Washington,
Sep 21 -
The House Agriculture Committee today unanimously approved Rep. Jim Gerlach’s open space and farm land preservation bill setting the stage for a vote on the legislation by the full House of Representatives next week.
“Not only is this legislation important for my Congressional District, but keeping our open spaces open and preserving our precious farm lands is an issue important to a lot of suburban areas across the country,” Rep. Gerlach said. “My initiative would not authorize any new funding; it would simply allocate a portion of the existing federal farm land preservation funds to encourage municipalities to establish their own local farmland preservation initiatives. So for every dollar spent by the local, state, and county authorities to preserve farm land, the federal government, under my legislation, would add another dollar.”
H.R. 5313 would set aside 15 percent of existing federal Farmland Protection Program funds to help encourage more municipalities to preserve farmland through purchase of development rights. This would steer as many federal dollars as possible towards those projects already getting wide support from states, counties and municipalities or private organizations, ensuring that the increasingly limited federal resources are being used to preserve the most threatened farmland.
Additionally, the legislation encourages states and local governments to do more. States like Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania's counties and municipalities have invested heavily in preserving farmland. The challenge grant created through H.R. 5313 would only help to encourage other states and more local governments to follow this example and compete for federal dollars available through the challenge grant.
The full House is expected to vote on Congressman Gerlach’s legislation next week. More background information on the open space legislation is attached to this release.
