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Advocates Alert 4/25/2008: Promising News on the Easement Incentive in the Farm Bill

Your efforts to persuade the House of Representatives to include the conservation tax incentive in the Farm Bill are working! We still need your help to seal the deal as House-Senate negotiations continue under a new one-week extension.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) was quoted yesterday as saying that a two-year extension of the conservation easement incentive was among the items the conferees on tax items have “agreed to.”  We have similar reports from both House and Senate staff.

But "agreed to" has some wrinkles:

• While both House and Senate conferees say they are "close" to a deal on tax issues, close doesn't count.  Some tax issues are still undecided, and a final decision on any of these might require the conferees to re-jigger their current deal.  The Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader are supposed to sort some of these issues out.  No word yet on how that is going.
• Even if there is agreement on the tax issues, it only works if there is agreement among the House, the Senate and the President on the overall Farm Bill, including specific cuts to farm subsidies, as well as a host of more detailed issues.  No Farm Bill = no tax provisions.
• The lack of a new Farm Bill would also mean no solutions to land trust and landowner problems with the Farmland Protection Program, no new funding for the Grassland Reserve Program and big cuts to other conservation programs.

Please keep talking to your Representatives and their staff about the importance of the conservation tax incentives in the bill, thank them for their help and ask them to do whatever they can to see that a new Farm Bill is passed that includes the tax incentive and new conservation funding.

We will learn more about the fate of the easement incentive and funding levels for farm bill conservation programs early next week. Stay tuned for more news and materials to help spread the word.

Thanks for helping.

Russ Shay                               Lynne Sherrod                           Sean Robertson
Director of Public Policy            Western Policy Manager            Public Policy Specialist 
Land Trust Alliance                   Land Trust Alliance                    Land Trust Alliance
rshay@lta.org                          lsherrod@lta.org                        srobertson@lta.org  
202-638-4725 x305                   970-245-0439                            202-638-4725 x319

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