House appropriators yesterday criticized a federal program that pays farmers to idle their lands for conservation reasons, with some calling for its repeal in the next reauthorization of the farm bill.

Reps. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) led the attacks on the Conservation Reserve Program, which gives farmers rent payments to hold off farming lands that are ecologically sensitive. They discussed offering an amendment on the House floor later this year that would drastically reduce the acreage allowed in the program, or even phase it out completely.

"It's just too big a program at a time when we can't afford it," Lummis said.

The program, which is capped at 32 million acres, currently enrolls about 30 million acres. Last week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced his department would target 1 million acres toward wetlands and grasslands restoration.

Despite the enrollment, high crop prices are tempting farmers to withdraw their acres from the program and put them back into production. The Department of Agriculture expects contracts on about 6.5 million acres to expire this year and announced a general signup for this month to try to replace that land.

Kingston, who chairs the House Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, yesterday said the program was oversubscribed and claimed that much of the enrolled land is not erodible enough to qualify.

"It's an enormously popular middle-class entitlement, and there are a lot of people involved in it that don't farm for a living but enjoy the income," said Kingston, who has been a vocal critic of the program. "And now that crop prices are so high, suddenly they don't have to have the land out of production. It is the classic we-are-paying-people-not-to-farm program."

Democratic Rep. Sam Farr (Calif.), the ranking member of the subpanel, also said he had concerns with the program but did not go as far as to say it should be wiped out of federal agriculture policy.

He said that, in general, the government "ought not be paying people for not farming on land they shouldn't be farming" in the first place.

Farr called for a more targeted approach, much like the Agriculture Department is taking with its wetlands and grasslands initiative, that seeks to enroll lands based on a larger plan instead of in the piecemeal fashion taken now with the program. Lummis also said the targeted approach was more appropriate.

Their comments came at a budget hearing examining USDA's proposed conservation budget, even though the agricultural officials at the witness table weren't part of the Farm Service Agency, which administers the Conservation Reserve Program.

The House appropriators also don't have jurisdiction over CRP, a mandatory program set by the House and Senate Agriculture committees in the farm bill. Those committees are beginning a process to reauthorize the five-year 2008 farm bill, which expires later this year.

Despite those limitations, Lummis broke form in yesterday's appropriations hearing and turned to her fellow lawmakers, asking whether there was a way for the appropriators to chime in during the farm bill process.

Appropriators generally "don't get invited to participate," Farr said.

Instead, the Republican lawmakers will discuss possibly including Conservation Reserve Program changes in an amendment to whatever agriculture appropriations bill makes it to the House floor.