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state, private, and federal programs, Currently, the V,S. Army Corps of Engineers' levee repair program pays 80% of the non-federal levee repair costs under PL. 84-99, providing a significant subsidy to levee districts and especially those with repeated levee failures. Funds were also available to clear drainage facilities and to remove accumulated sand and silt Landowners pressed to get the work done as soon as possible because it cost them very little. These rebuilt levees in many instances are higher and stronger than the earlier ones (which typically were not built to provide I % chance flood protection), This will result in higher flood heights and more damage during the next major flood, In addition, agricultural production has been resumed on the floodplain lands "protected" by the levees. · Agricultural levees should be constructed so that they have no impact on the flood heights or the floodway of the I % chance flood, Farm Cropping Support Programs The "freedom to farm" portions of the 1996 Farm Bill replaced the set-aside and guaranteed crop subsidy programs with a guaranteed declining annual payment However, it only reduced total payments planned for 2002 to 60% of previous levels, Without any planting restrictions farmers have, in effect, been encouraged to take risks and bring more floodplains and other marginal land into production. In addition to crop insurance and several other programs left in place to protect farmers from suffering significant flood losses, most farmers and farm organizations know that politicians cannot resist coming to the aid of farmers in times of natural disasters, As a result, farmers, working to increase total income, have increased the planting of row crops on frequently flooded floodplains and other marginal lands, Corn and soybean acres planted and yields per acre increased over 8% between 1995 and 1999, In both 1998 and 1999, floods and drought destroyed crops in many areas while overproduction in other areas brought about all-time low prices for most farm crops. The result was an economic disaster. With an additional $8,7 billion added to the FY2000 V,S. Department of Agriculture budget for 1999 disaster payments, total farm payments for 1999 were the largest in history--{)ver $28 billion to allow farmers to plant as much or more land the next year. Over $5.5 billion was simply handed out as supplemental "freedom to farm" payments. Most of the remaining funds are being used to reduce crop insurance payments an estimated additional 25% for 2000, About $1.2 billion are targeted to crop loss assistance, The remaining $ Ll3 billion are for special payments to oilseed, tobacco, and livestock producers for losses resulting from natural disasters. Despite intensive lobbying by conservation organizations and Administration support, Congress refused to allow a portion of the disaster funds to go for the Wetlands Reserve Program or other conservation programs to protect and take floodplain and riparian lands out of production. The Emergency Conservation Program, which is regularly budgeted for and supplemented by emergency appropriations, provides 64% emergency cost-share funding for farmers to rehabilitate farmland damaged by natural disasters, The assistance may be used for removal of debris from farmland, grading, shaping, re-leveling farmland, and restoration of fences and irrigation structures. Although the assistance is required to be only for "damage which is not the type likely to recur frequently in the same area," landowners in numerous floodplain areas receive this assistance every few years, There are also Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance, Emergency Loan Assistance, and Emergency Haying and Grazing Assistance programs, Association of State Floodplain Managers -15- National Flood Programs in Review 2000