Official Summaries

Southern Border Farmers and Ranchers Protection Act

This bill directs the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to provide payments to agricultural producers to implement certain conservation practices in counties at or near the Texas southern border. In general, this Department of Agriculture program provides technical and financial assistance to agricultural producers and forest landowners to address natural resource concerns.

Specifically, EQIP must provide payments to agricultural producers to implement conservation practices to address and repair damage to agricultural land and farming infrastructure that is in a county at or near the Texas southern border and contributes to natural resource concerns or problems.

Current Full Text

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 389 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 389

To amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to authorize payments under the 
    environmental quality incentives program to assist producers in 
 implementing certain conservation practices along the southern border 
                   of Texas, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 14, 2025

Ms. De La Cruz (for herself and Mr. Tony Gonzales of Texas) introduced 
 the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to authorize payments under the 
    environmental quality incentives program to assist producers in 
 implementing certain conservation practices along the southern border 
                   of Texas, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Southern Border Farmers and Ranchers 
Protection Act''.

SEC. 2. SOUTHERN BORDER INITIATIVE.

    Section 1240B of the Food Security Act of 1985 (16 U.S.C. 3839aa-2) 
is amended by adding at the end the following:
    ``(k) Southern Border Initiative.--
            ``(1) In general.--The Secretary shall provide payments to 
        producers under the program to implement conservation practices 
        to address and repair damage, to agricultural land and farming 
        infrastructure on covered land of such producers, that 
        contributes to natural resource concerns or problems.
            ``(2) Contract term.--A contract to provide payments under 
        paragraph (1) shall have a term of 1 year.
            ``(3) Covered land defined.--In this subsection, the term 
        `covered land' means land in a county at or near the southern 
        border of Texas, including the following counties:
                    ``(A) Brewster.
                    ``(B) Brooks.
                    ``(C) Cameron.
                    ``(D) Crockett.
                    ``(E) Culberson.
                    ``(F) Dimmit.
                    ``(G) Duval.
                    ``(H) Edwards.
                    ``(I) El Paso.
                    ``(J) Frio.
                    ``(K) Hidalgo.
                    ``(L) Hudspeth.
                    ``(M) Jeff Davis.
                    ``(N) Jim Hogg.
                    ``(O) Jim Wells.
                    ``(P) Karnes.
                    ``(Q) Kenedy.
                    ``(R) Kinney.
                    ``(S) Kleberg.
                    ``(T) La Salle.
                    ``(U) Live Oak.
                    ``(V) Maverick.
                    ``(W) McMullen.
                    ``(X) Pecos.
                    ``(Y) Presidio.
                    ``(Z) Reeves.
                    ``(AA) Starr.
                    ``(BB) Sutton.
                    ``(CC) Terrell.
                    ``(DD) Uvalde.
                    ``(EE) Val Verde.
                    ``(FF) Webb.
                    ``(GG) Willacy.
                    ``(HH) Zapata.
                    ``(II) Zavala.''.
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