S. 904 — Livestock Disaster Assistance Improvement Act of 2025

This section expands the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP), which authorizes payments to agricultural producers for emergency water conservation measures (including for confined livestock) during Secretary-determined severe droughts, and the Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP), which provides payments to restore forest land damaged by natural disasters such as drought or fire, by (1) broadening eligibility to include persons holding federal permits or state/local leases for agricultural production or grazing on federal, state, or local government land (while prohibiting payments to governments); (2) authorizing payments for new permanent measures (e.g., water wells and pipelines) and replacement or restoration of existing measures with permanent ones; and (3) streamlining applications on Bureau of Land Management-administered lands during a Secretary-determined drought emergency by waiving the 30-day National Environmental Policy Act public comment period and authorizing acceptance of Natural Resources Conservation Service reviews for archeological, environmental, and Endangered Species Act compliance.

This section revises drought duration thresholds for Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFDP) payments to eligible livestock producers by providing (1) eligibility for 1 monthly payment for not less than 4 consecutive weeks (new tier) during the normal grazing period for the county, as determined by the Secretary of Agriculture, or (2) 2 monthly payments for 8 consecutive weeks (from 1 monthly payment previously). (The LFDP compensates producers for livestock forage losses, including purchased feed, due to qualifying drought or excessive heat intensity levels.)

This section amends the livestock indemnity payments provisions of the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-Raised Fish program (7 U.S.C. 9081(d))—which provides payments to eligible producers for livestock mortality losses exceeding normal mortality—as follows: (1) adds drought to the list of qualifying adverse weather conditions; (2) expands eligible losses to include those caused by feed or water shortages (including transportation costs for feed, water, livestock, and honey bees), disease, adverse weather, drought, or other factors as determined by the Secretary, including cattle tick fever inspections; (3) for honey bee producers, establishes per-hive and per-colony payment rates and requires the Secretary to adjust the normal mortality rate used for assistance calculations to exclude colony collapse disorder (or, absent sufficient data, to use the normal mortality rate applied in the first fiscal year emergency relief was provided under 7 U.S.C. 1531(e)); and (4) requires nationwide-consistent documentation submission standards and, for honey bees in consultation with producers, standards for data collection and annual colony/hive replacement rates. This section further directs the Secretary to apply these amendments to honey bee producers without limits on beekeeping operation size.

This section directs the Secretary of Agriculture to establish, not later than 180 days after enactment, an interagency working group—chaired by a representative from USDA's Office of the Chief Economist and including specified representatives from USDA agencies, NOAA offices, the National Drought Mitigation Center, the Department of the Interior, the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology, and certain state mesonet programs—to improve data availability and quality for the United States Drought Monitor (per 7 U.S.C. 5856). (As background, the Drought Monitor is a multi-agency map of weekly drought conditions that triggers payments under USDA drought-relief programs such as the livestock forage disaster program.) The working group must (1) develop means to include additional in-situ data by setting minimum requirements, identifying sources and gaps, and addressing solutions; (2) identify and resolve barriers to existing data use, including restricted federal datasets and needed accommodations; (3) develop an open methodology for vetting remote sensing or modeling data products; (4) if appropriate, develop a methodology for data with shorter record periods; and (5) address other data issues as determined by the Chair. Not later than one year after enactment, the working group must submit a report with policy, regulatory, or legislative recommendations to the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior and specified congressional committees. Not later than 180 days after report submission, the Secretary of Agriculture—in coordination with the Secretaries of Commerce and the Interior—must incorporate the recommendations to the extent practicable. The working group terminates 90 days after report submission.

This section directs the Administrator of the Farm Service Agency and the Chief of the Forest Service to enter into a memorandum of understanding (MOU), not later than 60 days after submission of the report under section 5(d), to better align their drought response activities. The MOU must include (1) a commitment to better align practices for determining the severity of regional drought conditions; (2) a strategy for amending inconsistent determinations within the same spatial scale to ensure consistent policy; (3) an agreement to utilize, to the extent practicable, the U.S. Drought Monitor for those determinations; and (4) an agreement to provide consistent information to affected grazing permittees, operators, and other stakeholders.