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)

To assist farmers and ranchers affected by drought, Vilsack is using his discretionary authority to allow additional acres under CRP to be used for haying or grazing under emergency conditions. CRP is a voluntary program that provides producers annual rental payments on their land in exchange for planting resource conserving crops on cropland to help prevent erosion, provide wildlife habitat and improve the environment. CRP acres can already be used for emergency haying and grazing during natural disasters to provide much needed feed to livestock. Given the widespread nature of this drought, forage for livestock is already substantially reduced. The action today will allow lands that are not yet classified as “under severe drought” but that are “abnormally dry” to be used for haying and grazing. This will increase available forage for livestock. Haying and grazing will only be allowed following the local primary nesting season, which has already passed in most areas. Especially sensitive lands such as wetlands, stream buffers and rare habitats will not be eligible.

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)

To assist farmers and ranchers affected by drought, Vilsack is using his discretionary authority to provide assistance to farmers and ranchers by allowing them to modify current EQIP contracts to allow for prescribed grazing, livestock watering facilities, water conservation and other conservation activities to address drought conditions. EQIP is a voluntary program that provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers on their land to address natural resource concerns on agricultural and forest land. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will work closely with producers to modify existing EQIP contracts to ensure successful implementation of planned conservation practices. Where conservation activities have failed because of drought, NRCS will look for opportunities to work with farmers and ranchers to re-apply those activities. In the short term, funding will be targeted towards hardest hit drought areas.

Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP)

To assist farmers and ranchers affected by drought, Vilsack is using his discretionary authority to authorize haying and grazing of WRP easement areas in drought-affected areas where such haying and grazing is consistent with conservation of wildlife habitat and wetlands. WRP is a voluntary conservation easement program that provides technical and financial assistance to agricultural producers to restore and protect valuable wetland resources on their property. For producers with land currently enrolled in WRP, NRCS has expedited its Compatible Use Authorization (CUA) process to allow for haying and grazing. The compatible use authorization process offers NRCS and affected producers with the management flexibility to address short-term resource conditions in a manner that promotes both the health of the land and the viability of the overall farming operation.

Federal Crop Insurance Program

To help producers who may have cash flow problems due to natural disasters, USDA will encourage crop insurance companies to voluntarily forego charging interest on unpaid crop insurance premiums for an extra 30 days, to November 1, 2012, for spring crops. Policy holders who are unable to pay their premiums in a timely manner accrue an interest penalty of 1.25 percent per month until payment is made. In an attempt to help producers through this difficult time, Vilsack sent a letter to crop insurance companies asking them to voluntarily defer the accrual of any interest on unpaid spring crop premiums by producers until November. In turn, to assist the crop insurance companies, USDA will not require crop insurance companies to pay uncollected producer premiums until one month later.

Thus far in 2012, USDA has designated 1,297 counties across 29 states as disaster areas, making all qualified farm operators in the areas eligible for low-interest emergency loans. Increasingly hot and dry conditions from California to Delaware have damaged or slowed the maturation of crops such as corn and soybeans, as well as pasture- and range-land. Vilsack has instructed USDA subcabinet leaders to travel to affected areas to augment ongoing assistance from state-level USDA staff and provide guidance on the department’s existing disaster resources. To deliver assistance to those who need it most, the Secretary recently reduced the interest rate for emergency loans from 3.75 percent to 2.25 percent, while lowering the reduction in the annual rental payment to producers on CRP acres used for emergency haying or grazing from 25 percent to 10 percent. Vilsack has also simplified the Secretarial disaster designation process and reduced the time it takes to designate counties affected by disasters by 40 percent.

Earlier this month Representative Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03), a longtime cattle farmer, called on the USDA “to lift restrictions on farmland set aside for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in order to help aid livestock producers coping with Iowa’s increasingly severe drought conditions.” Yesterday Boswell’s office announced that he and Representative Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02) are seeking to extend disaster programs from the last farm bill:

Boswell Co-Introduces Legislation to Ensure Disaster Aid for Producers Facing Historic Drought

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Leonard Boswell (IA-3) today co-introduced legislation with fellow Iowa Congressman Dave Loebsack that would extend agriculture disaster programs from the 2008 Farm Bill, which expired last year.

“Farmers and ranchers throughout the country are suffering under this unrelenting drought and we cannot wait around any longer to see how politics will play out with a new farm bill,” Boswell said. “Our producers are requiring immediate action on the part of Congress to provide them with some necessary relief from these disaster conditions and quell this uncertainty on whether these aid programs will continue to be funded. I’m proud to partner with my friend and fellow Iowan, Congressman Dave Loebsack, on this important legislation.”

The Agricultural Disaster Assistance Act, which is similar to legislation introduced by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), will extend the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program (SURE), Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), Livestock Disaster Forage Program (LFP), Tree Assistance Program (TAP), and Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) temporarily through 2012. This is intended to help our farmers and livestock producers with drought losses beyond insurance until a new farm bill is signed into law.

Meanwhile, all five U.S. House members from Iowa have urged House leaders to bring up a new farm bill for a vote before the August recess:

July 20, 2012

Dear Speaker Boehner, Leader Pelosi, Majority Leader Cantor, and Minority Whip Hoyer,

           We are writing today to request quick consideration of a multi-year farm bill on the House floor. As you know, the House Agriculture Committee favorably reported a bipartisan bill last week that is prepared for quick floor action. The need to extend assistance for farmers gets more urgent every day, given the worsening drought that is blanketing more than half the country.

Just like millions of small businesses across the country, farmers need certainty and confidence in the federal programs that affect their lives. In the United States some sixteen million jobs depend on the success of American agriculture, and the Farm Bill has a huge impact in our home state of Iowa. Agriculture and related industries account for one in six jobs in Iowa and contributes $72 billion into the state’s economy annually. Failure to quickly pass a farm bill will have a devastating impact on our constituents and the agriculture industry across the country.

As the agriculture industry across the country faces the worst drought in decades, we’re particularly concerned that failure to act on a farm bill quickly could only exacerbate the current challenges faced by thousands of farmers. Much of the disaster assistance funding in the 2008 Farm Bill has already expired, leaving many farmers without a safety net this year. Without action prior to September 30, the bill’s remaining programs will expire reverting to laws passed under the outdated 1949 Farm Bill. It is vital that we get a Farm Bill passed out of the House prior to the August recess.

Farmers feed our nation, and we need to make sure to provide them the tools they need so that they can continue to deliver safe, affordable food to the table. Every American has a stake in this bill.

Please do what you can to bring forward the multi-year Farm Bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee. We stand prepared to work with you in a bipartisan manner to accomplish this goal.

Sincerely,

Bruce Braley

Tom Latham

Leonard Boswell

Steve King

Dave Loebsack

The U.S. Senate passed its version of a new farm bill in late June. Both Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic Senator Tom Harkin voted for the legislation. The House Agriculture Committee approved its draft farm bill on July 12 with members of both parties among its supporters and opponents. Boswell and King serve on that committee and both voted for advancing the farm bill.

If the House approves that legislation in the near future, a conference committee would likely be named to work out a compromise between the House and Senate approaches to extending agriculture and nutrition programs. For instance, the House bill cuts the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as food stamps) and more severely than the Senate bill does.

In all of the public comments on the drought by Secretary Vilsack or members of Congress from Iowa, one point is noticeably absent. No one wants to discuss climate change as a broader cause of this year’s extreme weather, nor is anyone calling for policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of the government’s response to the disaster. Rick Piltz noted at the Climate Science Watch blog that Vilsack has evaded questions about the connection between climate change and the drought. From Vilsack’s White House briefing of July 18:

Q Could you talk a little bit about the drought itself? Is it very unusual? Did anyone see it coming? Is it from climate change? Is there anything you can do to prepare?

SECRETARY VILSACK: I’m not a scientist so I’m not going to opine as to the cause of this. All we know is that right now there are a lot of farmers and ranchers who are struggling. And it’s important and necessary for them to know, rather than trying to focus on what’s causing this, what can we do to help them. And what we can do to help them is lower interest rates, expand access to grazing and haying opportunities, lower the penalties associated with that, and encourage Congress to help and work with us to provide additional assistance. And that’s where our focus is.

Long term, we will continue to look at weather patterns, and we’ll continue to do research and to make sure that we work with our seed companies to create the kinds of seeds that will be more effective in dealing with adverse weather conditions.

It’s one of the reasons — because they have done that, it’s one of the reasons why we’re still uncertain as to the impact of this drought in terms of its bottom line because some seeds are drought-resistant and drought-tolerant, and it may be that the yields in some cases are better than we’d expected because of the seed technology. […]

Q Mr. Secretary, I want to follow through on the climate change question. Is there any long-range thinking at the Department that — you had the wildfires and the heat wave and the rise in sea levels, and now this drought — that there’s something more going on here than just one year of a bad crop, and you need more than better seeds, maybe do something about climate change?

SECRETARY VILSACK: Our focus, to be honest with you, in a situation like this is on the near term and the immediate, because there’s a lot of pressure on these producers. You take the dairy industry, for example. We’ve lost nearly half of our dairy producers in the last 10 years. They were just getting back to a place where there was profitability and now they’re faced with some serious issues and, again, no assistance in terms of disaster assistance.

So that’s our near-term focus. Long term, we obviously are engaged in research projects; we’re obviously working with seed companies. Don’t discount the capacity of the seed companies. These technologies do make a difference. And it’s one of the reasons why, at least based on the yields today, we’re looking at potentially the third largest corn crop in our history. Now, that may be adjusted downward, it may be adjusted upward — depends on the rain, depends on circumstances. But even with the difficulties we’re experiencing, we’re still looking at a pretty good crop as of today. Tomorrow it could change, obviously.

That’s the Tom Vilsack I remember as governor: a cheerleader for biotech who’s not concerned about climate change. Appearing on the Marketplace program on July 19, Vilsack dodged a similar question about what might be causing the drought:

Hobson: Mr. Secretary, I want to ask you one more question before I let you go. This is — as you said – the worst drought in decades, the first half of this year, according to the government, was the hottest in 118 years of record keeping across the country, the U.K. just had its wettest June since records began there. Is it the view of the U.S. government that this is climate change?

Vilsack: Well, I’m not an expert on climate change so it probably wouldn’t be appropriate for me to respond specifically to that question. My focus and I think the focus of the USDA and the president, right now is on making sure that we get help to these folks, making sure, for example, that people know that they got to contact their insurance agent, if they have crop insurance, that they may have a damaged crop so that they won’t lose rights under their policy, that’s our focus.

It’s not to trying to figure out, today, what may be causing this or what may be impacting it. We know it is impacting farmers and ranchers. Our hearts go out to their families and these hard working folks. We just want to be able to provide them some help and assistance.

Although Braley, Loebsack, and Boswell all voted for the 2009 climate change bill, none of them have mentioned climate change recently as a factor in the drought conditions. Democratic State Senator Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids is one of the few Iowa politicians willing to connect those dots. From his July 6 newsletter to constituents:

There is a lot of news currently about whether the hot weather and drought we are experiencing in Iowa and across our country is related to global warming.  As someone who has watched this issue closely for more than 20 years, there is no question that since the 1980s, climate scientists have predicted-with increasing certainty-that there would be more frequent and more severe disasters due to global warming and its resulting climatic changes.

For example, in 2009, the leaders of 18 American professional scientific organizations stated: “For the United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of extreme weather events, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems throughout the country.”

In 2011, the United States experienced 14 billion-dollar disasters at a cost of more than $52 billion, or more than $160 per American.  Climate-related disasters in Iowa in 2011 included flooding along the Missouri River, storms in Benton County and other nearby counties, and record rainfall in Dubuque and northeast Iowa.

In 2012, the United States has experienced more disasters: wildfires in New Mexico and Colorado, record rains in Duluth, Minnesota, record rains from Tropical Storm Debby, and thousands of record highs and severe drought in much of the country.

Earlier this year, 44 scientists from 28 colleges and universities in Iowa stated that changes in Iowa’s climate have “clear connections” to rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and changes in the global climate.

Here’s the point: even though not every disaster is caused by climate change, there is no question that climate-related disasters are happening.  Climate change from greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use is a reality, and it will continue to get worse until we stop and reverse the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

This does not mean that every day will be hotter than the previous day.  But it does mean increasingly unusual weather and more frequent and more severe disasters.

Ignoring this issue will not make it go away, and it won’t make our economy any better.  Iowans can lead the way to convince our fellow Americans to take action on this issue – to reduce fossil fuel use, to prepare for and prevent future disasters, and to help victims of disasters, regardless of their cause.  Taking climate action is not only the right thing to do, it will also help create jobs now and in the future.

Climate action is something that should unite all Iowans in an effort to help our fellow citizens and future generations.