US Federal Senate Bill SB1389

US Federal 2025-2026 Regular Session

• Introduced: 4/9/25
• Refer: 4/9/25

Caption

Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program Improvement Act of 2025

Summary

SB 1389, the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program Improvement Act of 2025, would amend section 1231A of the Food Security Act of 1985 to expand and clarify how the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) can be used. The bill broadens eligible conservation agreements to include certain agricultural land uses such as continuous cropping or crop rotation, and it explicitly recognizes additional practices like dryland agricultural uses and grazing. It also changes the program from permissive to mandatory language in key places, requiring the Secretary of Agriculture to offer these agreements under the amended terms. The bill creates new payment rules for CREP agreements tied to drought and water conservation. For agreements that permanently retire water rights, annual payments would be based on irrigated-acre payment rates. For agreements that allow dryland agricultural uses, payments would be set at the difference between irrigated-acre and dryland-acre rates, and the Secretary would be required to retroactively adjust certain existing agreements if they were paid at a lower rate than the new formula would provide. The bill also allows participants to elect how annual payments are allocated across the years of an agreement.

Impact

SB 1389 would amend federal conservation law governing the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program under the Food Security Act of 1985, affecting USDA administration of CREP agreements and payment calculations. It would expand the types of land and practices eligible for participation, alter payment formulas for drought- and water-related agreements, authorize retroactive payment adjustments for some existing contracts, and exempt CREP rental payments from certain payment limitation rules. These changes would primarily affect agricultural landowners, operators, and state-federal conservation partnership programs that use CREP to address water conservation, drought resilience, and land retirement.

Sentiment

The available record shows no committee transcript or vote history, so there is no documented debate or recorded opposition in the provided materials. Based on the bill text and sponsorship, the measure appears to be framed as a technical and programmatic improvement to make CREP more flexible and better aligned with water conservation and agricultural use realities. The bipartisan list of introducers suggests at least some cross-party interest in the proposal.

Contention

No specific points of contention are documented in the provided materials. Potential areas of policy sensitivity, based on the text alone, include the retroactive modification of existing agreements, the expansion of eligible agricultural uses on enrolled land, and the exemption of CREP rental payments from payment limitations. These provisions could draw differing views from conservation advocates, agricultural producers, and budget or program integrity stakeholders, but no such positions are recorded here.