Conservation Security Program

ACTION ALERT!
PLEASE CALL TODAY!
February 10, 2003

THE CONSERVATION SECURITY PROGRAM IS UNDER
ATTACK

An unprecedented alliance of farmers and conservationists allied
during the last farm bill to pass the innovative new Conservation
Security Program (CSP). This program was designed to reward
farmers on working land who wanted to make environmental
improvements. Today, certain members of congress are
threatening to make the CSP a one state (Iowa only) pilot
program. This will leave farmers and ranchers in the other 49
states ineligible for this landmark program.

Your calls are needed immediately! If your congressional
representative is listed below, please take a moment to contact
them TODAY! Ask him or her to protect the Conservation
Security Program as a program available nationwide, including in
[YOUR STATE]. They will be meeting tonight (Monday February
9) to decide the fate of the CSP.

If you are calling a Senator, ask him or her to contact Senator
Cochran of Mississippi, chairman of agricultural appropriations
subcommittee, urging him to keep CSP a nationwide program. If
you are calling a Representative, ask him or her to contact
Congressman Bonilla of Texas, chairman of agricultural
appropriations subcommittee, urging him to keep CSP a
nationwide program.

It's easy to contact Members of Congress: Call the Capitol
Switchboard at 202-225-3121 and ask for any Senator or
Representative listed above if you are his or her consitutent.
When the call is transferred, ask for the legislative aid covering
appropriations for agriculture. Give that aid the message. If you
get voice mail, leave the message on the tape. If you cannot
speak to the aid directly, leave your message with the
receptionist and ask that the message get delivered to the

SENATE
Specter (PA)
Bond (MO)
Gregg (NH)
Campbell (Co)
Craig (ID)
DeWine (OH)
Domenci (NM)

HOUSE
Walsh (NY)
Sweeney (NY)
Emerson (MO)
Kingston (GA)
Nethercutt (WA)
Lewis (CA)
LaHood (IL)
Kirk (IL)
Tiahart (KS)
Frelinghuysen (NJ)
Sherwood (PA)
Regula (OH)
Hobson (OH)
Knollenberg (MI)
Kolbe (AZ)
Crenshaw (FL)
Weldon (FL)
Northup (KY)
Taylor (NC)

BACKGROUND

The Conservation Security Program is a new comprehensive
stewardship incentives ("green payments") program that provides
financial and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers
nationwide to reward them for conservation efforts that promote
public benefits such as clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat, and
long-term soil quality and productivity. Sadly, the House
appropriations committee has proposed limiting CSP to the state
of Iowa. We seek full funding for the CSP as a national
entitlement program as specified by Congress in the 2002 Farm
Bill passed just last year. If you are a constituent of Senator
Thad Cochran (R-MS) or Congressman Henry Bonilla (R-
23rd/TX), please call him TODAY and ask that he fights to keep
the Conservation Security Program a national program.