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Conservation districts warn freeze on federal cooperative agreements, cut NRCS payment rates hurt on‑the‑ground work
Summary
Conservation‑district representatives told the Senate committee that a pause on new USDA NRCS cooperative agreements and steep cuts to national payment rates have removed field capacity, stranded forestry and water projects, and reduced technical assistance for farmers and towns.
Michelle Monroe, speaking for Vermont’s conservation districts, told the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee that recent federal actions are constraining the on‑the‑ground conservation workforce.
Monroe said cooperative agreements that let districts embed staff inside USDA NRCS offices have been paused and are not being extended, removing a long‑standing source of technical capacity. She said districts currently employ planners and foresters through these agreements and that recent freezes and funding delays have led to staff losses and reduced the ability to carry projects through design and construction.
Monroe detailed changes to NRCS national payment rates that, she said, lower reimbursements for many conservation practices. She provided a forestry example: contracts that were expected to pay about $1,600 per acre over multiple years had been reduced to roughly $90 per acre in the new schedule, a difference she described as severe enough to pull projects out of the pipeline. She said some conservation payment rates for practices such as tree‑planting stems dropped from a reported $40 per stem to $13 per stem in the new rates, and that farmers were deciding not to proceed when the payment no longer covered the cost.
Monroe also warned that the loss of a targeted $8 million state financial assistance package (designed for flood mitigation, clean water and wildlife habitat) plus a $2.7 million technical‑assistance allocation left foresters and other technical partners without funding; she said more than 90 forestry applications were stranded after the technical assistance tranche was cut.
The witness urged the Legislature to be aware that the federal Office of Management and Budget review of cooperative agreements is constraining local capacity, that NRCS payment‑rate changes are having immediate field consequences, and that state supplemental support or flexible technical assistance funding could be required to prevent project collapse.
Senators asked follow‑up questions about what county foresters and state programs can pick up and what short‑term state responses might help bridge the gap while federal processes are resolved.
