House conservation panel hears case to fold unobligated IRA conservation dollars into farm bill baseline

Members of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation Research and Biotechnology spent a major portion of a Wednesday hearing pressing to convert remaining, unobligated Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) conservation funding into long‑term baseline support for existing farm bill programs.

The subcommittee’s witnesses and leaders argued the move would provide stable, predictable funding for voluntary, locally led programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). "The Inflation Reduction Act require that funding provided by the law for conservation programs could only be used for climate related practices, thereby restricting funding for many other practices otherwise eligible under the program," Chairman Thompson said during the hearing. "By doing so, we, we will have eliminated the climate sideboards and returned the funding to meet an important…