Going Beyond the Status Quo

Remarks by Bruce Knight, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service,
at the NRCS National Leadership Team Meeting

Reno, NV
March 30, 2005


Welcome to the National Leadership Team meeting.

This meeting is being held in conjunction with the Special Emphasis Program Managers’ training. This is only the second time the Special Emphasis Program Managers have had a national meeting, and I’m glad you are all here to lend your support. It is good to have Mark Rey with us today and to talk with us this afternoon.

This meeting will be much more of a nuts and bolts session than our last one. But it will focus on important things we need to be doing to get the most conservation done as we can under the 2002 farm bill and demonstrate results in time for deliberations over the 2007 farm bill.

One great communications tool we have this year is our 70th anniversary. You saw a rough cut of our video, “A Partner in Conservation since 1935,” at our last NLT meeting. We showed a more polished version at the NACD annual meeting in Atlanta last month. The final will be arriving in the State offices soon, in time for the national celebration, which will be the last week of April.

This anniversary year is an appropriate time to remind everyone about the importance of voluntary, science-based, locally led conservation. I hope every State will make use of this opportunity to tell the conservation message.


Personnel Announcements

At USDA, Mike Johanns has been in place as the new secretary of agriculture for six weeks. Mack Gray has retired once again. Gary Margheim is acting Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment. That assignment is a prelude to his own retirement next month. I miss Mack, and I will miss Gary.

In the Office of the Chief, Dave Gagner is acting as head of the Strategic Natural Resource Issues Staff. We have three new members on my staff: Raegan Weber, Rhodes Miller, and Will Rue. You may hear from them from time to time.

In the States, Robert Jones will be State Conservationist in Alaska, replacing Shirley Gammon, who has moved on to the Bureau of Land Management. Febe Ortiz was acting.
Terry Cosby will be the State Conservationist in Ohio, replacing Kevin Brown. Dot Harris was acting. Ron Hilliard, who was acting State Conservationist in West Virginia, will be permanent effective May 1. Lillian Woods is now the National Technology Support Coordinator in Science and Technology in Washington, D.C.,

Ed Burton, State Conservationist in Wyoming, is serving as Acting State Conservationist in California. Chuck Bell retired. George Cleek is acting in Wyoming. Larry Yamamoto is now Director of the Pacific Basin Area, in addition to State Conservationist in Hawaii. Larry has expanded from an island paradise to an ocean empire! And David Doss is retiring this week in Maryland, after more than 43 years of Federal service.

In the National Office Divisions, Bill Puckett is permanent as Deputy Chief for Soil Science and Resource Assessment, Kevin Brown is permanent as the Director of the Financial Assistance Programs Division, and Leonard Jordan is permanent as the Director of the Easement Programs Division.


Budget

Since the last time we met, the President has released his 2006 budget proposal. The proposal maintains a high level of commitment to funding conservation. It continues to build on the conservation legacy established in the President’s first term. It includes $3.8 billion to continue implementation of farm bill programs.


Accomplishments

I want to thank you all again for your hard work last year. We have come up with Performance data to show everyone how much conservation is getting done. I gave a preview of this information at the NACD meeting in Atlanta. Since then, we have posted the information on our web site, and it is stirring up quite a bit of interest around the government.

Financial Assistance Programs --

EQIP
• Financial assistance to producers: nearly $720 million
• More than 46,000 participants
• 62.6 percent of EQIP funds were associated with livestock concerns

WHIP
• More than $27 million
• More than 3,000 contracts
• 430,000 acres

CSP
• 18 watersheds in 22 States
• Nearly 2,200 contracts
• $35 million in contracts
• Nearly 2 million acres

Easement Programs –

WRP
• $274 million
• More than 1,000 contracts
• Close to 200,000 acres
– Overall, we were at 92 percent of our wetlands target.
– Need to do more to meet the President’s goal of 3 million acres
– Louisiana was the top State with 94 easements.
– Approved the first two Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Program projects -- one in Nebraska and one in Minnesota.

FRPP
• $88 million
• More than 550 easements
• Nearly 115,000 acres

GRP
• Implemented the program in 2004
• $56 million
• More than 1,000 projects
• 283,000 acres


Agenda Items

There are a few items on our agenda that I would like to highlight

Cooperative Conservation

Gary Margheim is heading up a session on Cooperative Conservation, an initiative launched by presidential executive order last summer. We had a joint news conference in Washington in February to talk about the progress the Federal government is making in cooperative cooperation. The order instructs Federal departments and agencies to enter into conservation partnerships and to empower local participation in programs and projects that protect and conserve natural resources and the environment.

We will be participating late this summer in a White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation to bring together a wide range of interested parties to strengthen conservation partnerships.

Strategic Planning Initiative

We’ll hear from Dick Coombe, Kathy Gugulis, and Chris Tippie about our strategic planning initiative. Given the challenges ahead of us, we must have a vibrant strategic planning process. As we wrap up farm bill implementation and farm bill rules, we need to approach the next farm bill with a new, vital strategic plan in place. NACD will assist us by helping bring in our partners to assure a strong, locally led process that will help build the conservation effort of the future.

CTA allocation Formula team

We will also be hearing from Tony Kramer about the work of the Conservation Technical Assistance Program allocation Formula Team. Tony’s team of State Conservationists is working on recommendations as to how to do CTA allocations in the future.

We have used an historical approach to allocating CTA. I doubt that this is the best approach. CTA Program resources need to be directed to accomplish program priorities. We probably need a new approach, based more on natural resource conservation needs.

The work of this team is an important part of our effort to bring more accountability to the CTA Program and to help government decision makers better understand – and place greater value on – CTA. Demonstrating this degree of accountability is crucial to the future of CTA – and the success of our agency in the long run.

CSP Second Year

We will also be hearing from Carole Jett about this year’s Conservation Security Program. As you know, we are now in the enrollment period for CSP and in the comment period for the final rule.

Expanding the program from 18 watersheds in 22 States to 220 watersheds in all 50 States and the Caribbean Area is quite a challenge. How well we meet that challenge will play a large part in how CSP fares in the 2007 farm bill.

New Model EEO Program

Another agenda item I’d like to mention is the new model EEO program that Andrew Johnson will be telling us about. The Special Emphasis Program managers are going over this model program in more detail during their meeting. I talked a bit about it yesterday when I opened their session.


Communications

Before I finish, I want to mention a couple of communications items.

At the last NLT meeting, you heard from the consultants who are doing our communications assessment. They told you about an all-employee survey they would be conducting. That survey is almost upon us. I would like all of you to do everything you can to encourage your employees to participate in this survey. It is quick easy and on-line.

Speaking of quick easy and on line, I hope all of you have been using the new NRCS calendar on my.NRCS. It is a valuable source of information about events of interest to NRCS managers and employees.

I think we will be ready later this week to announce the ability of States to post their events directly to the calendar. We will put out instructions on using this new feature of the calendar as soon as it is available.

We are also sending out a poster to the States in hard copy and posting it on the web for your offices to use in making more employees aware of the my.NRCS in general and the new calendar feature in particular. Please urge your offices to place the poster in an area where employees will see it.


Conclusion

In conclusion, let me say that we are in a good position to continue the gains in conservation that we have made over the past few years. But we also face major challenges. The status quo will not do the job!!!

We have record budgets for conservation, but the need for conservation continues to grow. Given present budgetary constraints, it is likely that the growth in the Federal investment in conservation will level off.

We will need to demonstrate our effectiveness to maintain and build on the existing support for conservation. And we will need to be creative to come up with new technologies, new program efficiencies, and new partnerships to get more conservation done with the money we have.

If we work together and work creatively, we will be able to maintain and build on the high levels we have attained under the 2002 farm bill:


Chief’s Cup Presentation

And now, I would like to take a moment to present an award -- The Earth Team National Volunteer Service Award – known as the Chief’s Cup. Each year, I present this award to the State that most creatively uses volunteers to meet the mission of NRCS.

This year, the award goes to Kentucky. The Earth Team Volunteer Program enhances the landscape of Kentucky in many ways. Some of the efforts in Kentucky include community leaders building outdoor classrooms, youth working in NRCS offices to develop job skills and career choices while providing clerical and conservation planning support, Limited resource farmers working as Earth Team Volunteers conducting warm season grasses demonstration field days for other limited resource farmers, university students earning course credit hours working as volunteer resource/soil conservationists and soil scientists, FFA Classes and 4-H members working with tree seedling bagging and collecting water from streams for water monitoring, retired soil scientist surveying and gathering soil samples and training new soil scientists.

I would like to congratulate David Sawyer on the fine job the Earth Team is doing in Kentucky.