H.R. 1420 — Pacific Flyway Habitat Enhancement Act

This section establishes the short title of the Act as the “Pacific Flyway Habitat Enhancement Act.”

This section revises the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program under section 1231A of the Food Security Act of 1985 by adding new authority for “seasonally flooded working lands habitat conservation agreements.” As background, the program uses conservation agreements and rental payments to help producers address resource concerns on agricultural land. Specifically, for agreements under subsection (b)(1) that address diminished quantity and quality of wetland wildlife habitats, the Secretary of Agriculture, in consultation with the applicable State technical committee, may: (1) enroll other agricultural land that is not otherwise eligible if doing so is critical to achieving the agreement’s purposes; (2) allow seasonally flooded agricultural uses on working cropland used to maintain habitat for one or more wetland-dependent species, if the producer adopts at least 1 best management practice; and (3) set annual rental payments to be comparable with the annual costs of maintaining other seasonally flooded wetland wildlife habitats in the region and to ensure regional consistency in payment rates. The section also authorizes the Secretary to waive the matching requirement for these agreements.