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[Senate Hearing 118-502]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                        S. Hrg. 118-502

                   HEARING ON THE HIGH PLAINS: COMBATING 
                            DROUGHT WITH INNOVATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                    CONSERVATION, CLIMATE, FORESTRY, AND 
                             NATURAL RESOURCES

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
                        NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             June 26, 2024

                               __________

                       Printed for the use of the
           Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
           
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]           

                  Available on http://www.govinfo.gov/
                  
                               __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
57-489 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2025                  
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                   
                 
           COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

                 DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan, Chairwoman
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio                  JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado          JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York      JONI ERNST, Iowa
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
CORY BOOKER, New Jersey              TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             CHARLES GRASSLEY, Iowa
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania         DEB FISCHER, Nebraska

                Eyang Garrison, Majority Staff Director
                 Chu-Yuan Hwang, Majority Chief Counsel
                      Cindy Qualley, Senior Clerk
                    Jackson Blodgett, Hearing Clerk
            James Ferenc, Director of Information Technology
               Fitzhugh Elder IV, Minority Staff Director
                Caleb Crosswhite, Minority Chief Counsel
                              ----------                              

 Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources

                  MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado Chairman
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        Wednesday, June 26, 2024

                                                                   Page

Subcommittee Hearing:

Hearing on the High Plains: Combating Drought with Innovation....     1

                              ----------                              

                    STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS

Bennet, Hon. Michael F., U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado.     1
Marshall, Hon. Roger, U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas......     4

                               WITNESSES
                                Panel I

Sakata, Robert, Agricultural Water Policy Advisor, Colorado 
  Department of Agriculture, Brighton, CO........................     7
Goble, Peter, Climatologist, Colorado Climate Center, Colorado 
  State University, Fort Collins, CO.............................     9
Owen, Constance C., Director, Kansas Water Office, Topeka, KS....    11
Redmond, Christopher A., Assistant Meteorologist, Kansas Mesonet 
  Manager, Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS......    13
Funk, Alexander, Director of Water Resources and Senior Counsel, 
  Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Denver, CO........    15

                                Panel II

Greenberg, Kate, Commissioner of Agriculture, Colorado Department 
  of Agriculture, Broomfield, CO.................................    22
Brown, Don, Director, Republican River Water Conservation 
  District, Yuma, CO.............................................    23
Lewis, Jr., Earl D., Chief Engineer and Director of Water 
  Resources, Division of Water Resources, Kansas Department of 
  Agriculture, Manhattan, KS.....................................    25
Janssen, Patrick Milan, President, Kansas Water PACK, Kinsley, KS    27
Simpson, Cleave, General Manager, Rio Grande Water Conservation 
  District, Alamosa, CO..........................................    29

                               Panel III

Sayles, Curtis E., Owner and Manager, CFS Farms, Seibert, CO.....    38
Currier, Carlyle, President, Colorado Farm Bureau, Molina, CO....    41
Sternberger, Jeff, Owner and General Manager, Midwest Feeders, 
  Inc., Ingalls, KS..............................................    43
France, Amy, Vice Chair, National Sorghum Producers, Scott City, 
  KS.............................................................    44
Parmar, Sarah, Director of Conservation, Colorado Open Lands, 
  Lakewood, CO...................................................    46
                              ----------                              

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:
    Sakata, Robert...............................................    56
    Goble, Peter.................................................    65
    Owen, Constance C............................................    67
    Redmond, Christopher A.......................................    79
    Funk, Alexander..............................................    86
    Greenberg, Kate..............................................    98
    Brown, Don...................................................   103
    Lewis, Jr., Earl D...........................................   114
    Janssen, Patrick Milan.......................................   119
    Simpson, Cleave..............................................   122
    Sayles, Curtis E.............................................   126
    Currier, Carlyle.............................................   130
    Sternberger, Jeff............................................   137
    France, Amy..................................................   139
    Parmar, Sarah................................................   147

Document(s) Submitted for the Record:
Bennet, Hon. Michael F.:
    U.S. Drought Monitor, document for the Record................   156
    National Association of Wheat Growers, document for the 
      Record.....................................................   157
    Colorado Association of Wheat Growers, document for the 
      Record.....................................................   160
    American Rivers, document for the Record.....................   162

 
     HEARING ON THE HIGH PLAINS: COMBATING DROUGHT WITH INNOVATION

                              ----------                              

                        Wednesday, June 26, 2024

                                        U.S. Senate
    Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and 
Natural Resources
          Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., 
Mountain Standard Time, at the Midway Theater, 446 14th Street, 
Burlington, Colorado 80807, Hon. Michael F. Bennet, Chairman of 
the Subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Bennet [presiding] and Marshall.

  STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL F. BENNET, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE 
                       STATE OF COLORADO

    Senator Bennet. Good morning, everyone. I am very grateful 
that you are here. I am sorry that we are starting a few 
minutes late. Cindy, thank you very much for taking care of all 
this and your--and your colleagues as well from the Agriculture 
Committee, but we got both Wi-Fi back and the air conditioning, 
so we appreciate it very much.
    I am pleased to have the chance to call this Subcommittee 
hearing on Conservation Climate, Forestry, and Natural 
Resources to order, and especially to welcome all of you to 
Burlington, Colorado. I am extremely grateful to my colleague, 
Ranking Member Roger Marshall, for his partnership in convening 
today's field hearing, and I would like to thank his staff, 
Tucker, and my staff, Rosie, for their excellent collaboration 
in getting us here this morning. I know Senator Marshall shares 
my concern about the unprecedented drought that farmers and 
ranchers throughout the Western United States are enduring, and 
he has been an outstanding bipartisan partner in the work that 
we have been doing on the Agriculture Committee.
    I want to thank the Agriculture Committee staff who have 
traveled here to ensure that our hearing on the High Plains 
runs just as smoothly, maybe even more so than it would in a 
hearing room in Washington. In fairness to all of us, we do not 
have some of the cast of characters that we have in Washington, 
DC to screw things up today.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Bennet. I also want to thank all of the Colorado 
State University staff for their support, our Hometown 
Charitable Foundation for hosting us at the Historic Midway 
Theater, the city of Burlington for welcoming our attendees 
from near and far, and all of our witnesses today.
    Senator Bennet. Well, I am glad to live in a country where 
people can speak freely.
    Senator Marshall. Amen.
    [Applause.]
    Senator Bennet. It is one of the great things about being 
in the United States. I also should say--I did not say at the 
beginning how nervous I am about interrupting wheat harvest 
today.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Bennet. I think Senator Marshall joins me in 
saying, if you need to leave, you need to leave, and please do 
not worry about it, but we look forward to the witness' 
testimony today. Many hands go into making a successful field 
hearing happen, and I am grateful to all of you.
    Our purpose today is simple and straightforward. It is to 
hear directly from Western producers who are facing 
unprecedented challenges of a--of a hotter, drier landscape and 
using innovative tools to combat historic drought. There is no 
more appropriate place to talk about this issue than 
Burlington. During the Dust Bowl, devastating dust storms 
plagued farmers here in Kit Carson County. Black dust, 
blanketed roads, suffocated livestock, destroyed crops, and 
ruin the livelihoods of thousands of Eastern Coloradans and 
Western Kansans who took generations to recover. I was grateful 
to spend yesterday in Kansas yesterday afternoon visiting with 
a--with a farmer there and his family who are wrestling with 
the effects of drought.
    That was a terrible time for American agriculture, and out 
of desperation, farmers and ranchers put subpar land into 
production. They were told that rain would follow the plow as 
they struggled to feed their families. This made America's 
working lands vulnerable to dust storms that ravaged our 
heartland. Prairie winds blew 50 million tons of topsoil off 
the Southern Plains in 1935 alone, and after that--some of that 
dirt land--and dust landed on the U.S. Capitol, Congress 
finally recognized the crisis on the Eastern Plains by creating 
the Soil Conservation Service, which has since become the 
Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS. For almost 90 
years, NRCS has partnered with farmers and ranchers and private 
landowners to protect our farms and safeguard our natural 
resources. The Farm Service Agency also plays a critical role 
mitigating the effects of drought and managing agricultural 
land from the Conservation Reserve Program to crop and 
livestock disaster programs that are so important to our 
producers. Today, their mission has never been more important 
as we confront a change in climate and a hotter, drier future.
    These programs have not kept pace with a West that looks 
very different from the Dust Bowl era. I hear from producers 
across the State that NRCS and FSA programs need to be much 
more flexible and allow for more innovation but, instead, are 
burdened by red tape. The applications are cumbersome, as we 
heard yesterday, only accepted during short enrollment windows, 
and USDA takes too long to process them. In some cases, people 
have to literally fill out their applications by hand and send 
them in by mail in 2024.
    Many of you likely knew Pat O'Toole, the cattle and sheep 
rancher, whose family's sixth-generation operation straddles 
the Colorado-Wyoming border. He and his wife, Sharon, manage 
their ranch with future generations in mind.
    [Applause.]
    [Pause.]
    Senator Bennet. Pat O'Toole is not an animal killer or a 
planet killer. He and his wife, Sharon, manage the ranch with 
future generations in mind every single day. Before Pat's 
recent passing, he was in the middle of preserving the family's 
ranch through a USDA agricultural conservation easement. That 
easement had been in the back-and-forth process with NRCS since 
November 2020, and Pat, sadly, was unable to see his family's 
ranch protected before his passing in February this year.
    Federal red tape is especially tough on young farmers, 
small-scale producers, underserved and first-generation 
farmers. They do not have the time--nobody does--to navigate 
the bureaucracy and cannot afford to hire someone to do it for 
them. The future of rural America depends on whether the next 
generation decides to continue operating their family farms and 
ranches.
    Today, we are going to hear from experts, producers, and 
partners who, like Senator Marshall and I, are concerned for 
the future of rural America. They will highlight their 
experience with drought and a rapidly changing landscape. They 
will tell us about the Federal programs that work well, and 
they will tell us about the programs that are not working for 
farmers and ranchers, especially those east of the Mississippi 
River. We will also hear from producers who are breaking 
tradition with how their grandparents or parents once farmed 
and pioneering practices to grow food and fiber for the rest of 
us.
    To underscore the issues of drought affecting 
agricultural--American agriculture, I have a map of the current 
U.S. Drought Monitor and testimony from the national 
Association of Wheat Growers, the Colorado Wheat Growers 
Association, and American Rivers that is describing the 
situation we face.
    I ask unanimous consent that they be entered into the 
record. So moved.

    [The documents can be found on pages 156-165 in the 
appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. That is the good thing about being chairman 
of a subcommittee. When I do that in DC, I have to get the 
attention of the chair.
    Instead of a dust bowl, today's farmers and ranchers are 
dealing with a 1,200-year drought. They face a change in 
climate and a future that is going to get hotter and drier. As 
we meet today, more than half the country is in the throes of a 
historic heat wave with wildfires raging across the West. We do 
not have time to waste. This is a five-alarm fire, and 
Washington needs to treat it that way. My hope is that today's 
hearing can help us identify specific ways to make progress, 
and I am prepared to work with every member of the Agriculture 
Committee in a bipartisan way to do so.
    So now let me stop there and I will turn it over again to 
the ranking member, Senator Marshall from Kansas, who is good 
to make the trip over here. As we talked about yesterday, the 
border between Colorado and Kansas does not really recognize 
distinctions in drought or in the challenges that our producers 
are facing. I cannot think of a more appropriate person to be 
here to have this conversation with than Senator Roger 
Marshall. Please give him a round of applause for making the 
trip. Thanks.
    [Applause.]

 STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER MARSHALL, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE 
                           OF KANSAS

    Senator Marshall. Well, Senator Bennet, it is a great honor 
to be up here with you. I appreciate your hospitality.
    Senator Marshall. Well, like I was saying, Senator Bennet, 
it is an honor to be here with you. I want to thank you, Rosie, 
you and your staff. I know that you--the staff really does all 
the work as well, so thank you. Recent marriage, is that right?
    [VOICE.] Yes.
    Senator Marshall. A recent--so she is on her honeymoon 
here.
    Senator Bennet. This is her honeymoon.
    [Applause.]
    Senator Marshall. Welcome to our witnesses. Thanks to my 
staff. Tucker Stewart is behind me, our ag person, and Katie 
Sawyers out there is our State director. Thanks for making this 
all possible.
    On a personal basis, Senator Bennet, it is--it is an honor 
to just not call you a colleague but a friend. To tell a story 
on both of us, we work out together about every afternoon when 
we are back in DC, and it is an interesting place, the Senate 
gym. Before you think--get your eyes off in too much of a--of a 
mindset, what this looks like, this is worse than any YMCA I 
have ever been in. It is, but I love it. I love the gym. We let 
our guards down, and I can attest that there is probably nobody 
in better aerobic shape than Senator Michael Bennet. I mean, he 
works at it hard on this--on this biking business, so I 
appreciate that about him as well.
    I would just assure people in the audience and the folks 
that are watching from home is that there is no one more 
committed to leaving this world cleaner, healthier, and safer 
than we found it than the two of us, and it is in our heart. It 
is in our soul. This is a priority we think about future 
generations, why we are--we are in the Senate, came to 
Congress. This would be one of my three things that I would 
like to leave a mark on before we leave, so very, very 
important to me.
    You--and you are about the similarities between the State, 
that in so many ways, Eastern Colorado looks like Western 
Kansas, and it is no surprise that once upon a time, we are 
sitting in Kansas territory. Just want to remind everybody of 
that----
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Marshall [continuing]. that this was Kansas 
territory once upon a time, but we do share much more than a 
borderer. We share this drought. For about 10 of the last 15 
years, we have shared this drought. Many parts of my State, 
your State are a year's worth of moisture behind. In the last 5 
years, we have lost a year's worth of moisture, and we continue 
to struggle, and that I believe that water is--will be the 
defining issue of our States for not just the near future, but 
for generations ahead, and not just for agriculture, but for 
municipalities as well. This is the defining issue, water 
conservation. It is the most valuable commodity that our Nation 
is blessed with.
    I think for the folks that are listening back in DC, it is 
so important to understand what this aquifer is and how 
important it is to American agriculture as we continue to feed 
and clothe the world, that this aquifer is like an ocean 
beneath us. If you would go down about 400 to 500 feet beneath 
the ground where we are sitting today, there is an ocean of 
fresh water, and it goes from South Dakota through Nebraska, 
Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. In 
some places it is a hundred foot deep, some places it is a 
thousand foot deep, and the rate of going down is faster than 
we have replenished it, but we have slowed down that 
deplenishment thanks to conservation practices. We visited a 
farm yesterday where they basically are at net neutral now. By 
conservation practices alone, they are now at a neutral use of 
that water, and I think that is what we are here to accentuate 
today.
    As you mentioned, 90 years ago, the Dust Bowl ravaged our 
corner of the world, and my great-great-great grandparents were 
starting family farms across the State of Kansas and building 
terraces, trying to figure out how to conserve this land. We 
have had some spring rains that have provided some moisture, 
but we still have this effect of this drought going on, and we 
are not close to being out of the woods. We do not know what 
the summer holds. We do not know what the fall holds. We do not 
know what next year holds. Providing a value perspective on 
this area are some of Kansas' and Colorado's brightest minds, 
who I am excited to have here today and to listen and learn. 
There has been a great public-private partnership between 
agriculture producers and the Federal Government, and we have 
created the strongest food system in the world. We are so 
blessed.
    Food security is national security. We are so blessed that 
we are not dependent upon other countries to feed us, but many 
countries are dependent upon us to help feed them.
    In Washington, DC, many lawmakers and agency staff may be 
unfamiliar with the type of challenges our farmers and ranchers 
face on these High Plains. In fact, Kansas and Colorado only 
qualified for about 40 percent of the conservation practices 
through the IRA. Let say that again. Kansas and Colorado 
ranchers and farm producers only qualified for about 40 percent 
of the conservation through the IRA. We need some more 
flexibility, if at all possibility. Our farmers and ranchers 
want to do the right thing, but we need some flexibility.
    These environmental practices were designed to cut carbon 
emissions, yet they cut out some of our country's highest crop-
producing region, and in our Nation's second largest carbon 
sink: soil. We do not have the wonderful forest that Colorado 
has for a carbon sink, but the soil carbon sinks that we have 
in our States are just as important. I will give you an example 
of some of the environmental practices that we simply cannot do 
in Eastern Colorado or Western Kansas. Anyone that farms east 
of the 100th Meridian are getting paid by the Federal 
Government to grow cover crops, but the practice does not work 
out here. We simply do not have the moisture to do it. We would 
love to do cover crops, but we do not have the moisture, and 
that is why we need the flexibility. We have seen national 
disasters, drought, and wildfire. Farmers and ranchers need 
Federal assistance to maintain their livelihoods and continue 
producing our Nation's food supply. Unfortunately, the 
bureaucracy sometimes in DC delay the process, and we owe work 
to our producers to set up and improve and implement safety net 
mechanisms.
    Senator Bennet, since I was a little kid raised on a farm, 
riding on a tractor, my grandparents spent time teaching me how 
important it was to leave our farm better for the next 
generation, and that is why I have said our farmers and 
ranchers, we are the original conservationists. Today we will 
explore the best ways to support them in the midst prolonged 
drought as the Federal Government--whether it is through 
improving conservation flexibilities, developing research 
opportunities, or strengthening disaster relief funding, I am 
confident that we will come out of today's field hearings with 
innovative solutions for farmers and ranchers in our corner of 
the country and beyond.
    I think about this, that we are the descendants of those 
people that homesteaded out here, that they figured out ways to 
innovate and persevere and, through hard work, pass it on to 
future generations. I am confident we can do it, and, again, I 
am just so honored to be here to help you and empower us to 
help solve this problem. Thank you.
    I have two witnesses I want to introduce today, and I think 
we introduce them all, and then they will give their 
testimoneys later. I am going to first introduce Chip Redmond. 
Chip, thank you for being here today. He was originally from 
Ohio, but we are now proud to call Chip a Kansan. He obtained a 
bachelor's degree from The Ohio University with minors in 
computer science and physics in 2011, and a master's from South 
Dakota School of Mines and Technology. For the last year, he 
has been the Kansas Mesonet manager in the Department of 
Agronomy for the Ever Fighting Kansas State Wildcats.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Marshall. He works extensively with the Mesonet, a 
network of 80-plus weather stations in the State. He is also an 
incident meteorologist for Rocky Mountain Area, Complex 
Incident Management Team in the Kansas Forest Service, and 
finally, he is a volunteer, and one of my favorite loves, he is 
captain of the Blue Township Fire Department and assists in 
coaching his children's baseball/softball teams. He resides in 
beautiful--one of the most beautiful cities in Kansas, St. 
George, Kansas along--is the Blue River there? Kansas River 
there.
    Then also, I am going to introduce Connie Owen. Connie is 
the director of Kansas Water Office, and prior to that, she 
served as the chair of the Kansas Water Authority. She is a 
licensed attorney and has practiced Kansas water law for over 
25 years. In 2004, she served as the administrative hearing 
officer presiding over the initial hearings for the first two--
something I am very proud of--the local enhanced management 
areas, which we refer to as LEMAs in Kansas. These programs 
help with water conservation in Kansas. She is a lifelong 
Kansan. She earned her bachelor's degree from The Emporia State 
University, the Fighting Hornets, and her law degree from the 
University of Kansas. Connie and her husband, Dan, live in 
Overland Park and have two grown sons. Glad to have both of you 
here. Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you very much, Senator. I like to 
introduce first Mr. Robert Sakata, who is an agricultural 
policy advisor for the Colorado Department of Agriculture and 
serves as president of Sakata Farms in Brighton, Colorado. 
Robert was born and raised in Colorado and grew up on his 
family farm, which his father started in 1944. Over time, his 
family farm successfully adapted to production pressures, 
including the decreasing availability of water, lack of 
adequate seasonal labor housing, which we have talked about a 
lot, increasing cost of crop inputs, and urban encroachment. In 
addition to his lifelong farming experience, Robert has served 
in a wide range of agricultural-and water-focused positions 
beyond his farm, including the Colorado Department of National 
Resources, Interbasin and Compact Committee, and the Colorado 
Water Conservation Board. I am grateful to have him with us at 
this hearing today. Robert, I look forward to your testimony.
    Mr. Peter Goble is next, a climatologist for the Colorado 
Climate Center at Colorado State University. His 
responsibilities include supporting the Colorado Climate 
Center's three main missions of climate research, data 
collection, and education and outreach. His current research 
includes using machine learning to better understand errors in 
annual water supply forecasts in Colorado, modeling future 
weather extremes in Colorado, and using a mix of observed and 
model data to determine whether we can grow more wine grapes in 
Colorado. Peter, thank you for being here today. I look forward 
to your testimony as well.
    Last but not least, Mr. Alexander Funk is the director of 
Water Resources and senior counsel for the Theodore Roosevelt 
Conservation Partnership. Alex has over a decade of experience 
working on the Colorado River and other Western water 
challenges. In his role with the TRCP, Alex leads the 
organization's national freshwater policy efforts, focusing on 
issues ranging from the Clean Water Act, to securing Federal 
funding, to increase watershed conservation and restoration 
projects benefiting fish and wildlife. Thank you for being here 
today, Alex. Thank you for making the trip. I look forward to 
your testimony.
    Again, I want to thank all our witnesses for being here 
today. As a reminder, we ask you to keep your testimony to 5 
minutes each. Any written testimony will be submitted for the 
record. You may hear me gavel should your time expire. I am 
inclined to be a little generous this morning. Mr. Sakata, 
please proceed with your testimony. Thank you again for being 
here.

   STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT SAKATA, AGRICULTURAL WATER POLICY 
ADVISOR, COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, BRIGHTON, COLORADO

    Mr. Sakata. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator and 
Chairman Bennet. Thank you, Ranking Member Marshall. It is a 
pleasure to be here, and thanks to the staff as well. As you 
said, my name is Robert Sakata. Our family has a farm in 
Brighton, Colorado, and I am privileged to serve as the ag 
water policy advisor for the Colorado Department of 
Agriculture.
    First, as you did, welcome everybody to the city of 
Burlington. It is a pleasure to have you all here. Thanks to 
your wonderful staff, all the hard work that they did to 
organize this, and thanks to Chairwoman Stabenow for also 
allowing a field hearing to be here. We really appreciate all 
the work the committee is doing. I am very humbled, honored, 
and really intimidated to be here today to lead off the 
discussion but will do my best to start us off with a broad 
overview of the challenges that I see agriculture is facing in 
the arid West.
    To highlight the scope of the problem facing us, I refer to 
the USDA Ag Census. The most recent one indicates that over the 
last--most recent 25-year reporting period, Colorado has 
actually lost over a million acres of irrigated lands, and that 
accounts for, surprisingly enough, 80 percent of the irrigated 
land reduction across the entire United States. There is a 
tipping point, and I think we are approaching it. What is 
causing this reduction? I will highlight four factors.
    The first is our changing climate. The rising temperatures 
are not only increasing irrigation, municipal, and industrial 
needs, but is drying the soils leading to less water reaching 
our streams and rivers. This is also putting much more stress 
on our mountain watersheds, making the work on watershed 
protection and forest health imperative. Second is the 
increasing municipal and industrial demand due to increasing 
population growth. The Colorado Demography Officer indicates 
that growth is forecasted to continue to grow, and most of that 
growth is going to be around the current population centers.
    Third are the efforts across the State to manage our 
groundwater resources. Prime examples are here in the 
Republican River and the Rio Grande Basin. You will hear from 
the leaders in these efforts. I have the utmost respect for 
their dedication to achieving the goals that they have set, 
especially considering how arduous a process and effort that 
is. In Colorado, as you know, the State owns the water. It 
allocates that water for beneficial use based on the seniority 
of water rights, a system called prior appropriations. Our 
State has worked very hard to do this fairly, to protect senior 
water rights holders, and to be in compliance with compact 
agreements with our neighboring States. This has been and will 
continue to be challenging, expensive, and painful for 
agriculture as farm and ranch families are battling on the 
front lines of this water scarcity. A personal example on our 
farm happened on May 8 of 2006 when the State engineer ordered 
over 440 alluvial groundwater wells to be shut down in the 
South Platte Basin because they were found to have inadequate 
augmentation plans. We had four of those wells on our property, 
and we just watched those crops wither away and die that year.
    Finally, the most important factor why irrigated lands are 
decreasing is due to the tough financial situation most farmers 
and ranchers are in. The USDA Economic Research Service reports 
that out of each food dollar spent, only 7.9 cents makes it 
back to farm production. This 7.9 cents is the foundation of 
our food supply and is carrying the rest of society on its 
back. We need to make smart investments in agriculture to 
protect our future. In my written testimony, I provide an 
example on our farm where we invested in new equipment in hopes 
of improving soil health, but how costly a mistake that first 
year was for us. We were lucky. We survived. Other farmers are 
not as lucky.
    I have had the opportunity to travel across the State and 
see firsthand the variety of challenges farmers and ranchers 
are facing. What amazes me is their ingenuity and determination 
to stay in farming. What is perfectly clear to me, too, is that 
there is no one activity, no one action or single farm practice 
that is the solution. The strength of Colorado agriculture is 
our diversity. Whether it is the high elevation pastures where 
flood irrigation is providing late-season return flows to 
support the environment, or drip irrigated vegetables pushing 
the irrigation efficiency to the limit, each plays an important 
role in the system as a whole and should not be discounted.
    The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the dangers of a limited 
supply chain. This highlights the need for us to build 
resilience in our food system. An important way to do that is 
to support local agriculture. In my written testimony, we will 
find examples of the local effective programs helping farmers 
and ranchers adapt to the aridification we are seeing, and you 
will be hearing about some of that work later today. As the ag 
water policy advisor, I commit to work with our tribal, 
Federal, State, and local governments, as well as collaborate 
with academic institutions, farmers and ranchers, their 
communities, and conservation partners, not only across our 
State, but across the region to find ways to maintain adaptive 
farm and ranch systems.
    In closing, thank you for all the work that you do. Thanks 
in particular for your support for improving rural mental 
health. As stresses in our agricultural communities are greater 
than ever, it is important that we focus on this. Moving 
forward, I hope that you will commit to increasing your support 
of the valuable locally led initiatives like those of our 
conservation partners and those in the Colorado Department of 
Agriculture that you will hear more about from our commissioner 
of ag. It is this local expertise, knowledge, and dedication 
that provides the best opportunity for success. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Sakata can be found on page 
56 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you, Robert, for that 
excellent start to the hearing. Mr. Goble, you are recognized 
for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF MR. PETER GOBLE, CLIMATOLOGIST, COLORADO CLIMATE 
   CENTER, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY, FORT COLLINS, COLORADO

    Mr. Goble. Thank you so much. Senator Bennet, Senator 
Marshall, thanks again for holding this hearing. I consider it 
an honor and a privilege to give my testimony to you all today.
    Senator Bennet. Why don't you lean in a little bit----
    Mr. Goble. Yes, of course. As Senator Bennet said, my name 
is Peter Goble, and I am a climatologist at the Colorado 
Climate Center at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. My 
professional background is in researching climate change and 
climate variability as well as water availability in Colorado 
and the Western United States. The Colorado State Climate 
Office has a three-pillar mission of, one, data collection. We 
run an agricultural weather station network, similar to the one 
you will hear about in just a few minutes from Kansas. Two is 
climate research, and then three is education and outreach.
    So I have had plenty of chances to discuss climate change 
and climate variability with folks all across the State, 
including farmers. Our office recently completed a study that 
was funded by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, in which 
we synthesized the observed and projected changes across the 
State in temperature, precipitation, water resources, and 
natural hazards. I want to thank my colleague, Dr. Becky 
Bolinger, for leading this effort as well as State 
climatologist, Russ Schumacher, and Jeff Lukas of Lukas 
Climate, for their enormous roles in writing this report.
    You do not have to study Colorado's climate long to know 
that farming and ranching here is not for the faint of heart. 
We rely on an average of only 15 to 20 inches of precipitation 
here in Eastern Colorado to grow our crops. That is only about 
half of what falls over America's heartland in the area that 
Senator Marshall was talking about supporting cover crops 
earlier. We also know that that precipitation is highly 
variable from year to year. A wet year, like 2015, will bring 
over 25 inches of precipitation right here in Burlington, 
Colorado, whereas a dry year, like 2002, brings less than 9 
inches and is disastrous.
    A poor crop like that can really destroy a farmer's profit 
margins, and a poor year of forage can force ranchers to make 
difficult decisions about whether or not to cull their herd. 
Moreover, our precipitation here in Colorado does not all fall 
as cold soaking million-dollar rains. Sometimes it is the 
severe thunderstorm that are bounties run off the field before 
they get to soak into the soil. Sometimes it is hail that 
shreds the local crops, and sometimes it might be a spring 
blizzard that threatens livestock during calving season.
    One other lesson our climate data tells us is that our 
climate is warming, a trend that is consistent with warming 
temperatures around the globe and primarily driven by 
anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The National 
Centers for Environmental Information shows us that our average 
temperatures here in Colorado have warmed by 2.9 Fahrenheit 
over the last 125 years, and that trend has accelerated since 
the 1980's. Precipitation has not significantly increased or 
decreased long term. However, it is, again, highly variable, 
and we have certainly had more than our fair share of drought 
recently. On top of that, with the warmer temperatures, we are 
seeing lower snowpack values in winter and spring across the 
Western U.S., which is a very important resource as that snow 
melt is irrigation water for many farmers and ranchers across 
the region when it melts in the spring and summer.
    Furthermore, these hotter summers that we are experiencing 
also have an impact on our water balance. Hotter weather raises 
evaporation rates and transpiration rates and can lead to crops 
losing the soil moisture underneath them more quickly. 
Sometimes in the blistering heat, the crops simply shut down. 
Hotter summers indeed do lead to more frequent and severe 
droughts, which decrease crop yields and hurt the bottom line 
of our honest, hardworking farmers.
    The wet years are not without challenges either. 2023 ended 
up setting records for severe weather reports across Colorado. 
We set records for the most, 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-inch diameter 
hail events across the State, and I have actually brought with 
me a mold of our previous record hailstone from 2019, which 
occurred just down the road in Bethune, Colorado. Last year, we 
broke this record with a 5-inch hailstone near Yuma. Of course, 
the folks near Kansas have told me that this is not necessarily 
all that impressive, but it is new for us.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Goble. This all sounds a little bit grim, but I do want 
to leave with a message of hope here. The impacts of climate 
change can be combated through both mitigation and adaptation. 
From a mitigation standpoint, renewable energy resources have 
become much more cost competitive over the last 10 years. Here 
in America, we are emitting carbon at rates below what we 
emitted 20 years ago, and around the globe we are emitting 
carbon at rates below what climate scientists put into their 
climate models as the business-as-usual scenario 15 years ago. 
We have come a long way, but we still have lots of work to do. 
Humans are also highly adaptable creatures. By continuing to 
study, update, and adhere to the best crop and land management 
practices, we can continue to thrive in the face of 
intensifying natural hazards.
    Finally, as a scientist, I have to use this opportunity to 
advocate the importance of long-term data collection. Long-term 
consistent climate observations are the backbone of our 
understanding of climate globally and right here at home. It is 
vital that we continue to invest in networks like the National 
Weather Service's Cooperative Observer Network, State mesonets 
like the one we run and the one you will hear more about from 
Kansas, and even community science efforts, such as the 
Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network, that 
allow folks from all walks of life to contribute to our 
understanding of weather and climate.
    Together we can learn to adapt and ensure that our food 
system is resilient to an ever-changing environment. Thank you 
so much.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Goble can be found on page 
65 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Goble, and, Ms. Owen, you 
are now recognized for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF MS. CONSTANCE C. OWEN, DIRECTOR, KANSAS WATER 
                     OFFICE, TOPEKA, KANSAS

    Ms. Owen. Thank you, Chairman Bennet. Good morning. My name 
is Connie Owen, and I am the director of the Kansas Water 
Office, and I would like to thank you, Chairman Bennet and 
Ranking Member Marshall, and your staffs, and both States for 
the partnerships that we have in many levels and for the 
ability to appear before you today.
    The Kansas Water Office is located in Topeka, Kansas. Our 
office is the State policy planning and coordination agency for 
all water issues in Kansas. A flagship responsibility of our 
office is the development of the Kansas Water Plan. One of the 
five guiding principles of the Kansas Water Plan is reducing 
our vulnerability to extreme events, which include drought, 
flood, and climate change.
    In recent years, the increasing severity of drought in 
Kansas magnifies the urgency of the need to address this 
threat. The Kansas Water Office is responsible for monitoring 
drought and assembling the State Drought Response Team to 
recommend to the Governor to issue a new drought declaration, 
which makes counties eligible for assistance depending on the 
level of drought intensity. The latest drought declaration was 
issued just June 10, 2024. Although this declaration is not 
nearly as dire as in some recent years, the forecast for the 
coming summer is for warmer and drier conditions.
    In Kansas, the economic driver for most of the State is 
agriculture. In a drought, the lost income stream can be felt 
down the supply chain, affecting entire communities. The impact 
can lead to higher food prices and food scarcity. Ultimately, 
national security interests are at risk. Just 2 years ago, 
Kansas suffered one of the driest periods on record since 1895. 
Many areas in Kansas saw records broken for the least amount of 
rainfall since recordkeeping began. That year, extreme heat and 
wind contributed to agricultural devastation in Kansas. The 
summer of 2022, the intense heat and lack of precipitation, for 
example, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of cattle 
in several Kansas counties. Kansas suffered another extreme 
drought, which peaked in 2012, the warmest and one of the 
driest years on record. The Kansas Department of Agriculture 
estimated the 2012 drought caused more than $3 billion in 
drought-related crop losses in Kansas. More than $1.3 billion 
in crop insurance, indemnity payments for failed commodities 
were paid to Kansans in 2012.
    Temperature increases in the State are also projected to 
increase the frequency and severity of wildfires. In December 
2021, the warmest December to date in Kansas, devastating 
wildfires burned over 165,000 acres of land in Central Kansas. 
The increased need for water also worsens the severe depletion 
of the Ogallala Aquifer. According to the National Drought 
Mitigation Center, droughts also result in negative 
environmental and social impacts. Coping with drought also 
presents a challenge for public water suppliers. The Kansas 
Water Office is responsible for the management of State-
controlled conservation storage in 15 Federal reservoirs. That 
supply serves two-thirds of the State's population.
    Two hundred and forty water systems or cities in Kansas 
rely at least in part on the Federal reservoirs in Kansas. 
Within this group, the largest population centers include 
Johnson County, Wichita, Topeka, Manhattan, and Salina. Many of 
these communities survive drought only because of support from 
Federal reservoir releases. Reservoirs filling with silt makes 
it harder to help with drought, however. The increase in 
sediment shrinks the storage capacity for water. Drought also 
affects communities who rely on other sources of water. The 
small town of Caney, population less than 2,000, relies 
primarily on the flow of the Little Caney River, which 
virtually ran dry in 2023. The town employed dramatic major 
restrictions. The situation improved, but the city is facing 
expensive infrastructure improvements to solve the problem.
    In summary, droughts in Kansas have been increasing in 
frequency and intensity. Every sector, including agriculture, 
municipalities, industry, recreation, and the environment, is 
experiencing and will continue to experience negative impacts 
of drought. The fact that the State's water supplies are 
shrinking from depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer to 
sedimentation of Federal reservoirs only accelerates this 
crisis. Adaptation and planning for resilience will be 
critical. Thank you very much for this opportunity to testify 
today.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Owen can be found on page 67 
in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Ms. Owen. Mr. Redmond, please go 
ahead.

      STATEMENT OF MR. CHRISTOPHER A. REDMOND, ASSISTANT 
 METEOROLOGIST, KANSAS MESONET MANAGER, AGRONOMY, KANSAS STATE 
                 UNIVERSITY, MANHATTAN, KANSAS

    Mr. Redmond. Good morning, and thank you Chairman Bennet 
and Ranking Member Marshall, for this opportunity to speak in 
front of you all this morning. My name is Chip Redmond. I am a 
meteorologist at Kansas State University, and I run the Kansas 
Mesonet Manager. Thanks again for this opportunity, and I am 
going to speak today a little bit about the drought in the High 
Plains and talk a little bit on, on the Mesonet itself.
    You know, the High Plains, as already mentioned, can be an 
area of extreme vulnerability of both extreme wet and extreme 
dry. When we look at climate over time, we are talking about 
averaging over a 30-year period. Typically, over these 
extremes, though, drought tends to be the most impactful. Last 
year did bring drought relief to a lot of the High Plains in 
2023. Unfortunately, this also shifted the drought further east 
into Central Kansas. Like Connie mentioned, places like Caney 
had significant issues last year.
    Drought never completely goes away. It is a part of our 
climate, and it tends to shift and move as you go through time, 
and does not typically stick to one location for usually more 
than several years. As we moved through 2023, that relief was 
brought by the change in the Eastern Pacific equatorial water 
temperatures. That is what we call the ENSO region, or El Nino 
Southern Oscillation. We transitioned from what was a 3-year 
period of La Nina that brought a lot of that drought into El 
Nino that, thankfully, brought much-needed moisture for this 
region. That happened in the spring of last year, so a little 
bit over a year ago. Unfortunately, that surplus of moisture 
was short-lived. As of early this June, we saw that El Nino 
condition in the East Pacific already decrease in warmer-than-
normal temperatures back to neutral conditions, with 
projections of potentially La Nina redeveloping by the fall of 
2024.
    An additional oscillation that we look at typically is 
called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. It is a 10-year decadal 
transition, so it usually is very persistent. It can also have 
a significant impact on the North American climate. The Pacific 
Decadal Oscillation has been very negative, basically cooler 
waters along the Northern Pacific coast of Canada and America, 
and warmer water out in the middle. That negative Pacific 
Decadal Oscillation tends to strengthen or enhance the La Nina 
conditions. Unfortunately, that means continued drought 
concerns, and when we look at La Nina union potentially 
redeveloping, it appears this period of increased moisture has 
been short-lived, and drought emergence seems very likely as we 
move further into the summer of 2024. As a result, we need to 
consider some of the longer-term trends of drought as well.
    For example, periods between rainfall events are increasing 
in length. We typically consider a 10th of an inch, or 0.1 
inches, a wetting rain that has impact on the soils and crops 
in a positive way. Just looking at Tribune--they have a 
National Weather Service cooperative observer site there--those 
durations and lengths of periods without rainfall have 
increased by over 25 percent since the 1890's. Unfortunately, 
the rainfall that we have seen with that has also increased, so 
while we are having longer periods of no precipitation, we are 
seeing periods of heavier rain when we do get moisture. Just 
with one-inch heavier rain events, we have seen a 20-percent 
increase at Tribune, at that very important National Weather 
Service cooperative site. Again, heavier rainfall, but longer 
periods of dry between them. This makes agriculture very 
challenging because when we get that heavier rain, it tends to 
run off and not infiltrate into the soil, and then we have 
drought right after that that makes higher demands on natural 
resources like the Ogallala Aquifer.
    The need for more efficient water uses increase the demands 
for accurate weather and climate data, especially considering 
places like Tribune's NWS COOP that we rely heavily on for 
these climate records. Unfortunately, since 2000, Kansas has 
lost about 36 percent of their long-term cooperative observers 
in the State. This makes networks like the Kansas Mesonet or 
the Colorado Agricultural Meteorological Network (CoAgMET), 
extremely important because they are filling the role that 
these COOP observers cannot as we move forward. Not only do 
they measure critical things like temperature and 
precipitation, but they also measure other variables that are 
extremely important to agriculture, like solar radiation, wind, 
and soil moisture.
    Another is, as Connie mentioned, there have been ag issues 
with livestock. Back in 2019 alone, the Kansas Mesonet data 
supported 1,600 ag livestock--USDA Livestock Indemnity Program 
claims that resulted in $7.6 million back into producers' hands 
that year alone. There are a lot of other programs that rely 
heavily on weather data, of which I will not digress here, but 
I will say that the National Mesonet Program is an oversight 
program that aggregates all the Kansas Mesonet, CoAgMET, and 
other networks in the Nation together. This is pivotal in 
keeping continued good, long-term climate and weather data 
records continuing and sustain them long term. This makes 
things like the National Weather Service Reauthorization Act 
and National Mesonet Authorization Act critical in sustaining 
these networks.
    Thank you for this opportunity to speak today on behalf of 
the Kansas Mesonet and the Kansas Climate Office.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Redmond can be found on page 
79 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Redmond, for making the 
trip. Mr. Funk.

 STATEMENT OF MR. ALEXANDER FUNK, DIRECTOR OF WATER RESOURCES 
      AND SENIOR COUNSEL, THEODORE ROOSEVELT CONSERVATION 
                 PARTNERSHIP, DENVER, COLORADO

    Mr. Funk. All right. Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member 
Marshall, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you 
today. My name is Alexander Funk. I am the director of Water 
Resources and senior counsel with the Theodore Roosevelt 
Conservation Partnership, or TRCP. Established in 2002, the 
TRCP's mission is to guarantee all Americans a quality place to 
hunt and fish. The TRCP is a coalition-building organization 
that unites and amplifies the voices of hunters and anglers 
around issues that affect fish and wildlife conservation, 
habitat, and access.
    TRCP encourages Congress to move quickly to pass a 
bipartisan farm bill to ensure funding and technical assistance 
are available to increase the pace and scale of innovative 
drought adaptation and mitigation efforts benefiting 
agriculture, fish, and wildlife. Failure to pass a farm bill in 
this Congress could jeopardize the availability of certain USDA 
conservation programs, which would be a significant blow to 
addressing ongoing drought conditions in Colorado, Kansas, and 
other Western States. These programs were voluntary, incentive-
based, effective, and, if available, can go a long way toward 
addressing water supply challenges affecting both agriculture 
and fish and wildlife.
    Hunting and fishing play an important economic role 
nationally and here in Colorado and in Kansas. Drought and 
climate change threaten availability of hunting and fishing 
and, as such, our economy many ways. These drought-related 
impacts are not just limited to fish. Droughts are known to 
reduce waterfowl and upland game bird habitats due to declines 
in suitable habitat and food, drought and other extreme weather 
conditions, disease. Human impacts, such as roads and fences, 
are also known to contribute to declines in big game 
populations, such as mule deer.
    The farm bill can play a vital role in addressing these 
impacts and broader water supply challenges affecting Western 
States, and can do so through a multi-tidal approach, meaning 
that beyond the conservation title, there are ample 
opportunities within the forestry, research, rural development, 
and other titles to address water-related challenges. For 
example, most Westerners receive their water from forests. 
Forests are home to our natural water infrastructure that 
source watershed streams, wetlands, and meadows that sustain 
drinking and irrigation water across the West. The farm bill 
presents an opportunity to enhance the conservation and 
restoration of these headwater forests through programs such as 
the Strengthening the Water Source Protection Program, which 
allows the Forest Service to enter into agreements with water 
users to develop and implement source water plans and actions 
from fuels management to riparian restoration efforts, both of 
which can help enhance water availability.
    That said, the conservation title can play a great role in 
addressing drought conditions, and there are several 
opportunities to help Western farmers and ranchers. The 
Conservation Reserve Program, for example, can help address 
drought in multiple ways by encouraging the restoration of 
perennial cover on environmentally sensitive agricultural 
lands, which, in turn, reduces water loss to evaporation and 
increases water infiltration rates. The same cover provides 
essential wildlife habitat and improves water quality. However, 
many aspects of this program have not been updated since the 
80's when it was first established, including the ability to 
update rental rates to reflect the program's ecological value 
and encourage greater program enrollment. Other challenges 
include a lack of cost share for managing CRP grazing lands.
    The 2018 farm bill also, for the first time, authorized 
NRCS to enter into EQIP contracts with water management 
entities, such as groundwater management districts and ditch 
companies, to implement watershed-scale conservation and 
efficiency measures. TRCP supported this provision given the 
potential for these watershed-scale efforts to benefit Fish and 
wildlife. Despite the promise of this change, there have been 
significant challenges with implementation of this provision, 
ranging from adjusted gross income restrictions, to complicated 
contracting and eligibility requirements, to lack of NRCS staff 
capacity and training to implement the program, as well as a 
lack of dedicated funding to support these investments.
    In early 2023, USDA released a Western Water and Working 
Lands Framework outlining challenges and conservation 
approaches to support Western farmers and ranchers, including 
the modernization of irrigation infrastructure, improving water 
supply forecast frameworks, and restoring streams and wetlands. 
Still, unlike other targeted USDA frameworks, this Western 
framework lacks dedicated resources to support implementation. 
We encourage Congress and USDA to continue working 
collaboratively to ensure these adequate resources and capacity 
are available to implement these existing measures.
    So in closing, thank you again, Senator Bennet, Senator 
Marshall, other members of the Subcommittee, for the 
opportunity today to speak to you about the drought and climate 
change impacts facing Western agriculture and our Western 
watersheds. The TRCP and our hunting and fishing community 
partners are ready to work with you to craft a farm bill for 
agriculture, fish, and wildlife, and I look forward to any 
questions you may have.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Funk can be found on page 86 
in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you all for your excellent 
testimony. Appreciate your being here. I am going to start with 
a few questions. I am going to try to keep it to 5 minutes, and 
then I will turn it over to Senator Marshall, and we will see 
if we need to sweep up at the end, but thank you. That was 
extremely helpful.
    Robert, you are both--as every Colorado farmer is, you are 
both a farmer and a water expert, and I think if you could boil 
it all down, when you think about the future of Colorado, the 
next quarter century, or however you want to think about it, 
what is it that you are most worried about with respect to 
drought, and how should we be thinking about that?
    Mr. Sakata. Well, thank you Chairman Bennet. I guess, 
first, I would like to preface that, you know, I have siphoned 
many siphon tubes and shoveled many furrows and changed a few 
gear boxes on the center pivots, but I would call myself more a 
water groupie than a water expert, just so you know. Like you 
said, I think I am in a great position where I have been on the 
farming side and now on the policy side, so I really appreciate 
being able to think about this in the broad range.
    I am really optimistic, you know. As you know as you travel 
across the country, we see how dedicated farmers and ranchers 
are, how hard working they are, but I think just like on our 
farm, and it may sound kind of counterintuitive, I think we 
need to be willing to support experiments that are going to 
fail. It does not make sense, right? You are going to support 
something that does not work, but really that is what is 
happening with farmers and ranchers, that we do not have that 
financial buffer anymore. We cannot take risks, and change is 
hard, so if you are going to ask us to change and try something 
new, we will need assistance to mitigate those risks. On our 
farm, you know, like I said, we have invested in some no-till 
equipment, and the first year was a--we made mistakes, and it 
was a financial nightmare, but luckily we were able to sell 
some of our vegetable equipment and make it up. Again, it does 
not make sense, but I think we need to be able to fund 
experiments that may fail.
    Senator Bennet. That makes sense to me. Speaking of 
incentives, and, Mr. Funk, you mentioned some of the 
difficulties we have been having with the RCPP, which has been 
a concern of mine. I think that program has got a lot of 
potential. Within the Conservation Reserve Program, CRP, which 
you also mentioned, rental payments are based on the ground 
value of the land, as you know, so we are paying higher rates 
for more productive land, not necessarily the most 
environmentally sensitive ground. Could you describe how the 
CRP payment structure could better drive key wildlife climate 
or soil health outcomes, like keeping the topsoil in place here 
in Eastern Colorado or Western Kansas?
    Mr. Funk. Thank you for the question, Senator Bennet. We 
can actually absolutely do a better job of incentivizing 
positive outcomes through the Conservation Reserve Program. I 
would highlight two large issues, one being that the annual 
payment limit for the program has not been updated since 1985. 
Especially when you are facing regions with high farmland 
values and adjustments for inflation, it really cramps down on 
enrollment opportunities, especially for higher-paying 
practices, like the State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement 
Program, which does help support riparian buffers and wetland 
restoration that helps support drought resilience.
    Also, as you just said, you know, rental rates are based on 
acreage, dryland rental rates, and soil productivity, and, 
therefore, with regions that have lower soil productivity, like 
Eastern Colorado, the implication there is that farmers and 
producers that would like to potentially participate in CRP 
potentially are faced with those lower rental rates compared to 
other regions, and that really does affect enrollment rates on 
a whole. When you combine that with drought and extreme 
weather, that puts soils in this region at significant risk of 
either further degradation, which, again, creates a positive 
feedback loop of that soil's ability to maintain moisture, and 
to help farmers adapt to less water supply generally.
    So to address these challenges, you know, we would 
consider, you know, reforms that potentially make CRP work from 
Colorado to Iowa. We need a program that works for all 
producers across the country, not just targeted regions, and 
certainly not disadvantage enrollment of highly erodible lands. 
I know there are several proposals actively discussing that, 
and we would be happy to talk to your office more about some of 
those options.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Well, we look forward to that 
continuing conversation. I hear about it all the time when I am 
in--out here on the Eastern Plains. Mr. Goble, I am going to 
ask you one more--one question, then I will turn it over to my 
colleague here. We talked--we heard a little bit of testimony 
at the outset here about what the effect on our economy might 
be as a result of everything that we are facing. I wonder how 
Colorado Climate Office is seeing extreme drought or severe 
weather events affect agricultural production in this State and 
regionally. Could you tell us what those trends look like?
    Mr. Goble. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for the 
question, Senator Bennet. When it comes to agricultural 
production, thankfully, for the most part, advances in crop 
genetics to this point have outpaced the degradations that we 
would expect in yields from increasing drought, but we do 
absolutely see that in drier years, like 2020 or 2022 recently, 
that the drought has an adverse impact on yields. That is 
something that we are very much concerned about, especially as 
these hotter than the historically normal summers become more 
consistent. I would also add that we are very concerned with 
the way that a warming climate changes our hydrologic cycle 
where even if we do get as much precipitation as we have 
historically, more of it evaporates or does not make it into 
the soils and end up actually being effective precipitation. 
That is definitely something we are concerned with.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Senator Marshall.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you. My first question is for Ms. 
Owen. Ms. Owen, as you know, Kansas has seen an invasion of 
invasive species, salt cedars, different species lining our 
river, sucking and removing water. We have done several pilot 
programs where we have removed cedars and salt cedars from 
those rivers and return flow to creek basins that we have not 
seen water flow for decades. My farmers and ranchers complain 
that they, due the lack of flexibility in some of the EQIP 
programs, if you do not take on all the rules, you cannot do 
that particular practice. Can you just speak to what practices 
could be supported by the Federal Government in mitigating the 
reduction of surface water flow?
    Ms. Owen. Thank you for the question, Senator Marshall, and 
as you know, there is an interrelationship between surface 
water and groundwater. When groundwater is being used 
excessively, it pulls from the stream and vice versa when there 
is an alluvial connection. In effect, helping to restore 
surface flow is often a factor--is often impacted by the use of 
groundwater. One of the best things we can do to return surface 
flow is to strengthen groundwater aquifers and reduce the draw 
from the aquifer. The Federal Government does have roles to 
play in helping to reduce aquifer use, and one way is to help 
with water right buyouts for those who are willing to sell so 
that we can reduce the demand on the aquifer. There are 
mechanisms for supporting fallowing techniques.
    One very important aspect that the Federal Government is 
currently involved with--we have some cost share programs in 
Kansas--is supporting the use of new technologies for producers 
to use, for example, soil moisture probes that can tell the 
producers when they need to irrigate and when they do not. That 
allows for more precision management and saves an awful lot of 
water and reduces the demand on the aquifer. Another thing that 
we hear a lot from producers, and I cannot speak to this 
personally, but what I am hearing is that the crop insurance 
programs at times encourage the use of water when it is not 
needed. For example, if early in the season they know their 
crop will fail for some reason, whether it is waiting for an 
adjuster or an agent, they are required to continue to water a 
crop they know will not survive.
    Senator Marshall. Thanks.
    Ms. Owen. Some of those tweaks could be made to the Crop 
Insurance Program. Those are--those are a few mechanisms the 
Federal Government can make.
    Senator Marshall. Thanks, Ms. Owen. The other--I am on this 
kick on this invasive species. Something I learned, thanks to 
my friends at KLA and others, is that by removing these 
invasive species, it actually improves the carbon sink----
    Ms. Owen. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Marshall [continuing]. of the soil as well, so that 
is great to know. We will turn to Mr. Funk for a question for 
you. Continuing on this theme of needing some looser 
guardrails, one of the concerns from the IRA farm bill--the IRA 
and the farm bill are some of the climate sideboards, that they 
are a little bit too tight for us to utilize. In your 
testimony, you mentioned irrigation lining and piping as two 
conservation practices that help produce unnecessary pumping 
and irrigation systems. Do you have any good, I guess, 
environmental reason why irrigation piping is an approved 
practice under the IRA while irrigation lining is not when they 
both could help reduce fuel from reducing pumping?
    Mr. Funk. Thanks for the question, Senator Marshall. My 
understanding of sort of why certain practices have been added 
to the NRCS eligibility list, the IRA funds, largely stem from 
basically whether or not NRCS had an existing methodology to 
account for those carbon sequestration benefits associated with 
the practice. When the initial list was released in Fiscal Year 
2023, they lacked that data for a lot of irrigation 
modernization improvements. That said, they have offered two 
public comment processes since then, and several partners, 
including us, submitted, you know, data showing that some of 
those on-farm efficiency practices do have carbon benefits, and 
they were added. That said, a lot of that--it seems like there 
is still a burden of proof on sort of the entities sort of 
saying like, hey, there is adequate data for this, and then it 
is up to NRCS to kind of weigh that data, but I cannot speak to 
how much, like, they put toward, like, any one practice or the 
other, yes.
    Senator Marshall. Thanks. I will finish up with a question 
for Mr. Redmond. Mr. Redmond, growing up, our lives stopped 
over the noon lunch hour and the weather report at 10:15, 
10:30, but now we have 24/7 access to the weather. What would 
be most helpful to my producers is long-term weather reports, 
and not just how much, but when the rain is going to fall. It 
would impact should I be planting soybeans or corn this year? 
Maybe I should go to milo, which uses even less water--I am not 
sure if you all call it sorghum or milo here, but we still call 
it milo in Kansas--as well. What is the opportunities and the 
improvements in long-term forecast look like as a 
meteorologist?
    Mr. Redmond. Yes, thanks for that that question, Senator 
Bennet--or Senator Marshall. There is a couple things to 
consider. Our technology and computers has gone much, much 
further, whether from the local modeling component at the State 
level to large-scale global modeling, has greatly improved our 
forecasting for--you know, we can--we used to only be able to 
predict the weather for several days out, and now we are 14, 30 
days out pretty consistently. That, combined with surface 
observations, things like the Kansas Mesonet or the National 
Weather Service Cooperative Network, they measure more data 
than we have ever measured before. We even have airplanes that 
are measuring.
    Senator Marshall. Well, what is keeping us from--30 days is 
not enough, okay? I need 90 days or 6 months.
    Mr. Redmond. Our--the knowledge gained from those 
observations has helped us gain understanding in climate 
oscillations, such as ENSO or the Pacific Takeda Oscillation, 
that help us really get good forecasts out months in advance. 
When we look at this summer, for instance, we are already 
projecting out that drought is going to develop across the High 
Plains this summer, and we expect below normal precipitation as 
a result to help people make better decisions like that. I 
think that we have really come a long ways in that to the point 
where, from the State climate perspective, we are yielding 
those questions to producers and we are providing on-the-ground 
support.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you. Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. You have anything else?
    Senator Marshall. I am good.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you very much to the panel for your 
excellent testimony, and we are going to transition now to the 
next group of witnesses, please, and I would say thank you, the 
audience's patience as well. Thanks.
    [Applause.]
    [Pause.]
    Senator Bennet. If people could grab their seats, we will--
we will start--we will start the next panel. Thank you very 
much for--all for being here.
    Commissioner Kate Greenberg is our first witness. She is 
the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Colorado Department of 
Agriculture. She is the first woman to serve in this role. 
Commissioner Greenberg has worked in agriculture for more than 
15 years. Her department serves producers that are operating 
over 36,000 farms and ranches in Colorado. She is a member of 
numerous State boards and commissions, past president of the 
Western U.S. Agricultural Trade Association, and former chair 
of the Western Association of State Departments of Agriculture. 
She is also the recipient of the Emerging Conservation Leader 
Award from Western Resource Advocates. Thank you for being here 
today, Kate. It is great to have you, and I look forward to 
your testimony.
    Another commissioner, Mr. Don Brown, serves as director of 
the Republican River Water Conservation District and is a 
third-generation farmer in Yuma County, Colorado. There, he has 
run several successful businesses while spending most of his 
career managing and growing his family's farming operations of 
irrigated crops, dryland crops, and cattle. Don preceded Kate 
as Colorado's Commissioner of Agriculture under then Governor 
John Hickenlooper. He is active in numerous agricultural 
organizations and currently serves as a member of the Farm, 
Ranch, and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee to the 
EPA administrator. I am grateful for him to be with us at the 
hearing today, and I look forward to your testimony, Don.
    Senator Cleave Simpson. Mr. Simpson is the general manager 
of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. He also serves 
as Colorado State senator, representing 14 counties in Southern 
and Southwest Colorado. I know a little bit about traveling 
this beautiful State of ours from every corner to the other 
corner, and I can tell you that Cleave Simpson seems to know 
the same--the same routine. I know he is leaving today to go to 
Montrose, so this is a busy day for him. I am grateful that he 
was able to fit us in.
    Senator was born and raised in Alamosa, Colorado. He is the 
fourth generation of his family to farm and ranch in Colorado's 
San Luis Valley. As general manager of the district, he works 
across the San Luis Valley to address the water security issues 
in the Rio Grande Basin. He has served as representative to the 
Rio Grande Basin Roundtable and the statewide Interbasin and 
Compact Committee. Thank you again for being here today, 
Cleave. I look forward to your testimony. Then, Senator 
Marshall, please introduce your witnesses, and then we will get 
started.
    Senator Marshall. Well, I am honored--I am honored to 
introduce two Kansans to this panel. First is Mr. Earl Lewis. 
Mr. Lewis is the chief engineer and director of the Kansas 
Department of Agriculture's Division of Water Resources, which 
administers some 30 laws and responsibilities, including the 
Kansas Water Appropriation Act, which governs how water is 
allocated and used. The chief engineer oversees policies 
related to these laws, including water structures, stream 
obstruction, and represents Kansas in interstate water matters. 
Mr. Lewis graduated from the University of Kansas with a 
bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. He is a licensed 
professional engineer in the State of Kansas. He and his wife, 
Sherry, live in Topeka and have two sons.
    Then next, I am honored to introduce Mr. Pat Janssen, who 
resides on a farm that he operates with his family some 45 
miles east of Dodge in South Central Kansas. A majority of 
their operation consists of irrigated crop-producing corn, 
soybeans, wheat, milo, and grass hay. The farm also has a cow-
calf stocker cattle unit, as well as providing custom farming 
and custom irrigation services. Mr. Janssen has been 
extensively involved in irrigation and efficiency work for the 
last 15 years on his operation and through his association with 
Water PACK. We look forward to both of your testimoneys. Thank 
you.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Commissioner Greenberg, please 
get us started.

 STATEMENT OF MS. KATE GREENBERG, COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, 
    COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, BROOMFIELD, COLORADO

    Ms. Greenberg. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Bennet and 
Ranking Member Marshall, for the opportunity to speak with you 
here in Burlington, Colorado. My name is Kate Greenberg, and I 
serve as Colorado's commissioner of Agriculture at the Colorado 
Department of Agriculture under Governor Jared Polis.
    CDA serves as a partner with our agricultural communities 
in meeting current and future challenges. These challenges 
include everything from drought and climate change, water and 
soil health, to labor market access, foreign animal disease 
response, and training the next generation of farmers and 
ranchers. Our focus in tackling these challenges has been on 
building producer-led, voluntary, and incentive-based 
solutions. Over the past 5 years, we have worked with farmers 
and ranchers to create the Colorado Soil Health Program to 
advance stewardship, the resilience of the soil to extreme 
weather events, and enhance farm profitability.
    CDA received a $25 million a USDA Partnerships for Climate 
Smart Commodities grant for soil health, which helped us enroll 
over 500 producers in the program and advance new soil health 
practices on over 65,000 acres. We created the Agricultural 
Drought and Climate Resilience Office to mitigate the impacts 
of a warming climate. We have expanded our renewable energy 
program to include agrivoltaic research, such as integrating 
crop and livestock production into existing solar farms and 
using bifacial solar panels as fence rows and windbreaks. We 
are providing technical assistance for USDA's Rural Energy for 
America Program (REAP). Beyond conservation, we have been 
expanding market access for producers, both at home and abroad, 
with a keen interest in markets that reward climate smart 
practices. We have doubled our support for paid internships, 
created an ag worker outreach program, and issued over $17 
million in innovative financing for beginning farmers. We have 
to do more to set young people up for success in a rapidly 
changing world.
    Farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers are on the 
front lines of drought and climate change. They feel firsthand 
the impacts of hotter weather, tougher droughts, more frequent 
pest cycles, and back-to-back hailstorms, all of which we have 
seen in just the past few weeks here on the Eastern Plains. We 
live with drought in the West. What we face now is 
aridification due to climate change. Conservation, drought, and 
disaster relief programs must reflect this reality.
    Federal programs need to be flexible to allow for 
innovation at the State, local, and producer levels. One way of 
doing this is by continuing to partner with States to support 
the programs that we are already implementing, such as we have 
seen with our soil health and renewable energy programs. 
Federal programs also need to be tailored to meet regional 
needs, in our case, the needs of the West. For example, 
Colorado has been a leader in utilizing voluntary conservation 
easements to protect agricultural lands. Increasing funding for 
the agricultural Conservation Easement Program and allowing the 
program to cover project costs for landowners would allow for 
greater use of this tool for land and water conservation. The 
Environmental Quality Incentives Program is a vital partner in 
our renewable energy efforts. Additional funding as well as 
increasing the program's Federal matching contribution 
percentage would help drive more innovation in rural energy 
production.
    We need to ensure that we have a robust technical 
assistance network delivered by both USDA as well as partners 
on the ground. The Regional Conservation Partnership Program, 
or RCPP, is at a point now where we need changes to ensure its 
continued success. It requires extensive administrative 
oversight and lacks the administrative support for the program 
included in the cost, and that can be a big hurdle for 
applicants. The structure of the Climate Smart Commodities 
grant, on the other hand, offers an example of how to improve 
RCPP, such as including the allowance of administrative funding 
and technical assistance in the program. Another example of 
where we have seen flexibility is in CREP. The 2018 Farm Bill 
provided that dryland agricultural uses may be permitted under 
the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program with the adoption 
of best management practices. While there have been challenges 
implementing this, this is an important tool for Colorado to 
enroll the necessary acres in CREP to meet our interstate 
compact requirements.
    Disaster relief programs need to be fully funded to address 
the losses that producers face due to the increasing frequency 
and severity of natural disasters, including drought. In order 
to both encourage building drought and climate resilience and 
maintain the long-term financial stability of disaster relief 
programs, we need to focus on incentivizing practices that will 
be resilient in the future and do so with farmers and ranchers 
at the table. Finally, we need to continue to make investments 
in research, incentive programs, and technical assistance that 
help more farmers and ranchers reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 
increase carbon sequestration and water conservation, and adapt 
to a changing climate. This is an investment that must be made 
at the Federal level to ensure continued food and economic 
security for the country.
    Our partners at USDA regularly exhibit the kind of 
partnership and flexibility that make these programs 
successful. We need to continue to build on these relationships 
as we adapt Federal programs. I appreciate the opportunity to 
discuss this work with you today and look forward to any 
questions you have. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Greenberg can be found on 
page 98 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you so much 
for being here today. We really appreciate it, somebody who 
knows something about dryland crop. Mr. Brown, would you like 
to go next?

 STATEMENT OF MR. DON BROWN, DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN RIVER WATER 
             CONSERVATION DISTRICT, YUMA, COLORADO

    Mr. Brown. Thank you. Well, thank you, Chairman, and please 
bear with me today. This summer cold has arrived, and so I will 
have to--it is okay.
    Chairman Bennet and Ranking Member Marshall--it is milo. 
You are correct. I am with you there.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Bennet. Glad we got that squared away at the 
outset.
    Mr. Brown. Yes, we got that squared away. I would like to 
share a bit of my background, and where the milo comment comes 
from is my great-grandfather, Andrew Brown, homesteaded near 
Hayes, Kansas in 1874, 150 fifty years ago. My grandfather, 
Albert Brown, homesteaded in Yuma, Colorado in 1911. My family 
has been a part of this High Plains for a couple hundred years. 
I am a third-generation Yuma County farmer and rancher, fourth 
generation working with us. We grow irrigated crops as well as 
dryland crops, and some have raised several thousand head of 
yearlings, all which relies on rainfall.
    I think a little bit of history is important as well. As 
this arid High Plains was settled in the late 1800's and early 
1900's, the push westward into Colorado from Kansas was forged 
by surges forward and rapid retreats. This very county we sit 
in today lost 36 percent of its population between 1890 and 
1900, and was not due to disease. It was due to lack of 
rainfall. There are two fundamental and undeniable facts that 
still apply today: dryland farming is completely dependent on 
rainfall, and those farmers and communities who have some form 
of irrigation fare much better in times of drought.
    I would like to take a moment as director of the Republican 
River Water Conservation District here in Colorado to talk a 
moment about the basin itself and the aquifer, which Senator 
Marshall so eloquently defined how large it is. The residents 
of the Republican River Basin in Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska 
suffered from a devastating flood in 1935, and in order to 
acquire Federal funds to build dams, the States agreed on the 
amount of water each State had to provide down river. Dramatic 
expansion of irrigated acreage in the 60's altered flows, and 
Kansas felt as though they had no choice but to pursue legal 
action in courts. This led to a final settlement stipulation, 
and the States agreed each State would be required, per a 
complex groundwater model, to provide a minimum number of acre 
feet of water each year.
    In 2004, Colorado created the Republican River Water 
Conservation District, the RRWCD/District, in the State's 
efforts to comply. We as basin users here in Northeastern 
Colorado have provided almost $120 million of our own money in 
fees for this effort. In 2016, the three States agreed that 
since Colorado was struggling to meet the South Fork 
requirements, that Kansas in lieu of water would accept 
Colorado removing 25,000 acres from irrigation in the South 
Fork by December 2029. The Colorado State engineer has made it 
very clear action is required, that deadlines are real, they 
are not optional, and that the worst-case scenario would force 
him to shut down all high-capacity wells here in our portion of 
the basin in Colorado.
    The surest method to compliance is retiring irrigated acres 
in Colorado, and typically those retirement programs require a 
mix of district and USDA funds. The District is using the CREP 
Program, and EQIP is also beneficial but has been unreliable 
due to lack of funding. In 2018, as we get to the dryland 
farmable CREP, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture and I drafted 
language for the farm bill for that year, which allowed the 
Secretary to re permit dryland farming on qualified acres. 
Secretary Vilsack authorized FSA to create CCP 100, and it 
allows farmers to continue to farm after they give up their 
irrigation well. In May 2023, the USDA announced the producers 
could enroll irrigated land in CP 100, and you were there at 
the signing at the Colorado Capital, Senator Bennet.
    During negotiations with FSA, we had pointed out that the 
requirements are too rigorous, and as of today, 1 year later, 
FSA offices have zero applications. Thanks to your bipartisan 
and bicameral support of the CREP Improvement Act, hopefully 
the compensation hurdle will be remedied. No question, we need 
this program. Also updating, as it has been pointed out 
earlier, that decades-old CRP payment limitation is a real 
barrier in helping us retire these and meet these agreements 
that we have made with Kansas and Nebraska.
    A couple other things I would like to comment about that 
need to be or would like to see remedied is, as I pointed out 
earlier, currently, CRP rental rates reward the highly 
productive land, and for those who have poor lower yielding 
soils to enroll, they do not economically work. One of my 
deepest concerns as a producer is the 1985 version of CRP has 
morphed into a wildlife program. Prior-approved grass stands 
are often required to be destroyed and replaced, and in a time 
of climate change, tenuous reestablishment of grasses is 
extremely difficult. Prior-approved grass stands from decades 
ago should be allowed to remain. I would really like to see, as 
a producer, the Subcommittee continue to focus on drought-
related research as it relates to developing increased drought 
tolerance in existing and new crops.
    I think it is paramount that innovation be included in all 
this, but programs which are tried and true should not be 
abandoned or edited in such a fashion that they become 
unrecognizable over the years. One should not discard the 
original purpose of the CRP, forget that providing adequate 
water to livestock through pipelines and watering facilities is 
essential, or fail to recognize the need for supporting wise 
use of the Ogallala Aquifer.
    On behalf of the RRWCD, I would like to thank you for 
having us here today. I would like to point out that we must 
not forget the High Plains region is of value to the Nation and 
its food supply. Rural communities are important part of this 
Nation's fabric, and most importantly of all, acknowledging 
that our--if our region is going to survive, our youth must 
have a reason to stay here. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Brown can be found on page 
103 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Thank you. Mr. Lewis?

    STATEMENT OF MR. EARL D. LEWIS, JR., CHIEF ENGINEER AND 
   DIRECTOR OF WATER RESOURCES, DIVISION OF WATER RESOURCES, 
      KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, MANHATTAN, KANSAS

    Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member 
Marshall. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you 
today on this panel. My name is Earl Lewis, and I am the chief 
engineer and director of the Kansas Department of Agriculture's 
Division of Water Resources. In that role, I and my staff deal 
with water issues across the State as well as with our 
neighbors. Just for the record, I would like to point out that, 
that we are no longer in any lawsuits with Colorado----
    Senator Bennet. No, we are not.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Lewis [continuing]. and worked very diligently with my 
co-panelist, Mr. Brown here, to resolve that back in 2016----
    Mr. Brown. We did.
    Mr. Lewis [continuing]. and Commissioner Greenberg as, as 
she came on board as well.
    I will go off script for just a minute because I want to 
echo and, and reinforce some of Mr. Brown's comments here, 
especially as it relates to dryland CREP. We see that as a very 
valuable option, not only for Colorado to comply with the 
compact obligations they have, but for us to solve a number of 
our problems within Kansas as well. Don has obviously 
highlighted some of the issues that they are facing. We 
currently have a dryland CREP proposal sitting in DC at the 
national office that needs some help to try and get it across 
the line. We have got producers that are ready to sign up to 
help us solve some our water issues, but because of some of the 
issues have been highlighted here, it is being held up, and we 
probably need a little help to try and get that, again, over 
the line.
    Again, our primary responsibility is the allocation, 
management, and regulation of the waters within Kansas, which 
becomes even more important in times of drought. The Federal 
Government plays a vital role in addressing drought across the 
High Plains, particularly the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 
Those roles range from data collection to drought response, and 
I would like to highlight a couple of things that I think that 
are working well but also could be improved.
    First, the Federal Government's role in monitoring drought 
and bringing consistency and evaluation across the entire 
country is critical to the better preparation and response to 
drought as reflected in the Drought Monitor. While drought, by 
its nature, is a slow-moving event, the situation on the ground 
can change quickly. As such, it is necessary to have the most 
up-to-date information when that development occurs. I would 
encourage efforts that allow submittal of additional credible 
information to the National Drought Monitor so the full extent 
of the drought can be properly reflected. We have heard from 
local constituents, particularly in Western Kansas, that the 
Drought Monitor often underestimates severity of the situation 
on the ground, and this can delay access to some emergency 
programs within USDA.
    As has been mentioned earlier, the Ogallala Aquifer 
supports a significant amount of the Nation's food and fiber 
protection. As such, conserving and extending the life of the 
aquifer is critically important to both individual States such 
as Kansas and Colorado, but the Nation as a whole. For several 
years, USDA's Agricultural Research Service, led by Bushland, 
Texas, has been active with research universities and in the 
Ogallala States to coordinate research in areas of monitoring, 
crop research, water management, and others. I would encourage 
the Subcommittee and Congress to provide adequate resources to 
expand the ongoing research into other areas and topics.
    As our water resource declines, producers will need to 
adapt and move to alternative crops to continue the economic 
activity that has been vital to the area. Additional research 
is needed to better understand how to make that happen, as well 
as development of additional markets and incentives to grow 
crops like milo, right--we call it milo as well--that use less 
water and are more drought tolerant. Crop insurance was 
mentioned in the last panel. I would like to highlight that as 
well. It is one of the most important and widely supported 
programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Like most 
programs, there are improvements that can be made. One that has 
been highlighted and I would echo is that there appears to be 
lack of clarity on the need to continue irrigation of a--of a 
covered crop at a time when drought has effectively terminated 
its growth. Producers are often told that they need to continue 
to irrigate the crop until an adjuster can visit the site in 
person and confirm the crop is no longer viable. Whether this 
is a policy issue or an education issue is unclear. We have 
heard from USDA that that is no longer a policy issue, but it 
still happens fairly frequently. Additional education resources 
are needed and made available to both the insurers and the 
producers on how to deal with this situation. Putting water on 
a crop that is already died is in nobody's interest.
    USDA Rural Development serves a critical purpose in our 
local rural water districts and small towns because droughts 
not only affect farmers and ranchers, but our small communities 
as well. One change that I think could be helpful in rural 
development is when a catastrophe happens and we have a drought 
emergency in a local community, Rural Development does have 
options available for either expanding or extending a 
transmission line or development of a new well. However, the 
caps and the time to get those resources often do not match up 
with the ability of the local community to pay or the situation 
that is happening on the ground and the need to respond 
quickly. I would encourage the caps to be increased, the 
covered practices to be expanded, and the red tape be reduced 
so that we can get that money to the people that need it more 
quickly.
    In summary, addressing the impact of drought across the 
High Plains takes all of our efforts. Whether it is the 
Federal, State, and local governments or individual producers, 
it takes all of us to work together to find solutions that are 
going to serve our farmers, ranchers, and local communities. I 
appreciate the opportunity to be here and be happy to answer 
questions.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lewis can be found on page 
114 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Well said. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Mr. 
Janssen, you are next.

STATEMENT OF MR. PATRICK MILAN JANSSEN, PRESIDENT, KANSAS WATER 
                     PACK, KINSLEY, KANSAS

    Mr. Janssen. Okay. I did not disclose this in my bio, but I 
am a member of PETA, and that stands for People Eating Tasty 
Animals.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Janssen. All right. I have been asked to speak to CREP 
initially. CREP has met its initial goals in water-stressed 
areas where we had already experienced depletion in aquifers.
    Senator Bennet. Could I ask you just to lean in a little 
bit to your microphone? Thank you very much.
    Mr. Janssen. Okay. The CREP Program has achieved its 
initial goals of going into stressed aquifers, stabilizing 
water quality and the water quantity available there. Since 
then, we have tried to move this program into areas that still 
had abundant water and were viable for irrigation. At that 
point, we started running into issues with funding. Currently, 
in Stafford County, Kansas, an acre of irrigated ground is 
worth $7,000 an acre. A comparable acre of dryland is worth 
about $2,400 an acre. That is a $4,600 spread in property 
value, and currently, the CREP price for that ground is $2,250 
an acre, or about 51 percent of what the fair market value of 
that water is at an auction.
    Other issues we have got is presently, we do not have a 
dryland CREP option in Kansas. To sprawl this one a little bit, 
in the 1980's, in my part of the world, when the initial CRP 
Program came out, it effectively skipped a generation of 
producers because there was no place for those young people to 
go and farm to expand their family operations. I would urge a 
bit of caution there because CRP rental rates also impact what 
landowners expect to receive for ground that is still in 
production, so that can be an unintended consequence of that.
    OK. We also have no option in CREP for partial water right 
retirements. We really need flexibility in the type of covers 
acceptable for grass seedings, specifically on irrigated ground 
in sandy areas. We need the ability to be able to use 
established alfalfa stands as cover for these crops rather than 
going in on ground that no longer has access to irrigation 
water, destroying an existing crop, and then attempting to 
produce something else to stabilize and protect that land from 
soil erosion. I found out this week that to make any 
modifications at a dryland program to the CREP in Kansas, we 
now have to go through an environmental impact assessment. We 
continue to make things more complicated rather than making 
things simpler and easier to implement. Crop insurance, it is 
definitely necessary. We had a board meeting of a cooperative I 
serve on, and for the second year in a row, our wheat receipts 
are 30 percent of our 15-year average in our area, so 
maintaining crop insurance is critical to keeping a viable 
national food security.
    We seem to be suffering from a disconnect in communications 
and culture within NRCS, and I do not want this to come off as 
I am down on everything they are doing because I am not. We 
have gotten away from our NRCS offices or NRCS policies being 
drafted by farm boys with a college degree who wanted to make 
things better. We now have biologists, people with other 
specialties, extremely intelligent people, but they do not have 
the boots-on-the-ground experience in production ag to go out 
and make the connection between a hillbilly like myself and 
what they hope to achieve on a wildlife management level. The 
rigidity of these programs continues to increase as the 
disconnect between program, policy, and producers has widened. 
There is more emphasis placed on the process rather than on the 
outcomes. There are many ways to reach a destination, and there 
are no straight lines in nature.
    If I cover up the timer, I can ignore it.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Janssen. I would encourage a lot more producer-level 
input, you know, focus groups, things like this. We do not 
necessarily need to drag gentlemen, such as yourselves, into 
it, but you guys need to hear from those of us on the ground 
who are trying to implement these projects. One of the other 
things I keep hearing is cover crops, things like that. If a 
producer has tried that on their own and reported that to NRCS 
as is acreage planted to a cover crop, they are no longer 
eligible for cost share because that is a preexisting practice. 
If they want to expand that practice on their property, you 
know, neighbor Joe who is still dragging a mold board, he can 
get the funding, but the person that is progressive cannot, and 
that carries through in a lot of programs.
    I guess I would ask as a group, NRCS, USDA, to establish a 
spirit of cooperation rather than a spirit of strict 
administration moving forward. That is my testimony.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Janssen can be found on page 
119 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Janssen. Thank you very much 
for being here. Senator Simpson, please finish out the panel, 
and then we will have some questions.

 STATEMENT OF MR. CLEAVE SIMPSON, GENERAL MANAGER, RIO GRANDE 
         WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT, ALAMOSA, COLORADO

    Mr. Simpson. I am going to go ahead and cover up the timer 
right away.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairman Bennet and Ranking Member 
Marshall.
    Senator Bennet. You guys have all been so good that we are 
in good shape, so take the time you need, and do not feel a lot 
of pressure.
    Mr. Simpson. Thank you again, Chairman Bennet and Ranking 
Member Marshall.
    So like some of the other members, I want to offer a little 
bit of a personal perspective. I am here as the Rio Grande 
Water Conservation District general manager, and we run a CREP 
Program, but you touched on it in the bio. I am the fourth 
generation of my family to farm and ranch in the San Luis 
Valley. I feel very blessed for the opportunity. On a daily 
basis, I get to farm and ranch with my dad, who is 81, and my 
33-year-old son, and I got a little three-year-old grandson as 
well. It is important to me that we manage this new paradigm 
shift appropriately to give my son and my grandson an 
opportunity to be the fifth and sixth generations of my family 
to do this.
    I operate a farm in the driest part of Colorado. We get 
less than seven inches of precipitation a year, so all of 
that--my community is the San Luis Valley. All of the culture, 
economy, and the communities are driven around irrigated 
agriculture, and the supply of water is just diminishing over, 
really, the last 20 years. My farm, I utilize surface water 
diversions out of the Rio Grande and groundwater from a 
confined aquifer system, very similar to what my dad and my 
grandpa did. Uniquely, my surface water priority is an 1879 
priority. You would think, man, that is--that is pretty good, 
that is senior. Not in my basin. That is like a junior water 
right.
    I looked this morning, and that water right is now, this 
morning, the calling priority, which means it is not getting 
its full diversion. If the river drops another a hundred cubic 
feet per second----
    Senator Bennet. Amazing.
    Mr. Simpson [continuing]. that water supply is off. I have 
acres on my farm that solely depend on surface water, so it is 
done with its irrigation. The rest of the year, I am just 
subject to whatever natural precipitation we can get.
    My wells were drilled in the 1960's, and, historically, 
they have been a steady supply of water, but it also is 
challenging in that a whole history of--you know, the doctrine 
of prior appropriation and us pumping water in the Valley, 
truly out of priority. There were ways to mitigate that over 
time, but it really has culminated, and I will touch about that 
in a minute. The San Luis Valley is about 8,000 square miles 
and about 500,000 irrigated acres, and it is recognized as 
highly over appropriated. The surface water was over 
appropriated by 1900. The groundwater were really over 
appropriated by 1970 and early 1980's, and the Colorado Supreme 
Court has affirmed that. There is no unappropriated water left 
in the San Luis Valley.
    A highlight: 2002 was really an inflection point for us. It 
is the driest year in recorded history on the Rio Grande River. 
We have the second oldest continuous gauged point on the--in 
the State of Colorado on the Rio Grande at del Norte. 
Historically, that flow averages between 700,000- and 800,000-
acre feet of water a year. In 2002, it was 135,000-acre feet of 
water. Really, from that point forward, we are--we are now 22 
years post-2002, and 2018 was the fourth worst drought in our 
recorded history, and we just continue to be well below average 
in snowpack and runoff over that 22-year year period.
    What that really led us to was instrumental in the Colorado 
General Assembly in 2004 was Senate Bill 222. This was a bill 
that directed the State engineer to craft rules and regulations 
about groundwater use in the--in Division 3 in the Rio Grande 
Basin that required producers to do really two things: remedy 
or mitigate the injury that your surface water withdrawals--I 
am sorry--your groundwater withdrawals have on surface water 
rights. Then uniquely, we are tasked with creating and 
maintaining sustainable aquifers in the Rio Grande Basin. 
Nobody else in Colorado was doing that. Really nobody in the 
Western U.S. was doing that in 2002. That really led us to a 
process to establish subdistricts of the Rio Grande Water 
Conservation District, tasked again with creating and 
maintaining sustainable aquifers. The first subdistrict to be 
formed was about 170,000 groundwater irrigated acres that came 
together to assess themselves fees to run programs, to create 
and maintain a sustainable aquifer system.
    The centerpiece of that plan was CREP, the CREP Program, 
and I always kind of characterize it, it feels like to me, that 
CREP--that program was really kind of written for the 
breadbasket of the United States, and we were trying to figure 
out how to utilize it, not for soil conservation efforts 
exclusively, but more about managing water and groundwater. It 
has been this odd kind of fit to try to take CREP and make it 
applicable to our groundwater situation.
    When we started our efforts, the subdistrict came together 
and started managing for aquifer conditions in 2012 with the 
intention of, again, that centerpiece of CREP, identifying we 
could take 40,000 acres out of production voluntarily and 
compensated. Really, at that time period, if the next 20 years 
in 2012 would have looked like the prior 20 years prior to 
2002, if we take 40,000 acres out, we can recover our aquifer 
to a standard that we set. We are 22 years into our--into our 
program. I am sorry. We are 12 years into our subdistrict 
program. We have not able to get 40,000 acres out of 
production. We are really, under the CREP Program, about 
20,000, and I will highlight some of the, you know, 
circumstances behind that.
    Commodity prices played a big role, and farmers do not get 
into this not to farm, and when high commodity prices occur, 
the CREP Program just was not competitive. It had regulatory 
challenges. Look, just dealing with the Federal Government is 
hard. I have had producers come to me and say I want to sign up 
for CREP, and I will say, all right. First process is you got 
to go down to Farm Services Agency because we are partnered 
with USDA and FSA and the Colorado Division of Water Resources 
to create this CREP Program. If I tell them they got to go to 
FSA, their immediate response is, I am not--I am not doing it. 
I do not want to do it.
    Some of the other challenges some of the other folks have 
talked about as well, but having the flexibility and the 
uniqueness to adapt to our circumstances, whether it is the 
seed type we use, how much water we can put on it. payment 
limitations were challenging, uniquely alfalfa as well. We are 
trying to do this for water conservation efforts. Alfalfa is 
the most water-consumptive use crop we have. That is what I--
that is what I raise as well. The CREP Program requires some 
sort of--you have to have rotated out of your crop within a 
certain window, a period--time period of time. Sometimes my 
alfalfa crops will go 10 years, and they do not qualify for the 
CREP Program.
    I will--I will kind of finish up and wrap up since I am 2-
and-a-half minutes over already.
    Senator Bennet. I do not dare gavel you down.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Simpson. It is so important, and farmers are resilient. 
They are innovative in partnering with the Federal Government 
and the State government in trying to figure--this is not 
drought anymore. This truly is the aridification of the West, 
and I feel it on a daily----
    Senator Bennet. Yes.
    Mr. Simpson [continuing]. a daily basis on my farm, but 
some efficiencies. We can gain some ground inefficiencies, 
different crop types. I have heard others talk about it. I 
have--like Robert Sakata was pointing out, I am fortunate 
enough, I can assume an incrementally little bit more risk in 
my farming operations because I have two other jobs. Growing a 
different crop, I have tried raising hemp for fiber. I am 
raising some barley under regenerative practices. I did not go 
buy a no-till drill, but that is in the cards. The other kind 
of key thing for us is the introduction of a conversation about 
groundwater conservation easements, and those have really come 
to fruition in my basin----
    Senator Bennet. Got it.
    Mr. Simpson [continuing]. and afford an opportunity for 
further discussion.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Simpson can be found on page 
122 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Let me--I am going to call--thank you for 
that, Cleave, and I will solve this problem by asking you my 
first question----
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Bennet [continuing]. which is could you talk a 
little bit about what the producers in the Valley are beginning 
to think about the use of groundwater conservation easements 
and how that could be a powerful tool for water conservation if 
we are able to figure out how to write some farm bill language 
that could support that.
    Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairman Bennet. Great question, 
and this is a conversation really unfolded in the Rio Grande 
Water Conservation District. In 2019, I approached the 
conservation community and said, look, you have a great 
template and model for conserving and protecting surface 
values. Help me think about a model that what would a healthier 
aquifer system mean, you know, to both the surface values that 
you are--you are enduring to protect and the viability of 
agriculture here. It really set us on a path--and I know you 
have folks from Colorado Open Lands on a panel coming up--that 
really put us in a spot to really dig in, and for first of its 
kind two years ago, had a producer enroll his 12 center pivot 
systems, his farm into a traditional conservation easement that 
included a groundwater conservation component where there is a 
recognition of the value of him leaving the water into the 
aquifer and not pumping it out. It was a great collaborative 
effort to get this ball kind of rolling.
    There is tremendous effort in the San Luis Valley, 
particularly if we can nuance it a little bit, to go maybe it 
is not a complete suspension of your groundwater withdrawals, 
but maybe a portion of it.
    Senator Bennet. In my mind, this is a perfect example of 
what we are trying to get to in the conversations that we are 
having, which is how do we make these programs work better for 
the reality of the Western United States, not how they look on 
paper necessarily back in DC. We are going to need that kind of 
flexibility, we are going to need that kind of innovation, 
which brings me to my second question, and I am going to have a 
third one for you, Kate, after this. What do we do to get this 
dryland CREP moving, now moving away from Cleave's situation in 
the San Luis Valley to the situation, you know, we are facing 
more locally here in the Republican River?
    By the way, we noted, we wanted to--yesterday we identified 
the fact that Republican is pronounced the same way in Kansas 
as it is in Colorado, unlike the word ``Arkansas,'' which is--
--
    Senator Marshall. ``Arkansas.''
    Senator Bennet [continuing]. different in in Kansas. What 
can we do to help move this forward, do you think? Don, let's 
start with you, and, Mr. Lewis, happy to hear you, too, and 
there are three States that we have got here.
    Mr. Brown. Yes. We have got this three-State----
    Senator Bennet. Lean into that microphone.
    Mr. Brown. Yes, I have got a--well, I do not have the 
answer. I wished I did. The bureaucracy is an interesting 
thing. When I tried to wade through it eight, nine years ago to 
open Colorado's CREP up in order to make--be able to use the 
irrigation well for domestic well, go from a hundred-acre feet 
a year to one-acre foot a year, DC pushed back big time because 
they thought on a bunch of these irrigated circles, we were 
going to use the water for apartment buildings. Apartment 
buildings in the middle of out here, right? That is the type of 
pushback we get with the bureaucracy.
    I think that where you are headed is very helpful with your 
Improvement Act bill. I think that will help a great deal. One 
concern I have is the bureaucracy, I think to a certain degree, 
does not want this to happen. I think it is simple, and without 
Secretary Vilsack's help, we would not even have it today, and 
so I think that we will just have to continue to apply 
pressure. I do not understand what the reluctance is to 
conserve the Ogallala Aquifer. I do not understand what the 
reluctance is to keep young people on the farm by having 
ground-to-farm.
    Let's talk about bureaucracy very quickly here. I want to 
show you a file from 1972 where my grandfather got an NRCS 
stock tank plus grass seeding. This is it. It is this thick. It 
is letter size, right? This is today's program, inch thick, and 
we have not got the project completed yet. I am anxious to see 
if I will need another one.
    Senator Bennet. Mr. Lewis, do you have anything you would 
like to add?
    Mr. Lewis. Yes, I appreciate.
    Senator Bennet. I will enter the thickness of the folders 
into the record, without objection.

    [The document can be found on page ??? in the appendix.]

    Mr. Lewis. No, I thank you, and I agree with Don on this 
that the level of documentation, bureaucracy has certainly 
increased across all levels of government and across all 
agencies within USDA.
    To answer your question, I think there are--there are two 
things. One is clarifying what the purpose of the CREP and CRP 
is really about. I think, as Don has correctly pointed out, I 
think there is a resistance to it because there is kind of a 
history of CRP, when it went in 1985, that is what it is really 
about. Well, times change and the resources we are trying to 
address change, and we need to be able to clarify to the 
leadership in FSA and USDA what that is about. There are other 
resources besides just making sure that we are keeping that 
soil in the same place it was.
    The other thing is, I think, where is the decisionmaking 
point at? You know, we have, and this, again, is not only a 
USDA issue, it is a Federal agency issue. We have really good 
relationships with our State partners, our State 
conservationists, State FSA directors that really understand 
the situation on the ground, what we are trying to achieve, 
what our producers are facing, and they are often having to 
argue within their own agency at a higher level to try and get 
something done. I think if we can move decision-making point 
down a level or two to the people that are interacting with us 
on daily basis, we would get a better result.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. I have to gavel myself then 
because I am over time, so am going to actually go to my 
colleague for the next couple questions. I will come back to 
you, Commissioner.
    Senator Marshall. Well, Senator Bennet, as I heard the 
interaction between Mr. Brown and Mr. Lewis, I was reminded 
that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting. What is 
so impressive, I think, since becoming a member of the Senate 
diving deep into these water issues is seeing the level of 
collaboration that I do not think has always been there, 
whether it is our State offices working together or the USDA. I 
think the CREP Act that two senators--two Democrat senators 
from Colorado and two Republican senators from Kansas--have 
tried to sit down, as Mr. Janssen suggested, with the 
producers, and figure out how do we take something and make it 
better. That is exactly how legislation is supposed to work, 
and we sure hope we make it--we hope that makes it into the 
final farm bill. It is not perfect. Maybe we got time to make 
it better, but I certainly am proud of the work that we have 
done.
    I want to ask Mr. Lewis a little bit about the Rattlesnake 
Creek Basin, and just for the edification of folks back in DC, 
that Stafford County is also home to Quivira Wildlife Refuge, a 
wetland of international importance for many, many reasons, 
something that I have enjoyed for decades now. On the other 
hand, 80, maybe 90 percent of the economy in Stafford County is 
dependent upon irrigated corn and raising a little bit of 
cattle. There is--this is one of the best examples of something 
you and I have worked on and Mr. Janssen as well. What, in your 
opinion, could USDA do to help our producers in the Rattlesnake 
Creek Basin to solve this riddle?
    Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Senator Marshall, and I appreciate 
it. That is certainly a tough, tough issue for all of us to 
deal with. You know, certainly NRCS is already working with the 
local groundwater management district under a watershed plan to 
try and--to bring some resources to bear. Much like what was 
talked about with CREP, the environmental evaluation of that 
has been very significant and, I think, very costly. I think if 
we can try and speed that up a little bit, that would be 
helpful. Certainly the process, assuming that that moves 
forward, they are going to find something that is 
implementable. We need to be able to move that through the 
process very quickly so we can get those resources to the 
producers and on the ground quickly.
    The dryland CREP option is--also overlaps with this area. 
Certainly, you know, directed funding, that maybe there is not 
a program that fits exactly, but we certainly have a very--as 
you point out, a very unique resource that we try to find some 
balance between our agricultural producers and the natural 
resource and the wildlife refuge. A lot of times there is not 
necessarily a program that fits very well, and I think we need 
some flexibility for some of our programs to make sure that we 
can come up with creative solutions.
    Senator Marshall. Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Lewis, and 
I will go with Mr. Janssen now and kind of a followup to the 
same issue. Some producers are early adopters of technology and 
some not so much. I guess I have always tried to figure out, 
well, why, why that is because we are going to have to adapt 
some new technology in the Stafford County and this Rattle 
Snake Creek Basin to make this thing work, right? Is it--how 
much of it is the cost, and how much of it is just the 
bureaucracy of trying to check the boxes to implement this 
technology? Why do farmers, ranchers not adapt some of these 
technologies?
    Mr. Janssen. A lot of the struggles we have had with the 
technologies, I have been involved in a couple of different 
grant and water technology programs over the years. Several 
years ago, we had--probably 10 or 15 years ago, we had John 
Deere Fontanelle. Everybody had moisture probes, and, you know, 
if you bought seed, if you bought a green tractor, you got a 
moisture probe, and they came out, they put them in, and at the 
end of the year, they came and took them out. Nobody did any 
producer education, nobody did any followup with them, so they 
kind of--some of the technology, due to lack of follow-through 
on the part of the people providing it, left a bitter taste in 
the mouth of some people.
    Through our--the last grant I was involved with, with the 
Nature Conservancy in K State, we had 30 cooperators. We had 36 
separate fields. One of the things we found out was that boots 
on the ground, meeting with those producers, spending time 
going through, you know, the probe data, going through their 
irrigation scheduling, those type of things, is critical to the 
success of any of these programs. What we discovered through 
that thing based on producer engagement, is we think that a 
culture of efficiency and irrigation is somewhere in the 
neighborhood of 40 percent mechanical. We can hang stuff on a 
pivot until it glows in the dark, and it is not going to make 
any difference until we make that breakthrough with that 
producer, that they start to engage and get interested in what 
we are trying to do with them. That is the challenge is, you 
are--you know, you are fighting 50 years of it worked for 
granddad, it worked for dad, why would I want to do anything 
different? We are in a--we are in a new world. We need to 
figure out how to do the same or better with less.
    Senator Marshall. Thanks. A quick question for Mr. Lewis, 
and if you--maybe you should refer me to somebody else, but I 
sat down with a producer in the Eastern third of the State 
earlier this week, one of those young families that we are 
trying to keep in the farming business, right? He has some EQIP 
funds to build a terrace, but he has been waiting over a year 
to get a cultural assessment done. He would gladly pay for the 
cultural assessment, he wants the cultural assessment, but we 
have got maybe one person that can do that. What could USDA do 
or we do to empower the process and not let some of these 
assessments hold up the process?
    Mr. Lewis. Well, I am certainly not familiar exactly with 
that situation, but we have run into that situation in other 
places, and I think one thing that NRCS and others could do, 
there are certainly other folks that can do that work outside 
of State or Federal agency. As you say, if he is willing to pay 
for that, I think having a list of folks that they are 
comfortable that they--those folks know what they are doing, 
they would accept those results, then they can refer that to 
somebody locally to do that work.
    Senator Marshall. Mr. Brown, go ahead.
    Mr. Brown. May I answer?
    Senator Marshall. Please. Sure.
    Mr. Brown. We are quite--we are quite familiar with that in 
Colorado. NRCS in Colorado has the capability of fulfilling the 
cultural resources component of the evaluation. If you are 
putting in a pipeline, NRCS will come and evaluate that for you 
and with you, and then that box is checked. Farm Service Agency 
does not have the trained personnel or technicians that have 
that certificate, so you have to go outside of and hire your 
own individual to do that for you. It is a three-hour drive. It 
is difficult. It is quite expensive. I would think and I would 
recommend that FSA contract with NRCS to have the NRCS 
individual conduct that--typically, it is the same project 
anyway--conduct that portion of it.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you. What a reasonable, commonsense 
solution.
    Mr. Brown. Just saying, right?
    Senator Marshall. Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Senator. I did have one more 
question for the commissioner. You mentioned RCPP in your 
testimony, which I do think has enormous potential but has 
fallen short of that potential in the rollout and seems to me 
to be a place where we simply have not been able to achieve 
what the legislative intent was. I wonder whether you could 
take a minute to talk a little bit, as long as time as you 
want, talk a little bit about the changes you would want in 
RCPP, what is it about, what is it about the partnership of 
Climate Smart commodities you mentioned earlier that seems to 
be working better, and how do we make the whole thing better 
for producers?
    Ms. Greenberg. Absolutely. Thank you. I think you have 
heard up here actually a lot of the conditions that we would 
like to see change in RCPP when it comes to administrative 
burden. We have talked a lot about that. We see that as a 
significant barrier in RCPP projects. The intent behind RCPP, I 
agree, is admirable and, I think, very applicable, especially 
the focus on regional scale, focus on partnerships, but that 
administrative barrier is immense for a lot of organizations to 
participate. Also, the lack of administrative costs included in 
the program, the overhead, the commitment--the 5-year matching 
commitment. Looking at relaxing some of the matching 
requirements is certainly something we have heard would be very 
beneficial
    Something we have seen across the board, of course, are 
project delays. This is out of our hands in some regards, but I 
think it is key that our Federal programs stay focused on 
keeping the timelines. Even if we are pushed back 18 months, 2 
years, we see an incredible increase in costs that can make 
those projects very difficult to implement given that time. We 
have also talked a lot about technical assistance. That is 
another key piece for RCPP. Something we have seen with climate 
smart commodities, we have seen a lot of these changes in 
Climate Smart that have really eased the path to participating 
and to getting a lot of diverse and really important partners 
included in those projects. Making sure we are investing in 
technical assistance, both through USDA and local and regional 
partners, is key.
    All of this, I think about, is our role to help absorb 
risk. Much of what we have heard today from producers across 
the State is the limited margins we have in ag, hardly any 
margins, so it is our role to really help absorb that as we 
look to change. RCPP can really do better by following what 
Climate Smart Commodities has done.
    Senator Bennet. Good. Great. Well, what a fantastic panel. 
It is actually hard to believe that you were not preparing your 
testimony together. We deeply, deeply appreciate it. Thanks for 
being in Burlington today.
    We are going to now transition to the last panel, and we 
are going to try to move as quickly as possible, but please be 
patient. Thank you very much.
    [Applause.]
    [Pause.]
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. We are going to get started for 
the third panel and try to end as on time as we can. Thank you 
all--thank you all for being here today.
    I will begin by introducing Mr. Curtis Sayles, a fourth-
generation farmer and owner and manager of CFS farms in 
Seibert, Colorado. He and his wife, Carrie, bought their first 
farm in 1985 and currently own 5,000 acres of dryland farm 
ground on the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Curtis employs 
regenerative agriculture where they emphasize soil health 
practice while producing a variety of specialty and commodity 
grains. His farm also incorporates cattle to further improve 
their land and provide natural fertilizer for growing crops. 
Thank you for being here today, and we look forward to your 
testimony.
    Mr. Carlyle Currier is the president of Colorado Farm 
Bureau and a fourth-generation rancher in Molina, Colorado, 
where he raises beef cattle, alfalfa, grass, hay, and small 
grains. Following his father's example, he quickly became 
involved in farm organizations to support the local 
agricultural industry, including the local Colorado Cattlemen's 
Association and Farm Bureau. Carlyle has extensive experience 
in water policy, representing the Colorado River Basin 
Roundtable on the Colorado Interbasin Compact Committee since 
2006, and in that role was very involved in writing the 
agricultural portions of the Colorado Water Plan. I am grateful 
for the number of times he has come to visit in Washington in 
his official capacity, grateful that he is here today. Carlyle, 
I look forward to your testimony as well.
    Ms. Sarah Parmar is the director of conservation at 
Colorado Open Lands, where she has led private land 
conservation work for over a decade. In this role, she has 
moved the organization to think and work strategically to align 
land conservation with water challenges. Sarah has also led the 
development of a technical guide for Colorado's land trust 
community on collaborative water sharing agreements, and led a 
feasibility study on using conservation easements to enable 
voluntary, compensated reduction of groundwater. Her passion 
for Western land protection stems from her background growing 
up as the fifth generation on a cattle ranch in Southeastern 
Arizona. Sarah is the immediate past chair of the Colorado 
Conservation Easement Oversight Commission. Thank you for being 
here today, Sarah. We really appreciate it. I look forward to 
your testimony, and Senator Marshall will introduce the other 
two witnesses.
    Senator Marshall. Well, I have the honor to welcome and 
introduce two more witnesses from Kansas. First is one of the 
living legends of the cattle business, a true pioneer in 
cattle, one of my mentors that has taught me so much about 
understanding the modern cattle business, Mr. Jeff Sternberger. 
Jeff grew up on a cattle and farming operation near Hardtner, 
Kansas, which is on the Oklahoma-Kansas border, on the Kansas 
side. Somehow we lost him to Oklahoma State University where he 
got a degree in ag economics, but that has not held him back. 
He has still been successful.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Marshall. He went on to work for another great 
innovation team, the Farm Credit System, now over a hundred 
years old, another great partner for agriculture, and he was 
making production loans to Oklahoma farmers and ranchers. 
Today, Mr. Sternberger is the general manager and co-owner of 
Midwest Feeders at Ingalls, Kansas. Jeff and his lovely wife, 
Colleen, also own farming and ranching operations in Kansas and 
Oklahoma. Jeff has served as the president of the Kansas 
Livestock Association in 2014 when I met him, and he is a past 
member of the National Cattleman's Beef Association Executive 
Committee, and currently serves on the U.S. Premium board of 
directors.
    The next young lady I had the opportunity to introduce, she 
is a budding superstar in agriculture. Amy France is the vice 
chair of the National Sorghum Producers, otherwise known as the 
milo folks, from Scott City, Kansas. She is the first woman to 
hold a leadership office position on the National Sorghum 
Producers board of directors in the organization's 68-year 
history. She has served the industry on the NSP board of 
directors since 2018. She and her husband, Clint, are third-
generation farmers working alongside their oldest son on their 
family farm in semiarid Western conditions, mostly on the arid 
side, I think. They grow grain, sorghum, corn, wheat, and raise 
Angus cattle. Amy, welcome to you as well.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you all for being here, and, Mr. 
Sayles, please kick us off.

   STATEMENT OF MR. CURTIS E. SAYLES, OWNER AND MANAGER, CFS 
                    FARMS, SEIBERT, COLORADO

    Mr. Sayles. Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member Marshall, I was 
glad that Senator Bennet said we had plenty of time. I wrote 
down all my thoughts, did a read-through, and it was only 16 
minutes, and I thought maybe I better whittle it down.
    Senator Bennet. That is short for the Senate.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Sayles. Anyway, I hope I do better. Thank you for 
letting me speak to you today on the tools and processes we 
have been incorporating over the years to combat the erratic 
weather patterns that seem to becoming the norm. Our farm is 
entirely dryland. This means we do not irrigate any of our 
crops, so we are completely at the mercy of nature for our 
moisture. As stated before, I am fourth-generation farmer from 
Seibert, Colorado, just about 30 minutes west of here, where we 
are today. I returned to the family farm in 1980. I married my 
beautiful wife in 1982. She is with me today. Thought I better 
mention that. We have three lovely daughters, two great son-in-
laws, and six charming grandchildren.
    We purchased our first farm in 1985, practicing 
conservation tillage, meaning leaving as much residue on the 
surface as possible. 1997, we decided to pursue a no-till 
farming system, sold all of our tillage equipment, bought a 
sprayer, no-till drill, and started continuous crop zero till. 
At that time, soil tests indicated that our soil organic matter 
was less than 1 percent. In 2014, we were introduced to this 
new regenerative agriculture at the No-till on the Plains 
conference. By this time, our soil organic matter had increased 
to 2 percent over the years of zero till. In addition, our 
fertilizer recommendations continued to decrease as nutrient 
cycling matured.
    As we looked at the advantages of healthy soil over 
chemical and fertilizer, we decided to adopt the suggested 
regenerative principles. We were already keeping the soil 
covered and had minimum soil disturbance. We added cover crops 
and began integrating livestock into our cropping rotation. We 
now routinely score soil organic matter in the upper 2 percents 
with some fields exceeding 3 percent. Utilization of the Haney 
and PLFA soil tests indicate that our soil biological 
populations are increasing with a corresponding nutrient credit 
being created. We have utilized some government programs along 
the way. We were enrolled in the Conservation Stewardship 
program in 2015. Unfortunately, this program was not patterned 
for large-scale utilization and did not fit our scale.
    In 2016, we were introduced to Dr. Meagan Schipanski, a 
researcher from Colorado State University. Her team wanted to 
study the holistic system that we were building from a system-
based approach instead of the traditional research model. This 
research was invaluable. Following this project, we were 
enrolled in the Farmer Advancing Regenerative Management 
Systems program, FARMS for short. This was funded by a USDA 
NRCS grant. This program supported producers who were building 
comprehensive soil health management systems on their farms. 
Last year, we were asked to participate in another program. It 
is a Western SARE grant-funded project called Farms Beyond 
Yield, helping indigenous and black farmers understand and 
utilize regenerative techniques. Last, we have been recently 
enrolled in an NRCS Transitional Organic Program. What we have 
learned from all of this is simply that the soil must have 
carbon--must have a carbon reserve if we hope to build 
resilience in our cropping system.
    Earlier this spring, Dr. Jerry Hatfield, Agricultural 
Research Service senior researcher, addressed the 2024 High 
Plains No-till conference and shared that, most if not all, 
farmers in our region are now farming the B horizon. To quickly 
explain, the soil is divided into layers known as horizons. The 
A horizon is more commonly known as topsoil, while the B 
horizon is a more basic substrate and so on. The topsoil is the 
rich, high-carbon layer of soil buildup over eons of natural 
processes long before man started tilling the soil. The topsoil 
layer functions as a whole ecosystem, the foundation of which 
is soil carbon. Tillage exposes this soil carbon to the 
atmosphere and triggers its loss as carbon dioxide into the 
atmosphere.
    In the High Plains, the intact short grass prairie had no 
more than 5 percent organic matter. In the hundred years since 
the prairie was broke, tillage agriculture has reduced the 
levels of soil organic matter to less than 1 percent. For many 
years, conventional tillage was the normal cropping system. It 
still is for farmers today. However, tilling the ground is a 
consumptive system, meaning the system is always being used up 
without the ability to rebuild the resource. Dr. Hatfield's 
comments really hit a note with me and likely resonates with 
other farmers who grow crops in the former Dust Bowl region.
    Conventional cropping systems work, as indicated by 
successful producers in agriculture, but at what long-term 
cost? If we keep treating the soil like a growing medium 
without regard--without the thought of regenerating it, we will 
be locked into a spiral of increasing fertilizer and chemical 
usage. Without carbon in the soil, we are never going to have 
the resilience to moderate a changing climate. This has to be a 
philosophical change. I would like my legacy to be a farm where 
I watch my grandchildren grow up healthy, I would like to not 
worry about them around the farm getting into something, and I 
would really like to pass on a farm that is not yoked to 
chemicals and fertilizer for productivity--for profitability.
    Some areas need to be addressed as we move forward 
regeneratively. As we have heard several times today, Federal 
crop insurance must be modified to give incentive to farmers to 
adopt regenerative systems, increase the number of crops it 
covered. Non-traditional crops are discouraged if the farmer is 
forced to use the totally inadequate MAP Insurance System. 
Revisit the regulations concerning the usage of cover crop, 
maybe performance-based premium discounts for farmers 
incorporating regenerative practices, and, in general, the 
diminishing APHA issue will become a problem if the climate 
continues to deteriorate and crop insurance is used more often. 
Additional research is necessary. The research model needs to 
be a holistic, long-term, system-based research. On farm, in 
the real world. is the most realistic. A regenerative produce 
standard, much like organic needs, needs to be adopted. We are 
currently working with an organization called the Soil Carbon 
Initiative as they work toward this goal.
    In conclusion, regenerative agriculture is a farmer-driven 
movement. That is why I think it will succeed. If society wants 
agriculture to go this way, government has a responsibility to 
assist. If our environment continues to track toward the 
erratic, farmers are going to have to adjust to protect the 
soil to continue to produce. That is the resilience we must 
foster. Drought resilience, economic resilience, and agronomics 
resilience must all be pursued. Thank you for letting me 
testify about a movement that I am passionate about. I have 
thrown a lot on the table. Maybe I have not provided solutions, 
but I hope I have suggested places to start looking. I look 
forward to watching the results of this hearing. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Sayles can be found on page 
126 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Sayles. Mr. Currier, you are 
next.

  STATEMENT OF MR. CARLYLE CURRIER, PRESIDENT, COLORADO FARM 
                    BUREAU, MOLINA, COLORADO

    Mr. Currier. Thank you, Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member 
Marshall. My name is Carlyle Currier. I serve as president of 
the Colorado Farm Bureau, our State's largest general farming 
organization representing all four corners of the State and all 
commodities. I also serve on the board of directors of the 
American Farm Bureau Federation. I want to thank you for the 
invitation to participate in today's proceedings as we discuss 
the compounding challenges and opportunities ushered in by a 
dryer future and a more arid future.
    I am the fourth generation on my family ranch located in 
Mountain Valley near Molina, Colorado. My son, Joel, will be 
the fifth generation to raise beef cattle and grow hay and 
small grains from our home in Mesa County. In my volunteer 
capacities, I have been fortunate to work with many groups 
intent on finding adaptions to hotter, drier times. The need 
for innovation becomes increasingly urgent with each drought 
cycle. Here in Colorado, our farmers and ranchers have adapted 
because wind and water supplies have demanded it. Where I am 
from, our high-elevation pastures are often flood irrigated. 
Our producers have improved efficiencies in flood irrigation 
over the years, and, in doing so, we provide a couple of 
important low-cost tradeoffs for the irrigation water we use.
    For example, we slow water down and provide water for 
downstream ecological benefits like water for wildlife and 
shallow mountain aquifer recharge. We also benefit downstream 
users. This tradeoff provides consistency whether we are 
talking about our role in delivery through Colorado River 
Compact compliance or sustainability of our ecosystems. We 
produce the most nutrient dense, consumable, and affordable 
protein in the world. Our ability to use water to grow forage 
that we feed the livestock results in dividends that shore up 
our food security issues domestically. The insurance tradeoff 
need to not be dismissed. Additionally, farmers and ranchers in 
the West play a critical role on Federal lands to improving 
range conditions, preventing wildfires, and maintain health--
maintaining healthy watersheds through grazing. Ranchers with 
Federal grazing permits utilize land that is often ill suited 
for other kinds of production.
    Because we are here to talk about water, I would like to 
offer that, specifically, grazing on Federal lands increases 
water yields, improves soil structure, and assists with water 
storage and filtration. A strong partnership between Federal 
agencies and local grazing permits is key to maintaining these 
ecosystem services. I have been fortunate enough to have a good 
working relationship with personnel in Grand Mesa National 
Forest where I run my cattle in the summertime. Again, they 
recognize the important tradeoffs and contributions of multiple 
use on Federal lands as opposed to an exclusionary preservation 
system.
    There are many other ways agriculture is part of the 
solution for a future we are facing. Our continued 
contributions depend on the continuing respect for our State's 
administration of water rights and the private property 
protections that the prior appropriation system provides. 
Often, this system creates tensions between growing urban 
centers that need water resources and an agricultural industry 
that may be hurting during difficult times. Buy-and-dry 
programs as a stopgap for conserving water during periods of 
peak urban municipal expansion has severe consequences. Buy-
and-dry imperatives do not bode well for a State's economy that 
depends on agriculture's $9.2 billion of sales contributions. 
We at Colorado Farm Bureau think buy-and-dry programs are to be 
cautioned against because of the consequences to our rural 
communities and economies.
    USDA is certainly recognizing the importance of rural 
investment when it comes to helping farmers in rural areas 
experiencing distress from drought, but there is surely more we 
can do. We need solutions that fuel long-term economic 
development and provide multiple benefits like Senator Bennet's 
Healthy Watersheds and Healthy Communities Act. I recently 
heard our Colorado Congresswoman Caraveo say, when speaking 
about our Nation's transition to renewable energy sources, that 
it must make sense for farmers' and ranchers' economic bottom 
line to be successful. I believe that is equally true when we 
talk about management of our water resources. I agree there 
must be a balance between resources and stewardship and 
economic viability. If farmers and ranchers are expected to 
take the risk of modifying with new precision and conservation 
technologies, there must be incentives. The Healthy Watersheds 
and Healthy Communities Act provides commonsense incentives 
that leveraging Federal investment against private and public 
partnerships provides.
    As a founding member of the Colorado Agricultural Water 
Alliance and past chairman, I know intimately the needs of 
water are diverse, and we must avoid a one-size-fits-all 
approach to water resources and water rolls. By simply reducing 
cumbersome paperwork requirements and streamlining ideas, CAWA-
secured funding from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and 
support a diverse group of water projects, all with the 
targeted objective of drought resiliency. They gather data from 
respective projects and are now leading the way in solutions 
that we know will help us through this hotter and drier future. 
They are varied in methods, but the projects, in shapes and 
sizes and duration, they are all part of the equation.
    We must have more permanent funding for current and ad hoc 
disasters, and my written comments will tend to talk a little 
more about those. I will move on and just thank you for your 
time today and opportunity to contribute to this discussion. I 
hope that you will consider myself and the Colorado Farm Bureau 
as a resource when it comes to ideas to help protect and 
support our Nation's resources and rural communities.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Currier can be found on page 
130 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Currier. We will keep your 
complete record or complete statement in the record. Thank you 
for that very much. Mr. Sternberger.

 STATEMENT OF MR. JEFF STERNBERGER, OWNER AND GENERAL MANAGER, 
             MIDWEST FEEDERS, INC., INGALLS, KANSAS

    Mr. Sternberger. Chairman Bennet and Ranking Member 
Marshall, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify 
today. My name is Jeff Sternberger, and as Senator Marshall 
mentioned, I am the general manager and co-owner of Midwest 
Feeders Incorporated, located in Southwest Kansas near Ingalls. 
I am the past president of the Kansas Livestock Association, a 
member of the KLA Water Committee, a member of the National 
Cattlemen's Beef Association, and I also serve on the board of 
directors of U.S. Premium Beef, a producer-owned, vertically 
integrated beef system. My wife, Colleen, and I also own 
farming and ranching operations in Kansas and Oklahoma. I do 
have a bachelor's of science degree in agricultural economics 
from Oklahoma State University, and I am proud of it.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Sternberger. Midwest Feeders is a 90,000 head custom 
cattle feeding operation. The majority of the cattle owned in 
our feed yard are owned by other cattle producers. Our team 
provides feed and animal care during the finishing phase. While 
we raise some of the forage and grain needed to feed the cattle 
in our care, the vast majority is purchased from farmers in the 
region. My testimony today will focus on our efforts to 
conserve water.
    The primary source water source in Southwest Kansas is 
groundwater from the Ogallala Aquifer. Depletion of the aquifer 
has received considerable attention in the last few years. As 
stakeholders have developed a better understanding of the rate 
of depletion, discussions around water use reduction and 
conservation have accelerated. While efforts have accelerated 
recently, our operation has been implementing practices to use 
water more efficiently for many years. These efforts go back 
30-plus years as irrigation and water rights were converted to 
stock water rights. These water rights were exercised using 
flood irrigation technology. Water was conserved simply by 
shifting away from the less efficient flood irrigation system. 
Converting water rights from irrigation to stock water also 
results in reduced water use.
    In 2018, we enrolled multiple water rights in a water 
conservation area, or WCA. The WCA allowed us flexibility in 
how we utilize our water rights in exchange for reducing our 
historical water use by 10 percent. The flexibility allowed us 
to more efficiently use water from multiple rights in our 
integrated system that supplies water to the cattle in our feed 
yard. In 2019, we completed an expansion that added additional 
capacity to our feed yard. As part of that expansion, we 
installed a water recycling system that captures overflow from 
the waters in part of the feed yard. The water savings from the 
recycling system has averaged between 1 and 2 gallons per head 
per day. For comparison, our typical water consumption across 
the feed yard averages 9 to 10 gallons per head per day. We 
completed another facility expansion in 2022 that included 
another recycling system. We have seen similar water savings in 
that system as well.
    The investments we have made allowed us to use water more 
efficiently. That is essential to the long-term viability of 
our operation. Our viability also is dependent on the forage 
and grains produced by farmers in our area. Last year, we began 
meeting with neighboring farmers to discuss the potential of 
extending water conservation efforts to farms in the area. We 
believe there is potential to use a WCA or LEMA to realize 
water conservation while still providing the revenue necessary 
for the farming operation and growing the forage and grain we 
need in our cattle feeding operation. If we are successful, we 
know other feed yards will take a similar approach in other 
areas.
    We have been fortunate to be able to make significant 
investments in our operation to achieve water conservation. 
From a policy standpoint, support from the Federal level will 
accelerate investment across cattle feeding, dairy production, 
and farming. I suggest you consider cost share programs and tax 
credits as options that would support investment in 
technologies that provide water savings. The upcoming farm bill 
discussion would be an opportunity to expand conservation 
programs to include these types of investments.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Sternberger can be found on 
page 137 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you very much, Mr. Sternberger. 
Thanks for being here. Mrs. France. Thank you.

  STATEMENT OF MRS. AMY FRANCE, VICE CHAIR, NATIONAL SORGHUM 
                 PRODUCERS, SCOTT CITY, KANSAS

    Mrs. France. Thank you, Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member 
Marshall, and members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity 
to speak at today's hearing. My name is Amy France, and my 
family and I farm and raise livestock in Western Kansas. We 
primarily raise grain sorghum--milo--corn, wheat, as well as 
Angus cattle. I also serve as vice chair of National Sorghum 
Producers, a/k/a milo.
    As third-and fourth-generation farmers in Western Kansas, 
we live with the impact of drought and limited water resources 
with firsthand experience of the importance of water 
conservation efforts in agriculture. Today's hearing provides a 
great opportunity to discuss water conservation and, more 
importantly, the need for irrigation water savings to protect 
the Ogallala Aquifer. First, I want to express my gratitude to 
Senators Bennet and Marshall for your bipartisan leadership and 
commitment to agriculture at the Federal, State and local 
levels. The High Plains is a harsh climate that includes 
limited precipitation and extreme temperatures. Precipitation 
falls short of evaporation rates, leaving areas in the Western 
U.S. in a moisture deficit, and the U.S. Drought Monitor shows 
that. In Scott County where I live, it has consistently 
experienced drought conditions for the past several years.
    Because sorghum is more efficient in the use of water than 
other crops, it is a key tool for enhancing the overall 
sustainability and profitability for my family farm. As the 
resource-conserving crop, sorghum is a hearty, drought 
tolerant, high-residue crop that conserves soil moisture and 
reduces soil erosion. Despite the harsh and fragile nature of 
High Plains, the region still produces, on average, three-
fourths of the U.S. sorghum crop under these challenging 
conditions. While USDA NRCS policy does recognize sorghum's 
contribution in a crop rotation, it should provide more 
compensation and greater incentives for resource-conserving 
crops such as sorghum.
    I want to speak today about the importance of work being 
done at the local level organizations, like the Southwest 
Kansas Groundwater Management District Number 3. GMD3 has 
actively engaged with farmers in Kansas and neighboring farmers 
in Colorado, helping producers benchmark their irrigation 
efficiency against the other area producers, providing 
technical, educational and financial assistance to drive 
improvements and performance. Other GMDs have taken different 
approaches. For example, farmers under the Northwest Kansas GMD 
self imposed irrigation pumping guidelines. In the years 
following implementation, area farmers increased sorghum 
planting by over 400 percent, reduced water utilization by over 
25 percent, and reduced water decline by 78 percent. In this 
case, crop choice was a vital tool for preserving groundwater 
and helping keep farmers farming. My groundwater management 
district, the West Central Kansas GMD, has implemented similar 
measures with results that double what expectations were at the 
beginning of the program.
    We appreciate the efforts of Senators Bennet, Moran, Lujan, 
and Heinrich for introducing legislation that allows farmers to 
convert irrigated acres to dryland by placing their water 
rights into voluntary conservation easements. This creates 
water savings that are attributed directly back to the aquifer, 
helping to reduce over appropriations and to stabilize this 
important resource. From my perspective, Federal, State and 
local policies need to incentivize action which effectively 
deliver actual water savings in the Ogallala Aquifer. It is 
vital to preserve critical resources for agricultural, 
industrial, and municipal uses. Mr. Chairman, we can do this by 
adopting new technologies, improving practices and policies, 
and harnessing inherent attributes of lower water crop uses 
like sorghum.
    With my time remaining for my testimony today, I would like 
to emphasize how critical it is that the Senate Ag Committee 
commit to farm bill reauthorization this year. The impact of 
lower commodity prices and high input costs coupled with 
prolonged drought in some areas make the need for update to the 
farm safety net more important. National Sorghum Producers has 
shown and offered its support in the framework released by 
Ranking Member Boozman earlier this month. Conversely, our 
analysis of the Democratic framework shows that sorghum and 
wheat industries actually lose significantly in the commodity 
support. We need a farm bill this year, not next year. The farm 
safety event hangs in the balance as well as farm families.
    I want to thank you and the Subcommittee for your time 
today and for your proactive collaborative approach to these 
issues that are so critical for agriculture. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mrs. France can be found on page 
139 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mrs. France. Thank you very much 
for that testimony. Ms. Parmar, you have the last word. No 
pressure.
    Ms. Parmar. Oh, lots of pressure.
    Senator Bennet. Then we will have some questions.
    Ms. Parmar. I am already terrified of the red button.
    Senator Bennet. No, no, do not worry about it.

   STATEMENT OF MS. SARAH PARMAR, DIRECTOR OF CONSERVATION, 
            COLORADO OPEN LANDS, LAKEWOOD, COLORADO

    Ms. Parmar. Chairman Bennet, Ranking Member Marshall, 
members of the Subcommittee staff, thank you so much for the 
opportunity to be here to talk about the nexus between your 
work and mine. My name is Sarah Parmar. I am director of 
conservation for Colorado Open Lands. We are a statewide 
nonprofit that has worked for over 40 years to conserve land 
and wildlife--for land and water for people and wildlife, and 
since that time, we have conserved over 680,000 acres together 
with 720 associated water rights across the State of Colorado 
using conservation easements.
    We have focused on irrigated agricultural land because we 
recognize that continued irrigation in rural communities is the 
cornerstone of the economy, ecology, and heritage that we all 
value. We recognize, as Senator Marshall so eloquently said 
earlier today, that issues of water are overshadowing issues of 
land and are critical, and that we as a land trust need to 
innovate our tools that we bring to the table for producers in 
facing these challenges. We have worked to adjust and adapt our 
conservation easements to add flexibility for water rights to 
combat buy and dry, and we have looked at ways to support 
aquifer recovery.
    You heard from our illustrious State senator, Cleave 
Simpson, earlier today about the herculean challenges and 
matching efforts, I would say, of his home community in 
bringing their groundwater supplies into a sustainable level 
and avoiding a regulatory shutdown, a shutdown that would hurt 
economy and ecology equally. In 2019, we began working with Mr. 
Simpson and other really creative water managers in the San 
Luis Valley to explore whether we could take a traditional 
conservation easement and adapt it to support aquifer recovery, 
and we started with listening sessions because we wanted to 
understand what would work for farmers. What we heard from 
folks overwhelmingly was that there were so many people who 
want to be part of the solution, who want to do the right 
thing, but they are farming because they love farming and they 
do not really want to be paid not to farm. They want to be 
become compensated for reduction.
    What came out of these conversations was this idea of a 
groundwater conservation easement, a tool that is both 
permanent and enforceable, a tool that qualifies for tax 
incentives and funding programs, a tool that can be tailored by 
region and actually by farm, and a tool that does not dictate 
how producers achieve those water savings on their own farm. 
Colorado Open Lands worked with the farmer to complete the 
first groundwater conservation easement, as Mr. Simpson shared, 
and the savings from this groundwater conservation easement 
will allow all of his neighbors, all of the other irrigators in 
this groundwater subdistrict to continue in production, and 
will benefit wetlands on the nearby national wildlife refuge.
    Now, we explored funding for groundwater conservation 
easements through the Agricultural Conservation Easement 
Program, but national headquarters staff had concerns about 
alignment of program purpose. We were instead encouraged to 
apply and were awarded a Regional Conservation Partnership 
Program grant. We have incredible staff working for the Natural 
Resources Conservation Service here in Colorado under the 
leadership of State conservationist, Clint Evans. We have 
significant experience implementing farm bill programs 
successfully, and I will say that we found it exceptionally 
difficult to utilize our CPP for conservation easements.
    On the other hand, the Agricultural Conservation Easement 
Program is a known and trusted tool with staff who have real 
estate experience. I would advocate that the creation of a 
groundwater conservation easement program under ACEP, as 
envisioned by Senator Bennet in the groundwater--the Voluntary 
Groundwater Conservation Act that he sponsored last year, would 
create the necessary program purpose alignment for USDA and 
provide an impetus for the Agency to build expertise in water 
rights. The creation of even a pilot program in the upcoming 
farm bill reauthorization would enable NRCS and partners to 
undertake some of the necessary trial and error involved with 
the implementation of this program. By both highlighting the 
need to address water and integrating it into existing farm 
bill programs, you really give us as partners the ability to 
innovate alongside producers.
    I would say that agriculture has always been an inherently 
risky occupation, much more about love of lifestyle than 
certainty of returns. I am the fifth generation to get to grow 
up on my family's ranch, and most of my childhood memories were 
wet playing in the creek, getting stuck on the road between our 
house and school, which was 30 miles away. Now I have 
incredibly difficult conversations with my father about how 2 
out of the last 3 years were the driest that he ever 
experienced in his 50 years on the ranch. The well that serves 
my childhood home, the home that I hope to return to 1 day to 
take over management of the ranch, is currently dry. At 72 
years old, my dad is still constantly working to find new ways 
to align his management of the ranch with what Mother Nature 
provides. He has not given up and neither can we.
    Water is messy and it is complicated, but to solve the 
looming issues that threaten our agricultural industry, we have 
to be prepared to dive into that messiness and complexity, and 
we have to bring USDA in with us. I would argue that we need to 
facilitate reduction with production as we look to support 
producers and keep communities alive while we recover aquifers.
    I want to thank Senators Bennet and Marshall for hosting 
this and for looking beyond bipartisan lines to really get to 
the heart of these issues and for asking how the next farm bill 
can support the innovation we need to create the resiliency in 
our communities. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Parmar can be found on page 
147 in the appendix.]

    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thanks for bringing us home. You 
did a great job. Sarah, I am going to actually start with you 
if that is all right.
    Ms. Parmar. That is all right.
    Senator Bennet. As you know, we have been talking to USDA 
and to folks in DC about how to get this groundwater 
conservation program started. One of the things that I hear 
from USDA sometimes is that they are just saying that Western 
water law is just too complicated for them to be able to 
administer a nationwide program. I realize there are questions 
about maybe a pilot, not a pilot, but in the broadest sense, 
could you talk a little bit about that because it does--we do 
want our water law respected. We do not want it changed in any 
way by what they do, but I am worried that the attitude of 
throwing up their hands and saying it is just too complicated 
is not going to allow the creative people in the Valley, for 
example, to be able to achieve the benefits that you have 
described.
    Ms. Parmar. Well, I really appreciate the question, and I 
do not blame them for being intimidated. I believe that folks 
at USDA really want to ensure program integrity, and I 
appreciate that. I do think that there are ways to create 
national program criteria around monitoring and enforcement 
being required for implementing groundwater conservation 
easements. Being able to delegate the authority to the States, 
to the State conservationists who do understand the State law 
and the water regimes that they are operating within to be able 
to demonstrate how they can meet that national criteria of 
monitoring and enforcement, I think are very important. I think 
it is--it is very much possible, and I think that there are 
farm bill programs that we have talked about today that already 
rely on State water law or subject to State water law. I do not 
think we are paving totally new ground, but I think we have to 
try.
    Senator Bennet. I do think that it is really important for 
us, when we think about the kind of easements that you are 
talking about and other conservation easements, that they are 
not tied up in the bureaucracy in DC where people may not know 
exactly what people on the ground are wrestling with or the 
expertise that the State and water districts and others have, 
so we look forward to continuing to partner with you on that.
    Carlyle, I just cannot resist it because you are here, 
whether you know it or not, representing the Upper Basin of the 
Colorado River. I know you know it. Could you talk a little bit 
about what you and other producers have already done to cut 
back on water use in your operations in drought years? I know 
there are not a lot of big reservoirs in the mountains above 
where you farm. Just give the country a little bit of a sense 
of what it is like from a water perspective to produce at the 
elevation that you produce and that high up in the Colorado 
River Basin.
    Mr. Currier. Well, thank you for the question, Senator 
Bennet. Yes, that certainly is a major issue as ongoing 
discussions on the Colorado River Compact and the protocol for 
operation of the river has not only allowed, but really 
encouraged, I think, overuse of the river in the Lower Basin by 
sending water down to Lake Mead and encouraging people to use 
that, even though it is creating a situation where the 
reservoirs are at crisis level. In the Upper Basin, we do not 
have that option. In my area, I am 100 percent dependent on 
annual snow pack, so we have a year with low snow pack, I do 
not have the water. It is not there. In 2021, I raised less 
than a quarter of my normal crop because I was out of 
irrigation water by this time of the year and could not--could 
not raise any alfalfa after that, and had to buy lots of 
expensive hay to feed my cows.
    We are doing things to try to help with that situation by 
using water more efficiently. There have been a lot of proposed 
projects, some of the drought management projects that have 
been proposed as far as paying farmers to forego part of their 
use. You know, I think it is an important tool that that should 
be considered and should be tried. I do not have a lot of hope 
that there will be a lot of solution there, but if we do not 
try it, we certainly will not know whether it will work. You 
know, anything we can do to expand the availability of that 
precious resource of water, to use less of it for what we are 
doing with it and allow more for other uses, is certainly going 
to be a benefit.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. In the last few seconds that I 
have--take your time, Mr. Sayles--but you ended your testimony 
with such a hopeful sense of what the future could bring. I 
wonder if you could just talk a little bit at the end here 
about what we could do to the USDA conservation programs that 
you think would be most helpful to folks that were just 
starting out in or wanting to start out in regenerative 
practices, the kinds of conservation practices you described.
    Mr. Sayles. I think probably the most important thing would 
be continuing education. Anybody that is involved in a 
government program, especially if it is focused on regenerative 
ag, it should be a requirement that we have plenty of great 
conferences around. I think young guys need to--I think there 
is education thing. Another thing we learned through the farms 
program was a lot of times, young guys, of course, grandpa and 
dad are still on the farm. There is a lot of that is not how we 
have done it, we do not want to do anything new, yada yada. We 
even had some young guys say that their neighbors treated them 
different if they are doing these new things. I do not think 
the government can handle that. I think it would be better that 
the government incentivize programs like farms that allow the 
mentorship-mentee type of a deal.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Marshall?
    Senator Marshall. All right. Thank you. I want to spend my 
last few moments here talking about the terms ``climate smart'' 
and ``climate friendly,'' and, in particular, how they are 
defined and being used by the IRA and the USDA. Mrs. France, 
what would you say to those in DC that say unless the 
conservation practice you implement on your operation of a 
greenhouse mitigation or sequestration effect, those practices 
are not climate friendly?
    Mrs. France. Well, I would say farmers are the first to be 
climate friendly, and I will stand by that forever, but I would 
say one size does not fit all for climate friendly. You know, 
we heard about cover crops earlier, and for Western Kansas, as 
you mentioned in your opening, that just does not fit. Things 
that we have done is leaving stubble, and so what that does is 
that keeps the moisture in the soil. It helps with soil 
erosion. Although that is not seen as a cover crop, that is 
certainly what works best for us, so we have to be very careful 
in defining ``climate friendly'' and making sure that term is 
widely encompassing all areas. My challenge would be putting a 
true definition to that to fit all regions.
    Senator Marshall. Would you agree with me that agriculture 
is only able to use about 40 percent of that IRA conservation 
funding, and if it was opened up, that, indeed, there are some 
real practical uses agriculture could use that would make--that 
would indeed be climate friendly?
    Mrs. France. Yes. National Sorghum Producers has publicly 
supported moving IRA funding into the conservation title. That 
just gives more runway for those funds to be put into growers 
pockets when they need them the most.
    Senator Marshall. Then, Mr. Sternberg, I want to talk to 
you about climate smart practices. Can you describe how USDA 
has engaged with the Kansas Livestock Association to learn 
which livestock production practices should be included in this 
list of climate SMART IRA practices?
    Mr. Sternberger. Yes, Senator Marshall. Thanks for the 
question. In a conversation with a KLA staffer, he indicated 
there was, oh, likely one cursory conversation with the USDA in 
regards to that in this past year. They felt like that they 
were overly focused on checking the box of--the appropriate box 
as far as climate change or carbon sequestration. It is my 
personal belief, and I believe that it is KLA policy, direction 
would be that they would be a lot more in favor of conserving 
our resources that we currently have. For example, in Western 
Kansas where we get less rainfall than we do in the eastern 
part of the State, we rely on a lot on the Ogallala Aquifer, 
and there are efforts there we could be doing to conserve that 
water to raise more crops for the livestock industry as well as 
making the farmers a lot more economically viable by doing so.
    In the eastern part of the State, they are more concerned 
with water quality and rangeland health and focusing on 
programs like that. I feel like that if the American farmer and 
rancher are more focused on producing food more economically, 
we could possibly get a little better control over the food 
inflation that we have got in this country.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you. Mrs. France, let's talk about 
the future. You have got three kids. Is that right?
    Mrs. France. Well, blessed with two marrying into, and then 
have three of my very own, yes.
    Senator Marshall. There we go. Talk about the future of 
agriculture. Where does conservation meet agriculture 30, 50 
years from now? What are your children and grandchildren going 
to be doing that we are not doing today? What are you excited 
about?
    Mrs. France. Well, to speak about my children now, our 
oldest son is running truck, my oldest daughter is running 
combine, my 12-year-old is running grain cart----
    [Laughter.]
    Mrs. France [continuing]. and my daughter is working as a 
teller, and then we will take meals at supper, so that is the 
generation right now, already hard in the field. They are very 
aware of what is coming down the pike. We talk about it. Even 
though we live in rural Kansas, rural America where agriculture 
is the heartbeat, there are still many people that surround us 
that do not understand what it is going to take to keep 
agriculture moving forward.
    We talk about the Ogallala Aquifer, and I can echo what 
Sarah is saying about, you know, wells going dry, and so when 
wells go dry, farming goes dry and cities go dry. That is a 
conservation that I am looking at is actually a personal 
conservation, keeping rural America alive, and that is keeping 
agriculture alive, and conserving that aquifer and doing all 
that we can do. It will look very different, I am sure of it, 
but these kids are anxious to keep on the tradition, and I am 
excited to see what they do.
    Senator Marshall. Last question, I think is, we made it 
through a whole hearing and no one has mentioned high-speed 
internet. How important is that to conservation practices and 
the future of your farm and your family?
    Mrs. France. It is everything. We can speak to it. You 
know, last year, we sat on--I believe it was 2022--sat on the 
side of the field because we could not connect to start 
planting, and so we lost valuable time. I actually mentioned to 
Sarah when we lost Wi-Fi and electricity, I said, welcome to 
Western Kansas/Eastern Colorado.
    Senator Marshall. Yes.
    Mrs. France. It is very vital. I do not know anything that 
works without it, and our kids are very fortunate to have what 
they do, but we keep saying, we are going to pull GPS out of 
your tractor and you are going to learn to follow the line so 
that when things go wrong, you can still farm.
    Senator Marshall. Yes, but certainly to, to do the 
conservation practices today with precision agriculture more 
than ever, and that--all that precision agriculture leads to 
conserving water as well as using less inputs, less 
fertilizers, less pesticides, and we cannot do that without 
high speed internet.
    Mrs. France. Absolutely.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Well, thank you very much to 
the--to our last panel. It was just as fantastic. Let's give 
them a round of applause, too.
    [Applause.]
    Senator Bennet. Senator Marshall, would you like to say a 
word of closing before we wrap up?
    Senator Marshall. No, again, Senator Bennet, I am just 
honored to be here with you and your commitment to leaving this 
world cleaner, healthier, and safer than we found it. As we 
went through the discussions, well, you know, what did we miss? 
I wish we had time for one or two more panels, and I think we 
would probably bring up some more people like Sarah, and I just 
want to thank my conservation partners in Kansas. The Nature 
Conservancy does a great job. Ducks Unlimited does a great job, 
Kansas Land Trust, Kansas Wildlife Federation, Kansas Gracing 
Lands Coalition, all those people that we kind of touched on 
today that are so important as well, so thank you to all those 
folks and their practices.
    We did not talk about playas and I wanted to--I was hoping 
someone would bring those up, vitally important. I think that 
we have seen great progress in Kansas. There are opportunities 
here. I think we need to emphasize that the playas and how we 
can take--set aside--if you set aside four acres of ply, it is 
going to recuperate an acre foot every year, and, again, we 
will be using less inputs. We will not be wasting fertilizer, 
and it is good for the--all the birds and all those things as 
well.
    I think if I would have a message from today, it is that we 
have a plan. Sometimes we make it over complicated, but we need 
to use--take this simple plan and then implement it perfectly, 
and by ``perfectly,'' it is going to be through volunteerism, 
but somehow bringing the other people aboard. I do not think we 
have really touched 10 or 20 percent of the conservation 
opportunities that are out there that have been--that are 
being--that could be implemented even further. I think that is 
our goal and our challenge is how do we be better educators. 
How do we better communicate the opportunities from a 
conservation standpoint? We cannot make it rain anymore, but we 
can certainly figure out better ways to conserve water.
    I am honored to be here with you today and look forward to 
getting a farm bill across the finish line, and I think we 
learned, again, valuable information from today where we set 
our priorities. Thank you for having me and my staff.
    Senator Bennet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Senator 
Marshall. Colorado, let us give Senator Marshall a round of 
applause for being here today.
    [Applause.]
    Senator Marshall. Thank you.
    Senator Bennet. Really appreciate your making the trip, and 
next time we will flip it. We will do the hearing over there. 
We will--we will--we will spend the evening over here the night 
before, but this has been really tremendous. I want to thank 
all the witnesses that have traveled here, the people that have 
come from across the States of Colorado and Kansas and the High 
Plains.
    We have heard a story. I think if you listen to the people 
talking about the history of the region, that this has been a 
story of innovation from the very beginning. As Amy was just 
saying at the end, for her children, things may look very 
different, you know, years from now, but the important thing is 
they are going to still be on the land producing the food and 
fiber that we need. That is not going to happen without farmers 
and ranchers being able to innovate, but it is also not going 
to be able to happen without a USDA that can innovate as well 
in real time and in a way that can match the innovation of the 
producers that are facing these enormously difficult decisions 
and scarcity just like their forebearers did.
    I think what I heard a lot today was not so much how new it 
was all going to be, but it is a--it is continuity of the 
innovation we have already had. We have got to bring that to 
bear in an urgent way in the--in the drought conditions that we 
are facing. I think part of what our challenge is, to make sure 
that the innovation here
    can be calibrated by what is going on in Washington, DC, 
and that is where all of you come in. That is why your 
testimony is so important today. I think it is why it is 
important for you to stay in touch with Roger and stay in touch 
with me and the other members of the Agriculture Committee 
because that is where that syncing up is going to happen.
    I agree. I think Robert Sakata said this very well at the 
very beginning. We have to figure out a way when margins are as 
thin as they are, to give people a chance to make mistakes 
along the way, too, and to learn from those mistakes. That is a 
very hard thing for anybody to do. It is a particularly hard 
thing for a bureaucracy like the one we have in DC to do. I 
could not be more grateful for all of you that made this 
possible. I want to thank, in particular, the witnesses for 
providing their perspectives today, Senator Marshall for your 
partnership both in and outside of the gymnasium back there in 
the Capitol.
    To all of our fellow Subcommittee members that are not 
present today, I would like to tell them to please submit any 
additional statements or questions for the record to the 
committee clerk five business days from today, or 5 p.m. next 
Wednesday, July 3, 2024.
    I also, on behalf of Senator Marshall, want to thank 
Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Boozman for their 
leadership of the committee. I know they have staff here as 
well, and we are grateful to have the chance to do this field 
hearing because I think it is really is an opportunity for the 
committee to hear directly from people here on the Eastern 
Plains of Colorado and in Western Kansas.
    With that, I hope everybody travels safely this afternoon. 
Thank you very much for coming here, and thank you for all you 
do to keep our rural economy alive. We have a decision to make 
in this country about whether or not we are going to keep rural 
America, whether we are going to keep rural hospitals, and 
rural schools, and agriculture that is the backbone of our 
rural communities. I know Senator Marshall and I are committed 
to doing everything we can to do our part. Thanks for being 
here today.
    With that, this hearing is adjourned.

    [Whereupon, the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

      
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                            A P P E N D I X

                             June 26, 2024

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                   DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                             June 26, 2024

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