Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

10. Department of Agriculture · Notable

Strip NRCS authority to prescribe farm practices for program eligibility

Not started

304 10. Department of Agriculture

“Reform NRCS wetlands and erodible land compliance and appeals. Problematic NRCS overreach could be avoided entirely by removing its authority to prescribe specific practices on a particular farm operation in order to ensure continued eligibility to participate in USDA farm programs,”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    NRCS retains the authority the Quote wants removed, and the one live rulemaking runs on a different question. USDA's 2026 Unified Agenda carries RIN 0578-AA73, "Highly Erodible Land and Wetland Conservation", at final-rule stage with action scheduled for August 2026 — but its stated purpose is to cure the Administrative Procedure Act defects a District Court for the District of Columbia found in the August 2020 wetland-delineation rule on 2024-02-22, not to stop NRCS prescribing specific practices as a condition of farm-program eligibility, and it proposes nothing about general best-practices plans or approval by local Soil and Water Conservation Districts. No Federal Register rule or notice in the window removes the conservation-compliance practice requirements of 7 CFR part 12. Cluster G (conservation compliance and easements) in `docs/research/ch-10.md`, round 3 ticket 09 batch 09c, records the queries.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The devolution limb of the same recommendation block is #788; the easements limb is #789.
  • S. 1495, the NRCS Wetland Compliance and Appeals Reform Act, was read twice and referred to Senate Agriculture on 2025-04-10 and has not moved; it is named on #788.
Action
restrict
Object
Natural Resources Conservation Service compliance authority
ID
787