Mr. STUDDS. Regroup.

Did we lose some of the panel? If anybody finds wandering panel members, point them back.

Mr. Campbell, you are here. That's good. Deputy Under Secretary for International Affairs and Commodity Programs, Department of Agriculture. Mr. Campbell?

STATEMENT OF MR. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to discuss measures to improve and enhance our Nation's wetland resources. In a letter inviting the Department of Agriculture to participate in this hearing, we were asked to identify the Department's programs that affect wetlands and to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these programs. I commend my full testimony for your review. I think it is a good compilation of the activities the Department undertakes with respect to wetlands, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of such activities.

USDA's wetland programs can be divided into two groups: first, public land management, principally involving the National Forest System; and, two, assistance to nonfederal landowners and users, including private individuals and units of State and local government. I will focus on the second group of programs, especially as they relate to private landowners and users.

These programs have three important strengths: First, they are voluntary programs. Second, our programs are delivered at the local level, and have input from State and local units of government and advisory boards. Third, development and administration of these programs often involves cooperative efforts of the Department of Agriculture, Interior, Environment Protection Agency, and the Corps of Engineers.

We are in the process of developing a number of policy alternatives to meet the President's goal of no overall net loss of wetlands over time. It is our intention to develop these alternatives in the framework of an interagency wetlands task force which will be in place in the near future.

One of our oldest assistance programs is the Water Bank Program, which began in 1972. Under the Water Bank Program, wetland owners agree to protect and maintain wetland areas and establish permanent cover on adjacent lands for a 10-year period, in exchange for annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to establish cover.

Another important wetland conservation assistance effort is the Conservation Reserve Program-CRP-which is authorized by the Food Security Act of 1985. Recent expansion of the acreage eligibility criteria for the Conservation Reserve Program makes approximately 5 million acres of cropped wetlands eligible for the program.

In addition to our programs aimed at fostering wetland preservation, we also administer laws aimed at penalizing wetland drainage. The most important legislative initiative of this type for wetland preservation is the wetland conservation provision found in the 1985 act. Popularly known as "swampbuster," this provision denies certain USDA farm program benefits to farmers who

produce agricultural commodities on converted wetlands. Wetlands on which conversion activity began before the Food Security Act of 1985 was signed into law in December, 1985 are exempt from the provision.

However useful these conservation tools may be, we must recognize that so long as we provide income and price supports based on production, there will be a tremendous stimulus for farmers to produce. Generating huge surpluses not only costs taxpayers large sums of money, but it may have adverse environmental conse quences as well, in levels of soil erosion and in groundwater quality and in destruction of our vitally important wetlands. If we are to have an environmentally sustainable agricultural production system over the long pull, we must find ways to diminish gradually the nexus between income supports, price supports, and production levels.

In the Department's emerging response to the "no net loss" of wetlands policy, we are taking a positive posture towards wetland protection in our programs. USDA has a set of programs which can help in wetlands conservation. The key, however, to their success is demonstrating the beneficial values of wetlands to landowners who ultimately have decisionmaking authority over their land, and assist them in realizing the potential benefits of wetland conservation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The statement of Mr. Campbell can be found at end of hearing.] Mr. STUDDS. Thank you very much, sir.

Next, Dr. William Hooke, Executive Director of the Office of the Chief Scientist at NOAA.

Dr. Hooke?

STATEMENT OF DR. HOOKE

Dr. HOOKE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee.

The statement that we have introduced for the record shows that NOAA is a very broad science and resource management agency. We find that even in parts of our program where you might not think that coastal wetlands were an issue, our weather services, because they provide or call for protection from storm surge in coastal areas, or our interest in climate and global change, we find that there are significant points of contact with the coastal wetland issue.

But the activities that most closely connect to our interest in no wetland loss deal with our role as a steward or a keeper of the Nation's marine resources, particularly the Nation's living marine resources, and the written statement that you have provides a litany of the various programs that have been developed in NOAA over the years to deal with one or more aspects of the problem. I don't need to go into that because many Members of this Subcommittee have been important in creating these programs in NOAA and providing input and guidance and encouragement as we have gone along.

There are a couple of factors, however, that I think merit some attention here in addition to the material you will find in the writ

ten statement. The first is that the coastal wetland system-and it is the coastal system that is of the greatest interest to NOAA-is a system that apparently is confined to the shoreline but in fact is very sensitive to events and decisions that are made throughout the continental United States, and so the development of a policy of no wetland loss is a goal that is going to require that we examine carefully what we are doing in our agricultural practice, that we examine our energy policy, that we keep close tabs of our demographics, our level of consumption, and our international trade. All of these, for one reason or another, have a coastal wetland impact, so that if we are trying to develop a meaningful policy that deals with no wetland loss, we have to take these factors into account. The second point is that the programs that we have in NOAA by and large provide information for a range of decisionmakers that are to some extent internal within the agency, to some extent reside in other Federal agencies, but exist in a large number of walks of life, in a large number of areas of application, ranging from regulation and resource protection to research and to management of resources, and if we claim to be providing information for these decisionmakers, we have to make certain transitions in the way we have provided that information.

We have to make a transition from a fragmented provision of those data and that information to an integrated one that looks at the system as a whole. We have to make the transition from a retrospective look at trends in the coastal wetlands to an ability to determine in real time what is going on. We have to make a transition from "nowcasting" a statement of what is the area of wetland, what is the condition of that wetland now-to an ability to forecast with credibility those trends in the future.

To do this requires that we make a transition from ignorance to understanding, and in that connection I ought to mention that from NOAA's point of view, from a habitat point of view that says that wetlands are the home for the resource we are trying to protect, that the emphasis from our point of view should be on no net loss of wetland function: that we examine the role of the wetlands in producing the marine resources, particularly the living marine resources, and that we try to deal with that function.

We have had a few looks at that with the Corps of Engineers and with other agencies represented at this table, and we find that to preserve wetland function is a quite different matter from simply planting some vegetation and watching the progress of that over a few months or a year or two. We are convinced now that such preservation and an ability to understand what we are really doing out there requires long-term monitoring, and we are dedicated to doing that.

We cannot do this by ourselves. We have to do this in cooperation with the other agencies. We are looking forward to participating in the interagency task force.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The statement of Dr. Hooke can be found at end of hearing.] Mr. STUDDS. Thank you very much, Dr. Hooke.

Our final member of the panel, Mr. John Doyle-Is that all one title?-Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary?

Mr. DOYLE. That's it.

Mr. STUDDS. That is awesome. I hate to think who your assistants are. Tertiary Deputy Assistant Secretaries? Civil Works, Department of the Army. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF MR. DOYLE

Mr. DOYLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to again be before the Committee, particularly to testify on the issue of wetlands in the Nation and how we can do a better job as a Nation to protect those extremely important resources. The Committee of course has had a longstanding interest in wetlands issues and in efforts to preserve and protect those wetlands, and it is a pleasure to be here, to be working in the same direction to attempt to do the best job that we can with respect to wetlands protection.

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I will just make a brief point or two and then answer any questions that you might have. I won't attempt to go through the major points that are made in the written statement. They will speak for themselves, but I would like first to indicate how pleased the Army and the Corps of Engineers, as an institution, are with respect to the leadership and the direction that President Bush has charted for us in terms of the need to protect our Nation's wetlands. We think it is absolutely the right direction, the right vision. There is no question we have many issues to address, many details to flesh out, but there is also no question that this is the direction the Nation needs to go in terms of our joint efforts.

Secondly, the matter of wetlands protection as much as anything, I believe, is a function of growing awareness in this country of how important wetlands are in an ecological and economic sense. It wasn't too long ago, as the Chairman and the Committee Members know, that it was the preconceived national policy to fill or drain wetlands for other uses. Programs that were developed, both in the Congress and elsewhere, in the 1950s and before, viewed wetlands as being a problem to be rid of rather than a resource to be protected. Over time, fortunately, we have come to appreciate how terribly important wetlands are to this Nation, and as such our view with respect to wetlands use also has changed.

Of course, we can't look at wetlands protection issues in isolation and don't suggest that we should. Other very important national values must be addressed in connection with protecting and using wetlands resources, and that is the approach that we believe needs to be emphasized as we go forward to further improve wetlands legislation and regulation and use in this country.

We are making progress. A number of comments have been made thus far about the enforcement memorandum of agreement which recently was entered into between the Army and the EPA. The jurisdictional MOA which was a 5- or 6-year effort, culminated in a jointly-signed MOA a few months ago. The Wetlands Delineation Manual again culminated a multiyear effort to have at least four Federal agencies who deal in wetlands matters agreeing on a single delineation methodology for purposes of identifying wetlands.

Funding in the Corps program has increased significantly over the past few years. Just 4 or 5 years ago our regulatory permit pro

gram was funded at approximately a $50 million level. This year we have slightly more than $60 million devoted to our 404 wetlands program and hopefully, if Congress will agree with us and accept the President's proposal, we will add another $5 million to that effort for Fiscal Year 1990. In addition, we are currently requesting a $2.5 million supplemental to augment further the 404 regulatory and wetlands research and development activities of the Corps of Engineers.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, I think we are going in the same direction. I think it is a most important direction, and we look forward to working with you to do the best job together that we can to protect these resources.

[The statement of Mr. Doyle can be found at end of hearing.] Mr. STUDDS. Thank you, Mr. Doyle.

Let me start with a question directed to Mr. Davis of the EPA, and others can speak up if they wish to. It really gets at the-I guess what, Mr. Doyle, you just referred to-the degree of enthusiasm with which you view the new administration's policy. All of you will have a chance to be more precise about that in a minute. Mr. Davis, are you familiar with a memo prepared by OMB that provides guidance to you and other Federal agency witnesses concerning your testimony on wetlands issues?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, Mr. Chairman, if you are referring to one that was issued about a month ago in connection with Public Works and Transportation-

Mr. STUDDS. On the same subject matter?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. STUDDS. Is it correct to assume that this is the guidance you will all be operating under today?

Mr. DAVIS. I think it is safe to assume, yes, sir.

Mr. STUDDS. That guidance states, does it not, that "Agency testimony and Q and A should not include explicit or implicit policy recommendations. Testimony should be confined to factual items.' Mr. DAVIS. That's what it says, yes, sir.

Mr. STUDDS. And here we are, all five of us.

Mr. DAVIS. But I don't think we will adhere to that to the letter. Mr. STUDDS. Strike that from the record. This man needs a job. [Laughter.]

Mr. STUDDS. I appreciate that. Well, in that case let me ask you a few factual questions.

Why has it taken almost 4 months for this administration to form an interagency task force on wetlands. Most bureaucrats can do that in their sleep, before breakfast. What is the problem?

Mr. DAVIS. The problem, as I understand it, Mr. Chairman, is that the Domestic Policy Council, which first had to organize itself and get all of its members on board, had an agenda that had to be laid out. Initially, in the environmental area they took on several other issues, notably global warming, acid rain, and the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act. The intent was to get to this and other environmental issues just as soon as they got those underway.

Mr. STUDDS. They must have exhausted themselves with global warming. That initiative was really breathtaking.