The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently provided its early budget projections for 2014 and beyond, which will be used as the basis to estimate costs and savings of future proposed legislation. These budget projections will have implications as Congress debates Farm Bill reauthorization this year, according to the Wildlife Management Institute. Last year's proposed Farm Bill used the CBO's March 2012 projections to establish the funding baseline for the bill, but there are differences between the 2012 final estimates and the initial numbers just released for 2013. The final projections are due to be released in late March and while there are typically adjustments between the initial and final CBO projections, it is rare for substantial differences to occur.

The changes proposed in the CBO's 2013 projections will have the potential to impact funding for conservation programs when this Congress begins work on a new Farm Bill. It appears at this point that the differences in projections for the overall cost of conservation programs in the Farm Bill will be relatively small, however, CBO numbers show they anticipate more significant differences in individual programs. For example, the early numbers for 2013 indicate that CBO now anticipates that spending over the next ten years for the Conservation Reserve Program will be about $1 billion less than they projected last year. Conversely, projected spending for the Conservation Stewardship Program is estimated to be over $1 billion higher than last year's estimates.

It is important to note that these projections do not account for spending adjustments triggered by sequestration ? the automatic budget cuts that are currently scheduled to take effect on March 1^st of this year ? or other deficit reduction legislation that might be enacted in the future. The bottom line is that federal spending for conservation is not likely to increase in the short term and it could be a struggle to maintain some of the more important conservation programs at previous levels. (pmr)