(Des Moines Register)—Southwest Iowa farmer Seth Watkins thinks taxpayers should be able to expect that U.S. growers who get billions of dollars annually in federal support will provide environmental benefits such as preserving wetlands that can help prevent devastating floods.
But northeast Iowa landowner Jim Conlan is challenging that concept, saying in a lawsuit backed by the conservative Liberty Justice Center and Pacific Legal Foundation that the federal government’s requirement that he preserve a 9-acre wetland on his property is unconstitutional.
The so-called “Swampbuster” law, which Congress passed in 1985, says Conlan must protect the wetland or face losing safety-net farm supports on all his land, which totals about 1,100 acres.
Conlan attorney Jeffrey McCoy says the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s program is “unduly coercive,” blocking farmers from important price supports, loans, disaster assistance and other aid if they drain, dredge or otherwise fill existing wetlands.
If successful, the lawsuit’s impact will be sweeping and national in scope, say experts, likely threatening a sister conservation program called “Sodbuster” that discourages growers from farming highly erodible soil and potentially leading to increased flooding and more pollution of American drinking water sources.
A federal judge will hear arguments Monday in Cedar Rapids on the USDA’s motion for summary judgment. In addition to the agency, Conlan’s suit, filed in April 2024, names as a defendant former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, appointed by then-President Joe Biden, among others.
But there are other opponents, among them Josh Mandelbaum, an Environmental Law and Policy Center senior attorney and Des Moines City Council member. He’s part of the team representing Iowa and U.S. farm and environmental groups that oppose the federal lawsuit and received permission from the judge to intervene in the litigation.
Conlan is “trying to rewrite 40 years of farm policy,” Mandelbaum said. “Congress has said if we’re going to give you this generous and significant benefit, we want to make sure that you’re not destroying wetlands that we think are of value.”
His lawsuit comes after a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report last year that found half the wetlands in the lower 48 states have been eradicated. In the previous decade alone, about 670,000 acres of wetlands were lost, along with their ability to reduce flooding for downstream farms, businesses and cities, clean water of pollutants and provide wildlife habitat, the study found.
Watkins said the Swampbuster and Sodbuster laws provide some of the few conservation requirements that farmers must meet in order to qualify for federal support.
The idea “that someone thinks they should just get that money with no accountability to the taxpayer, just doesn’t seem right to me,” he says.
Plaintiff: Requiring preservation of wetland a taking and should be compensated
Conlan, a corporate attorney in Chicago, bought about 80 acres just east of Delaware, a town of about 140 people off U.S. 20, three years ago for $700,000 through CTM Holdings LLC, the plaintiff in the lawsuit.
While Conlan’s land contains what the lawsuit describes as a “small seasonal stream,” he questions whether the area is a wetland because it doesn’t have standing water, isn’t “visibly wet,” and is not permanently or seasonally “saturated or inundated by water.”
Conlan asked the Natural Resource Conservation Service to reconsider the 2010 wetland designation. In early 2021, the USDA agency said it would maintain it.
Conlan, who grew up in Iowa, says in court filings his inability to farm those 9 acres “greatly decreases the value of the property for both farm leases and sale price.”
The Swampbuster law “imposes compulsory conservation,” conditioning “USDA agricultural benefits on a farmer keeping ‘wetlands’ in conservation, with no payment of rent to the farmer,” Conlan’s filings say. “In this way, the USDA conditions federal benefits on the relinquishment of farmland for conservation easements — without providing just compensation for the taking.”
At the same time, however, the Sodbuster law does provide farmers with conservation payments for keeping highly erodible land under pasture, grassland or rangeland, Conlan says.
But attorneys and others say participation in farm programs is voluntary.
“Nobody is forced to participate in farm programs. But if you do, there are stipulations,” says Aaron Lehman, a central Iowa farmer who’s president of the Iowa Farmers Union board. “If I want to qualify for crop insurance, I can’t plant soybeans in February. The integrity of our farm programs depend on a balance between the benefits that come back to the farm and the overall public good that they provide.”
Mandelbaum and others question whether Conlan has grounds to bring the lawsuit, since Conlan hasn’t been harmed by the Swampbuster requirements. The filings say Conlan has:
- Never lost benefits from USDA’s farm programs, which he withdrew from in September.
- Received $26,500 from harvesting timber from the wetland area, a practice that’s allowed if the stumps aren’t removed.
- Received $500 per acre in rent payments from his farming tenant and $250 an acre for some land that was enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program, widely known as CRP.
- Voiced long-term plans to use the land for commercial or other development.
“He’s not a farmer. He’s a landowner,” Mandelbaum says. “But the lawsuit would impact farmers in this state who comply with Swampbuster and rely on federal farm benefits.”
McCoy, Conlan’s attorney, says the USDA program sets out requirements for landowners and farmers leasing the land.
“Just because he’s not the one driving the tractor doesn’t mean he’s not a farmer,” he says.
Opponents of suit say it could make passing new farm bill even harder
Removing restrictions on converting wetlands will make it even more difficult for congressional legislators to hammer out big ag issues like a new farm bill, says Lehman, the Polk County farmer.
Last December, Congress, unable to assemble sufficient support from various stakeholders for new legislation, approved continuing to operate under the 2018 Farm Bill that expired in 2023. If the lawsuit prevails, “I fear it would be even harder to build the coalition needed to pass good farm programs,” Lehman says.
At the same time as farmers face uncertainty around a farm bill, states like Iowa have struggled to build wetlands and other projects to help address water quality problems. That challenge will intensify if the nation loses the Swampbuster protections, says John Gilbert, who farms with his family near Iowa Falls in north central Iowa.
“There’s no doubt that people will rush to pattern tile their land,” Gilbert says, referring to a using a network of buried drains to dry out otherwise soggy soil. “And that’s bad news.”
Watkins, who raises cattle and sheep near Clarinda, says he and other Iowa farmers can grow crops and raise livestock while at the same time producing environmental benefits.
“We can do both,” he says. “If I get subsidies, taxpayers should get clean water and healthy soil for their investment.”