Soil and Wetlands Conservation

In 1985, Congress created the conservation compliance program to reduce soil erosion and the swampbuster program to prevent the conversion of wetlands to new cropland. The Agriculture Department's Soil Conservation Service (SCS) manages these programs through more than 3,000 field offices at the state and county levels. Although SCS has made considerable progress in placing millions of acres under these environmental programs, Office of Inspector General evaluations have urged SCS to improve (1) the quality of farmers' conservation plans and its decisions identifying wetlands, (2) its related enforcement activities, and (3) the quality and quantity of information needed to manage and evaluate the programs. Since 1991, SCS has begun a series of reforms to address these three areas. This report discusses whether these reforms will help the agency to better manage these environmental programs and whether additional improvements are necessary to ensure effective management.

GAO found that: (1) although SCS has initiated extensive reforms to effectively manage its conservation compliance and swampbuster programs, additional reforms are needed; (2) although SCS substantially revised its guidance to county offices to provide better technical instructions on how to develop conservation plans and identify wetlands, it has not instituted a follow-up system to ensure that county offices revise deficient plans; (3) SCS has developed new enforcement procedures, but its oversight staff lack the authority to require these offices to follow their recommendations; (4) although SCS is developing an information system to track violations, it has not established performance goals for the conservation compliance and swampbuster programs; (5) one of the barriers that inhibits the effective implementation of SCS reforms is the conflict between traditional and new SCS regulatory roles; (6) SCS county office staff are reluctant to cite farmers for violations because citations could result in their loss of farm program benefits; (7) SCS has historically worked with farmers to provide technical assistance and foster voluntary conservation programs; (8) SCS is often in the conflicting position of acting as adviser and regulator; and (9) SCS needs to change its corporate culture if it is to effectively administer its regulatory responsibilities.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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