U.S. Reps. Gabe Evans and Lauren Boebert have joined U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper to introduce new legislation in both the House and Senate that aims to benefit Colorado farmers and ranchers.

The Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program Improvement Act, introduced in both the Senate and House, seeks to improve the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s payment structure for ranchers and farmers. The act would also introduce new payment requirements for the department regarding managing water resources and existing drought and water conservation agreements.

As ranchers and farmers voluntarily retire farm acreage to comply with conservation requirements, the USDA has supplied Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, or CREP, participants with payments to offset the costs associated with compliance. According to the bill’s proponents, the payments have not been enough to incentivize farmers and ranchers to participate in the program.

Under this act, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would be directed to allow dryland agricultural uses on CREP acreage, specifically adding dryland crop production and grazing to the list of appropriate conservation practices for the CREP program. Additionally, the act would ensure fairer payments to producers by stipulating that annual payments for drought and water conservation agreements through CREP will equal the difference between the irrigated and dryland acre payment rates.

The act would also ensure that any drought and water conservation agreement that includes the permanent retirement of a water right receives the full irrigated acre payment rate.

Bennet, who recently announced that he was running for governor, had previously introduced this legislation in 2023 with Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, who is also sponsoring the act this time.