The House is expected to vote this week on a fiscal 2012 agriculture appropriations bill that eliminates the Biomass Crop Assistance Program and drastically cuts spending for conservation.

Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) is reportedly preparing an amendment to restore at least partial funding to the biofuels program, which provides matching payments to producers for biomass crops, according to a source involved in farm policy.

But farm and environmental groups are for the most part not hopeful that amendments introduced on the floor will restore the program and conservation spending. Biofuels and conservation have taken a back seat to farm subsidies and nutrition programs in discussions on the bill, disappointing conservation groups.

"We were hoping we would have at least one person come up and stand up for conservation programs," said Aviva Glaser, agriculture policy coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation.

Republican members of the House Appropriations Committee said the $125 billion budget plan, including both discretionary and mandatory funding, was an attempt to reduce the national debt. The budget is approximately $2.7 billion below fiscal 2011's final budget and $5 billion below the Obama administration's request.

The appropriations bill (H.R. 2112) makes significant cuts in both discretionary and mandatory spending for farm bill programs (E&E Daily, June 1).

The Conservation Stewardship Program would be reduced $171 million relative to the level mandated by the farm bill, after it was slashed by $39 million in the final 2011 budget.

The Environmental Quality Incentives Programwould be cut by $350 million. The Wetlands Reserve Programand Grasslands Reserve Programwould be reduced by 64,200 acres and 96,000 acres, respectively.

Both the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) and the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) were eliminated in the first version of the spending plan. REAP, however, got a second wind with an amendment from Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) that transferred $1.3 million from unexpended administrative funds to the program.

The amount is small compared to the $39 million in discretionary funding the program received in the final fiscal 2011 bill. The program provides grants and renewable energy assistance for farmers.

Interest groups say they could see another amendment introduced on the floor for REAP that does much the same as Kaptur's measure -- transfers a small amount from an administrative account -- but that significant funding will likely not be restored.

"It's not like they have a billion dollars some place" to restore funding, said Ferd Hoefner, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Not many Republican legislators have stood up for BCAP, which was created in the 2008 farm bill. On June 2, Agriculture Inspector General Phyllis Fong testified that the program "suffered from hasty implementation that did not include management controls adequate to prevent abuses."

LaTourette's spokesperson was unavailable Friday for comment.

Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said in interviews last week that he would fight cuts in mandatory programs but that he would likely be unsuccessful, according to The Hagstrom Report news service and confirmed by Peterson's office.

Peterson cautioned that the cuts would affect the 2012 farm bill reauthorization, repeating concerns he expressed earlier in the year when House Republicans released their 2011 budget deal.

"If this keeps up it doesn't matter what we do in the farm bill," Peterson said, according to The Hagstrom Report.

Peterson, along with Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), is also working to convince the Rules Committee to allow a point of order to be brought against amendments to the bill approved on May 31.

Those amendments would lower the income cap for direct farm payments from $750,000 to $250,000 and halt cotton subsidies paid to Brazilian farmers under a World Trade Organization settlement, transferring the money to the Women, Infants and Children supplemental nutrition program.

Schedule: The Rules Committee meeting is today at 5:30 p.m. in H313 U.S. Capitol.