The Reconciliation Farm Bill: Is Conservation a Silver Lining?

By Jonathan Coppess

Whether they know it or not, those grasping for optimism in dark times often turn to a concept first coined by the poet John Milton in 1634: the silver lining in a dark cloud (Milton, 1634; Keahey, March 22, 2021; etymonline.com, “silver lining”; Merriam-Webster, “silver lining”). As discussed at length, the Reconciliation Farm Bill made a series of problematic and concerning changes to farm support policy; all changes, however, were to farm subsidy and crop insurance policy designs (farmdoc daily, July 31, 2025; August 14, 2025; August 21, 2025; August 28, 2025; September 4, 2025). The Reconciliation Farm Bill also revised the funding for some of the conservation programs and this article approaches Milton’s “sable cloud” once more, this time in search of a possible silver lining.

Background

Section 10601 of the Reconciliation Farm Bill increased the budget authority for four of the major conservation programs: Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP); Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP); Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP); and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) (P.L. 119-21). Unlike other farm assistance, the conservation funding increase was not paid for by cutting food assistance in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Instead, those funding increases were offset by eliminating the additional appropriated funds for those programs enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (P.L. 117-169; farmdoc daily, November 7, 2024; October 10, 2024; Policy Design Lab, Issue Brief).

Discussion

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scored the Reconciliation Farm Bill’s changes to conservation policy as saving $1.8 billion over the ten years of the score (CBO, July 21, 2025). This is a bit of mathematical illusion due to the method of CBO scoring for conservation and the difference between budget authority (BA)—the amount Congress authorized—and outlays, the projected amount of that BA that CBO thinks will be spent based on historic spending rates. The January 2025 CBO baseline for these four (EQIP, CSP, ACEP, RCPP) conservation programs was $37.75 billion in BA (FY2026-2035) but slightly less, $37.257 billion, in outlays for those ten fiscal years (CBO, January 2025). The January baseline also projected $15.7 billion in remaining outlays (FY2026 to 2031) of the $18 billion appropriated by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). Rescinding the IRA appropriation produced a reduction in outlays, which was used to increase the budget authority. Figure 1 illustrates the CBO score for the conservation provisions (Sec. 10601) of the Reconciliation Farm Bill. Note that the CBO score was for the ten fiscal years 2025 to 2034.