September 17, 2024 Transcript

September 17, 2024

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
Commission Hearing Room
4200 Smith School Road, Austin, TX 78744 Council Meeting

CHAIRMAN OLIVER BELL: Well, good morning. Before we begin, I'll need to take roll call. Obviously, I'm present. I understand Member Frank is absent. Mr. Isom?

MR. REX ISOM: Present.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Member Kinsel is absent. Member Koehler is absent. Mr. Lopez?

DR. ROEL LOPEZ: Present.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Ms. Maldonado?

MS. SUSAN MALDONADO: Present.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Ms. Burr?

MS. KIMBERLY BURR: Present.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Ms. Paup?

MS. BROOKE PAUP: Present.

CHAIRMAN BELL: I guess Mr. Riojas is absent.

Mr. Swanson?

MR. ROMEY SWANSON: Present.

CHAIRMAN BELL: And I guess Mr. Boening is absent. But we do have a quorum, so we will move forward. Well, we would move forward with the meeting regardless, but anything that we need to vote on today since we have a quorum, we can also do that. And by the
way, my name is Oliver Bell. 

It's obviously the first time I have attended this particular meeting, but I'm currently the Vice Chairman of Parks and Wildlife, so I'm very glad to be here and happy to sit in for Chairman Hildebrand to help out. So, that's my claim to fame for the
day at any rate. One thing before we do get started, as we're recording minutes, we do have a system that's recording minutes, but also Dee is recording minutes.

So, if you would, we're trying to make sure we take notes carefully. So, if you would speak, I guess I'd say as clearly as possible into your microphone so that we can catch that… it's not all being caught automatically or electronically. So, we are
doing some shorthand today as well. And I'll try to make sure that whoever is speaking, if you would identify yourself before you speak, and I'll try to make sure that the staff knows who you are as you're speaking if there's any question. Okay?

So, this meeting is called to order on September 17, 2024, at.. 
Oh, well is it… I'm going to go with this. I'm going to say 10:28. And before proceeding, I believe that, with our business, I believe Ms. Lofye has a statement to make.

MS. ANDREA LOFYE: Yes, sir. Thank you, Chairman. A public notice of this meeting containing all items on the proposed agenda has been filed with the Office of the Secretary Of State as required by Chapter 551 of the Government Code referred to as the Open
Meetings Act. I would like this fact to be noted in the official record of this meeting. 

CHAIRMAN BELL: Thank you. So, before we begin our agenda today, I'd like to take a moment to welcome our council members back. We also have a newly appointed council member, Mr. Russell Boening, who is not able to be here today. But he's the President of Texas Farm Bureau and also a full-time farmer and rancher in Wilson County. And so, we'll look forward to seeing him maybe the next time we come together.

Action Item Number 2: Review and Approval of the Minutes from the September 19, 2023, Council meeting which have already been distributed. Is there a motion for approval?

MR. ISOM: So, moved.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Mr. Isom makes a motion for approval. Is there a second?

MS. PAUP: I second.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Ms. that's… Ms. Paup makes a second. All in favor, please say, “aye.”

COUNCIL: Aye.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Any opposed please say, “nay.” Hearing none. Action carries.

Briefing Item Number 3: Ethics Review for Returning and New Council Members.

Ms. Theda Strickler, please make your presentation.

MS. THEDA STRICKLER: Good morning. My name is Theda Strickler. I'm a staff attorney here at Parks and Wildlife, and my role is to assist Mr. Abernathy in the administration of the program primarily on the back end when it comes time to draft the conservation easements and go through that extensive review process
internally. But I also provide this training for new council members and as a refresher for the rest of you. So, Vice Chairman, this is mostly for you, but everyone else enjoy.

Okay so elected and appointed officials in Texas are required to receive training in Texas Open Government Laws. I'm going to go over some of those laws, and we will be letting the sunshine in, as it were.

So, the first one here is the Open Meetings Act. That requires meetings of government bodies like this one to be open to the public. And there are some requirements about posting notice as to the time, place and the subject matter to be discussed.
There's a training video on the Attorney General's website. There's a link there. And you should all have access to, yes, I see you have my slides.

So that training, it's about an hour long. I encourage you to please go watch it. It's put on by attorneys at the OAG's office. A couple of key points. Like I said, there are notice posting requirements ahead of this meeting. When you are discussing during the meeting what you are talking about, what
you're going to be doing, it's limited to what was on that posted agenda so that there is transparency with the public about what happens here, and there are some sanctions for violations of The Open Meetings Act.

So next, The Public Information Act. That law gives the public the right to request access to government information. There's another training also put on by the Attorney General's office. There's the link. It's also about an hour long. There's a… I should have mentioned this in the last slide, but both of The
Open Meetings Act and The Public Information Act, when you go to that website, there's the video training, but there's also a PDF download of a handbook for each of those laws that's really comprehensive and easy to read and worth having around in case there's ever an issue that comes up or a question.

So yes, handbook. Key points to remember. The document is fairly comprehensive. It can include emails, papers, anything that's recorded. Teams recorded meetings that can be considered a document. When we get requests for those documents in really any form, it invokes The Public Information Act. And then, when that
happens, we go through a process. If there is information that is responsive, we release that. If we think it might need to be held confidential for some reason, there's a process that we go through with The Attorney General's office. They have an entire division dedicated to helping us determine what we can withhold
and what we can't. And again, there are some sanctions if that law is not complied with.

So The Administrative Procedure Act, that's a little bit more comprehensive. That generally provides the legal requirements that state agencies, governing bodies, have to adhere to when adopting rules or conducting contested cases.

This council doesn't… the contested cases part doesn't apply. You do have rulemaking authority, although you haven't used it yet. But so, it still applies to this body. It's good to know about. There's not a training video for this one, but there is a handbook that you can look at. The handbook is also very compre-
hensive. It covers The Administrative Procedure Act, but it also goes into kind of an overview of The Open Meetings Act, The Public Information Act. And also, if you're curious, it has a nice breakdown of the role of the Attorney General's office as it applies to state agencies, how they represent us and how they make
those determinations about public information requests; what we can withhold.

Let's see. So those are the main required things that you need to know about, but there are some other considerations as well as you're serving on the Council with regard to ethics in dealing with lobbyists. And we also just want to give you a heads up about the back end, the contracting piece of these conservation
easements.

So, the Texas Ethics Commission website- which is slow, so fair warning- but they do have some training materials there and some summaries there. Mostly for y'all, what we need you to know is that if there's ever a perceived or actual conflict of interest, we want you all to communicate that with us. And if it's an ac-
tual conflict of interest we may ask you to recuse yourself for this program. 

That also applies to your spouse as well. So, think about that. Typically, it's if you're involved in the management of a program that receives funding through this program, or if you have at least a 10% interest in a business or program that receives funding from us as well, that would create that conflict of interest that we would want to hear about and work with you on.

There is a requirement to file personal financial statements with the Texas Ethics Commission. You can do that online or on paper. They have some materials on their website explaining that process.

Lobbyists: I haven't heard any good stories yet about lobbyists contacting members of this council, but I'm sure it could happen. And it may have happened in the past. There's some laws about that, some rules. Be aware of those. If someone approaches you and wants you to, you know, take a nice gift, give us a call.

We can help you work through what's appropriate and what's not. Registered lobbyists, in particular, don't talk to them. Or at least be aware of the limitations of what you can do and what they're supposed to be doing when they interact with you.

So, the conservation easements that come from this program do fall under our state agency contract rules. That's not something that y'all necessarily need to know a lot of detail about, but it's good to know on the back end how we're handling these and what it takes to administer them. There's a training video again
that you can look at if you'd like. But this mostly gives you an idea of what we are working on and the considerations that we have as we develop the conservation easements, and as we review them what we are looking for.

A couple of miscellaneous points here. You are entitled to reasonable and necessary travel expenses, but that doesn't include alcohol. So, keep that in mind when you go to lunch after this. You know, if you have a beer or a glass of wine, maybe put that on a separate receipt. That would make the reimbursement process
a lot easier.

There are some policies that might be helpful to look at. There's one point that I want to make before I wrap up, which is that this training that I'm giving you now is required under Chapter 84 of the Parks and Wildlife Code, which enables the program or establishes the program and goes over the rules that apply to the program. But it only requires that I give you information regarding these laws, The Public Information Act and The Open Meetings Act have their own requirements that you take training. And those videos that I have linked for those two, which are an hour long, for new members that's required that you take those training courses within 90 days of beginning your role here. For everyone else this has been a refresher, but, yes, this is not it when it comes to the training; those Public Information Act and Open Meetings Act requirements apply in addition to this brief informational training.

CHAIRMAN BELL: I had all those.

MS. STRICKLER: I assumed you probably would, but it's worth saying that.

CHAIRMAN BELL: I'm happy to refresh, too.

MS. STRICKLER: Okay, well, that concludes my presentation. Any questions? Okay. Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Any questions for Ms. Stricker? 

I have to remember to do that. See there, I am the outlier and violator of the rule since I did not have my microphone on. Thank you, Ms. Strickler. And there were no questions, so we'll move on to our next item.

Briefing Item Number 4: The Status of the Texas Farm and Ranch Lands Conservation Program Existing Projects.

Mr. Abernathy.

MR. CHRIS ABERNATHY: Good morning, Sir. We made it and we have a quorum. And I wasn't always this gray until I started this program. So y'all are wearing me out a little bit. So, there's a little housekeeping in this particular briefing as well. And then we'll do the program statistics.

So, typically every year we do a little bit of a background training for the members. You guys have seen this a lot. I'm just going to kind of hit the historical points. The General Land Office transferred this program to TPWD in 2015. Along with it came a bill, an appropriation in the bill of $2 million every biennium. We keep about 10% of that behind for operational expenses, and the rest can be applied- about $1.8- it can be applied to conservation easements. The bill also created this council. It created the fund, and it created the criteria for what we select to use for selection of the properties.

Again, your function and role as a council, you provide program oversight. You allow us to enter into agreements for conservation easements. The pond every other year when we do our grant awards. There are no rules, but you do have the authority to adopt rules for the program. Currently, we do not have any operating rules outside of what the statute says. We can also accept outside funds. We have yet to find any outside funds at this point, but we are able to bring those in. And again, we are not doing this at this point. But you also have the authority to establish fees and charges for the services.

The program's mission is, our whole goal is to purchase, to allow owners of working lands to sell their conservation easement.	

Mr. Chairman, if you're not familiar with exactly what a conservation easement is, is that they sell the development rights to their property and so they maintain full ownership, full surface ownership, minerals, everything. But basically no one can ever build on that property again. And these are perpetual in nature. And they stay with the land. And basically, it would require an act of a judge to terminate a conservation easement. So, they're very powerful agreements. And so, they're not entered into lightly. Okay, so that's my really quick housekeeping list.

So, these are our conservation easements that we currently have either completely closed or the ones that are currently being worked on. So right now, we're in the '24-'25 biennium. As you can see, we have several projects that are still being closed, but we have pretty good distribution across the state.

Large concentration in the hill country, a fairly good concentration on the coastal areas. But you can see we've got some Red River projects. We have two out in far West Texas. We're really excited about those. The two out in far West Texas are some of the largest properties that we have.

Okay. So, we have had five funding cycles to date. So again, every two years currently we have about 23 properties that we have closed on. And we currently have 11 that are in process. And that just means that they're doing their due diligence. They're doing appraisals. They're doing surveys. They're doing baseline surveys. They're working with the landowner. They're drafting conservation easements. And at some point, they all come to a close where we literally go to a title company, and we close this like you would on your house when you sold your house.

We have about 35,000 acres protected right now. We've got another 16 plus that are kind of again in the works, should hopefully be completely added to the program by the end of the next fiscal year.

We have received 8 point… these are funds spent when I say funding to date, this is the 8.4. This is minus the 10%. So, we spent about $8.4 million in state funds. We've spent $30.7 million in federal funds, mostly from the Natural Resource Conservation Service. And we've received about $7.1 million in matching funds. And those can be either true cash outlays, or they can be landowner matching.

The conservation value, what that actually is, is that of all of the properties that we have conservation easements on, those… the conserved value, the appraised conserved value of those properties is roughly $60 million. And so, when I show the ratio of the 7.2:1, that means for every dollar that we spend, we get $7.20 in conservation value. So, it's not a terrible turnaround. Currently, right now, under the current numbers, we're spending about $178 per acre of our own money, with a total of all contributions of $919 an acre, which again is extremely, extremely good.

Trying not to talk too fast. So next year when we meet again, all of these things will have happened before we meet. The next year applications cycle will run April 1st… March 1st to April 30th, somewhere in there. And then we might move it a little bit to accommodate what the NRCS is doing. But we will hold about a about a 60-day application window where land trusts can submit their applications to us.

Once those are all received, we have an internal review team made up of subject matter experts like Inland Fisheries, Wildlife, Ecology, myself. We even have an external agricultural representative that was a suggestion of Mr. Isom that they wanted a larger agricultural perspective on some of the applications. And so, we've accomplished that, and we've had someone in the program ever since. And that's an external person; that's a volunteer. Typically, they serve a couple of terms before they kind of get tired. But we do have that. We try to conduct site visits. Typically, Wildlife loans us some field biologists that conduct some site visits and verify what the applicants are putting on their applications. And then next year- it says September, I'm kind of thinking that we're going to look for October next year- but we'll have another… this will be the meeting where the council will review and approve all of the applications suggested by the staff. And then once the council meeting is over, then I have a couple of months, and I need to put together all of the grant agreements. Those all go through Contracting. And then those land trusts can hit the ground running and start doing all the work that they need to do. And that's it for that one, Sir. Any questions?

CHAIRMAN BELL: Thank you very much. Any questions? I do have one, Sir. You know, just in terms of the overall land protected, that's all related to the program. Is there… or my understanding would be the 35,000 acres is related to… is program acreage. So that's the program success numbers. What's the actual… do we have a figure for the total amount of acres in the state under the…

MR. ABERNATHY: In the next presentation you're going to see all that. Can we wait one minute?

CHAIRMAN BELL: I can wait. I can even wait two minutes. It's okay. It just popped into my mind again as we were doing this. Any questions? All right, then seeing none, thank you. And we'll move on to… I guess you're not up again, are you?

MR. ABERNATHY: No..

CHAIRMAN BELL: Then I think I think we're good.

MR. ABERNATHY: And I did want to… Mr. Chairman, I want to make sure to be able to help you all understand the history. So, Ms. Donovan came… one of the questions, or two questions, that Chairman Hildebrand asked last year was, how do land trusts bring in a new landowner into a program and help them get a conservation easement? So that's what Ms. Donovan I’ve asked to present here. And another one, and you're going to see with mine, is what are the land conservation statistics. And that's where those two came up.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Okay. I knew you were on here twice. You're up for Item 6. Okay. Thank you.

Briefing Item Number 5: Land Trust Conservation Easement Process.

Ms. Donovan?

MS. ELISA DONOVAN: Hi, there. So, I'm Elisa Macia Donovan. I'm Vice President And General Counsel at The Coastal Prairie Conservancy. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Council Members, for the work you do and for having me here today. So, I joined The Coastal Prairie Conservancy over seven years ago. Before that, I was actually a corporate lawyer in Houston
helping energy companies with their business in real estate transactions. I redirected my career to work on land conservation, which is something I really felt strongly I needed to do for this world. I became a certified Texas Master Naturalist. My husband and I have purchased some property in Weimer where we have a small cow/calf operation. We've done some prairie restoration and have a little grass-fed beef side business. So, it's been certainly educational for me over the last, almost decade working on this. So today I'm here to talk about conservation easements and landowner engagement. That is, how do we identify the landowners that have land that we would like to conserve? And then how do we get them to start talking with us and to decide to enter a conservation easement?

So first, you know, our mission as The Coastal Prairie Conservancy is to conserve coastal prairies, wetlands, farms, ranches, natural areas to sustain a resilient Texas forever. We started as an organization in 1992. We're an accredited land trust, and we now protect over 32,200 acres- these statistics are a little old- on the coastal prairie.

We started off protecting just The Katy Prairie Preserve, which is the land in Harris and Waller County. We have successfully conserved over 18,000 acres as a combination of fee acquisition and conservation easements. And we thought we needed to replicate that success across a broader region. So, in 2017, we kicked off our more regional conservation program.

And the first project we closed was the Spread Oaks Ranch, which is a 5,300 acre working cattle ranch on the banks of The Colorado River. It was actually funded by a very generous landowner donation. But we were also a Texas Farm and Ranch Lands program easement. And that supported some of the transaction costs and the stewardship contribution. So, it was our first foray into the region.

Since that time, we've acquired more easement projects. We have a dozen easements outside of the historic Katy Prairie. There's a second one that was also a Farm and Ranch Lands program easement. And this map is a little outdated, but we have just... we have successfully closed another couple just this year.

So as a corporate lawyer, I think about this, you know, in terms of project origination, deer deal flow, how do we get projects into our pipeline? I'm married to an ex investment banker so that's just kind of the way we think. And I think it's been really useful in the nonprofit sphere to sort of take that approach.

So, this is our conservation closing of The Arborland Grassland. It was 110 acres that we just recently closed. It was a Texas Farm and Ranch Lands easement. It was also an NRCS agricultural land easement as a grassland of special significance. This landowner, Rosemary on the left, she had been looking at her land which is adjacent to the Katy Prairie Preserve, thinking about developing it.

She wanted to have three to five acres, you know, kind of large lot residential subdivision. We'd been talking to her for years trying to convince her there was other options to this path. We had been talking about some of the NRCS programs and, fortunately, it worked out. We were able to get approved for an NRCS Grassland of Special Significance project.

We were approved for a Texas Farm and Ranch Lands conservation easement. And this is our closing team, Deborah, on the right is our closer at the title company. And Daniel is a new employee who's been really helpful in helping us move our projects through our deal pipeline.

So, Rosemary is one of our neighbors. So, her project was, is that little rectangular area kind of to the south where it says Indian Grass Preserve, but it's contiguous to our Indian Grass Preserve, which is a hotspot for birds.

It's a globally important bird area. It's also a cattle ranch. There's cattle running all across The Katy Prairie Preserve. We do have some rice farms also, and we are maintaining agriculture in Harris County. The Warren Ranch is the largest working cattle ranch left in Harris County. So, we really do think that our organization is maintaining that agricultural heritage in this part of the state.

So, we know who our neighbors are. Certainly, all those missing pieces within The Katy Prairie Preserve. We are in touch with them. We continue to have conversations with them and try to encourage them to think about conservation. Fortunately, landowners have been in a position to donate easements to us. But now with land prices, you know, most of them require some sort of payment to make it worth their while to enter into a project with us.

So, the first way we identify landowners is talk to your neighbor. You know, a formal introduction, word of mouth goes a long way. The second thing we have been doing, especially in kind of our broader, regional focus area, is working with partners, working with property owners that are within some areas to talk to their neighbors. So, we, through the NRCS, RCPP program, Regional Conservation Partner Program, we established The Texas Coastal Prairie Initiative, which includes 25 other partners, including other land trusts. We work with Texas Parks and Wildlife biologists. We work with the Oaks and Prairies Joint Venture, kind of on the north side. We work with The Gulf Coast Joint Venture on the south with their grassland programs. We've engaged with research universities such as University of Houston, Clearlake. We worked with The Texas General Land Office and their Coastal Resiliency Plan to identify those areas that really should be conserved. We wanted to have connected areas instead of having sort of a scattershot approach of 100 acres here, 200 acres there. It's really much more impactful to have, you know, landscape-level conservation where we have 5,000 acres connected together, 10,000 acres, so that the wildlife that relies on the coastal prairie really has an ecosystem to return to year after year, or that they reside in all year round. Through the Texas Coastal Prairie Initiative– and now we have a new RCPP, the Texas Grasslands And Savannas Initiative– we have received funding to help us kick up our landowner outreach efforts. This is an example of a postcard that we have sent to landowners. We went through property appraisal district records. We identified those landowners that had property within our focus area.

So, we were able to sort them by zip codes and target them specifically. We've also sent out mailings to landowners that have over 150 acres across the counties where we work. We work with our partners that are also in the initiative, so they could send us their landowner lists. And we were able to send direct mail to those landowners.

And I think it's a welcome piece of mail from a lot of landowners that receive, you know, unsolicited offers from real estate developers or from, you know, industrial, renewable energy projects that want to use their land for other purposes. We offer them your land, your legacy. This is one means that you might be able to protect those farms and ranches forever and keep it as working agricultural lands and for wildlife.

Part of this program, we also have funding to offer landowners land management assistance. So, if they, for example, have a working cattle ranch they might be able to get funds to do invasive species or brush control. They might be able to add some cross fencing, different kinds of NRCS funded practices where NRCS will pay for part of the practice and the landowner would implement that practice to improve their working lands that also in a way benefits the wildlife. So it's been a really nice way to… you know, a lot of landowners aren't ready to talk easement day one, but they sure are open to talking about free technical assistance to have someone help them develop a management plan at no cost to them, help give them some funds to do some of the things that they might want to do anyways.

We get to know them. We get to start the conversation. And they learn a little bit about their property. You know, it isn't until the landowner knows that they have something that's sort of special when they start to appreciate the bird habitat or maybe your grassland is, you know, something a little special, but they start to care about it and maybe want to start protecting it.

We do have some other outreach. This is our website. So, we have www.prairiepartner.org. It's sort of our landing page for both our Texas Coastal Prairie Initiative and our Texas Grasslands And Savannas Initiative. The new program landowners can learn a little bit about it, you know, in a confrontation free, just informational way. They could submit to sign up for learning about events or just getting in touch with us.

We're also putting on a conference, our conference this October, 24th and 25th. We have Mr. Yoskowitz, is our keynote speaker, thank you very much, at the George Ranch in Fort Bend County. We actually offered… we sent postcards to all of the landowners in our region letting them know they can come for free, that we have underwriters, and we have sponsors, so we would love to really bring in landowners.

There's a small prairie community maybe, you know, that we often get together and we talk to each other. And our goal is we don't need to talk to each other. We need to talk to landowners and let them know the value of their lands and their ecosystem and educate. So, we're really having a strong emphasis on bringing in people that have lands and letting them be part of the broader conversation about conservation of this ecosystem. So hopefully after all of this effort, you know, we get a lead, we actually find a landowner that wants to visit with us and wants to discuss potentially doing some kind of conservation project. So, Mary Anne Piacentini, our President, she often describes a conservation easement as being similar to a marriage. You don't just jump into the marriage, you know, first you have to meet, then you have to date a little while. You have to kind of get to know each other because, you know, people are pretty protective about their land. They're not just going to give away their rights to an organization without building some level of trust that what they're doing makes sense for them and for their family. So, we have some informational materials. We have a little, you know, brochure about what we do as an organization, our history.

We have information about conservation easements, how we work on land protection. This little conservation easement booklet that's published by the Texas Land Trust Council is a great resource. It's full of landowner's conservation success stories, has basic information about easements. It's available electronically, and we also have some hard copies. And then we also send them a brief questionnaire just to kind of get them thinking, like, what are your goals for that property, what's your family situation, are there other conflicting uses? So, we can kind of start getting a general sense of what their interests are.

Next, we will have a conversation with them. This is, you know, we can't do it all electronically. Like with landowners, especially, like you need to get in front of them and visit with them. It is, you know, let's be friendly. Let's tell them about the Coastal Prairie Conservancy. We want to hear about their land. What are their goals? Sometimes they are looking for funding because they have complicated family ownership situations, and this might be a way to get out of it. So, we just want to get that conversation started. And basically, we're at this point just trying to determine, is this a viable project?

Sometimes we get landowners that call us and they've got two acres and, gosh darn it, they really want to conserve that land. But we have to gently explain to them this really isn't a conservation easement project. Like, that might be worth saving but there's nobody that's going to put an easement on that. It's just too costly and it's too much of a process. You just need to make sure that whoever owns it is going to take care of your little patch of paradise. And so, we also start thinking about funding information. Some landowners are in a position where they can donate the entire easement itself. They are really looking for a tax deduction. They might have the cash to pay for some of the third-party costs that they have to incur in doing an easement. They have to hire their own attorney, perhaps. There's a number of due diligence steps. But oftentimes landowners do need some help. We work with the Agricultural Land Easement Program, whether it's straight within ALE or through our RCPP programs where we have specific funds. The North American Wetlands Conservation Act, or NACA, has been really great on the coastal prairie where we have a lot of wetlands, rice farms, waterfowl habitat. And then, of course, the Texas Farm and Ranch Lands Conservation Program has been super helpful for us.

So, the goal of all of this is we're trying to get to a site visit where we go in person, have a chance to look around the property, get to know each other a little bit better. And if sometimes they're not ready, they just wanted to hear, they might not… this might just be too much pressure. They're not quite there ready to go on a date yet. So, let's, you know, try to keep in contact with them. We'll invite them to other events. We'll invite them to our conference. And then we'll put it on the calendar to follow up. Sometimes they're just not ready and, you know, but let's talk to them in another three or four months when they might be more ready to have us come out and see them.

Once we do have the opportunity to do a site visit, we have a form that we fill out to make sure… You know, we document what the conservation values are to determine what characteristics are of the property. Does it meet our land protection criteria as a land trust? We'll bring that to our land committee. They'll review everything and make a recommendation to our board. And then it's up to the board to grant preliminary approval to allow us to work on it, spend our time on it, or determine that it does not meet our objectives.

There are times where a project may not meet our objectives as a land trust. And possibly we might refer it to another land trust. Maybe it's really small, but it's super great remnant prairie and maybe the Native Prairie Association of Texas is interested. So sometimes there is a little bit of a shuffle. And sometimes a landowner might visit with a couple land trusts and choose the one that best fits their goals.

A really important part of the process is to set the budget. We have to, at some point, just come up with an estimated value of that easement. Whether it's donated, they'll be getting an IRS deduction, or if it's a purchase, you certainly will need to have an appraisal to justify that purchase price. We also set out what the expectations are for some of the out-of-pocket costs, such as due diligence, you know, appraisals, surveys, environmental reviews. Sometimes we have to get into mineral ownership. That all costs money. Then the transaction costs themselves. Title Insurance. And then that stewardship contribution, which could be, you know, $50,000 plus, depending on the size and attributes of that property. And it's better to set that out in advance and have that open conversation with the landowner instead of waiting later and having some hard feelings because they didn't expect some of these costs later on. 

We will do a letter of interest kind of outlining our interest in the property, documenting some certain things that we have to do for just disclosure purposes about our role as a land trust, and you need to hire your own attorney, etc. and then we'll start applying for grants. So NRCS, NACA, Farm and Ranch Lands, all depends on what the property is like, what it might be eligible for, and what's the next funding cycle open to for that project?

After that, once we have, you know, the funding in place, that's when we really kick off sort of the project itself and undergo those diligence activities and run it through. We actually use a project management software called Monday.com just helps us keep track not only of all of our potential projects– we kind of have big record of those and where they are– but once we have a project that's moving forward we'll keep track of all the steps to check off each item on the list. And then we'll also communicate to the landowner with a checklist so that they know what they're responsible for and what we might be waiting for.

Depending on the funding, we should be able to close it, I would generally say, about three months is reasonable for a fully donated easement. If we don't have to wait for a funding cycle and wait for grant support for a project, it can go really quick. If they need funding, it could take a lot longer, especially if you're talking about federal funding sources. You're looking, you know, at least 12 to 24 months. Arborland Farms took us 15, which I think was pretty fast in the world of NRCS agricultural land easements. And we were feeling pretty good about that. Fortunately, in that case, the funding deadlines did line up with the Farm and Ranch Lands Council, and so we were able to get both sources of support, transaction support and easement support, as well as the bulk of the easement purchase price. And we ended up lining up some other philanthropic funds to finish it out. And we were able to bring that one to closing.

So that's pretty much my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Thank you very much. Any questions?

It seems like you stay very, very busy trying to keep track with all this and engage all these folks. I do have one question. You know, you mentioned direct mail and other ways that you go out and reach people. Does the social media play into what you do at all, and how interested are folks on the other end of that spectrum?

MS. DONOVAN: We do use social media. So, you know, we have our own mailing list through the RCPP initiatives. The goal is it's not just CPC that's advertising to these landowners, it's all of our partners. So, they will share information about the conference specifically in these funding opportunities. So, it certainly plays a role. We're trying to bust in, you know, a little bit more. I know there's certainly Facebook groups and other sites that are specific to landowners. And we probably have more work to do to really get going. We actually asked Texas Parks and Wildlife, and I think we're getting some support, for our conference to be shared on their social media. So that, you know, they have a much larger reach to landowners than we do. I mean, frankly, a lot of our supporters are individuals that live in Houston that may not own property. So, reaching out to them doesn't really help us connect with landowners. So, we are really trying to get partners to help us explain these opportunities, and appreciate any assistance that there might be.

CHAIRMAN BELL: And I only ask because there is… and I don't know if to exactly which platforms it applies to, but depending on which platforms you're on, there's also an opportunity for what they call collaboration posts. So, if you're dealing with someone like Texas Parks and Wildlife, if they put up what is known as a collaboration post, you're invited to collaborate, then you both end up sharing numbers. They share your followers, you share their followers, and it reaches that full group on that immediately. And you each get credit for the total group. And it probably helps boost your numbers as well for people that now see you that might not have seen you that might jump on your list to follow.

MS. DONOVAN: Yeah, oh, for sure. I mean, I do think one of the biggest impediments to doing easement transactions is just a complete lack of knowledge by landowners. They might have heard of an easement, but they have a complete misconception about what that means. They think it means someone's going to take their land. People are going to be walking all over their land. You know, we're like, “No, no, no, this is your land. You keep your land; you keep it just how it is. This is a way you can make sure that it stays the way you want it.” And most of the landowners it seems that we work with have either done an easement in the past or their neighbor did an easement, or they have like a personal direct knowledge of an easement, and they have seen how it has not changed the way that they manage their land. Like, they've kept it as a farm ranch. They're still able to go out and hunt on it. They raise cattle. They do, you know, everything that they've been doing. But they have that assurance that it's going to be protected forever. So, getting that message out… like, we need help, we're trying to figure that out.

CHAIRMAN BELL: So maybe we can help remove some uncertainty there. Any other questions or comments? Well, thank you very much.

MS. DONOVAN: All right. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BELL: We'll move on to Action Item Number 6: Land Conservation Statistics.

Mr. Abernathy, you're back up.

MR. ABERNATHY: Sir. I do want to tell you, Mr. Chairman, just in case you might have some curiosity. So, Elisa mentioned some of the things that we fund. We fund what we call due diligence. We fund appraisals, surveys, baseline reports, legal fees, administration, project management, and then acquisition. Because we have so little funding, most of those funds… or most of the folks come to us for the due diligence money. Sometimes they can come to us for some acquisition funds, maybe $250,000 or $500,000, but that's a lot. That's 25% of my appropriation. So, it's very difficult to try to spend half a million dollars on a single project when we have so little. So, I just wanted you to understand where our money goes.

CHAIRMAN BELL: All right. Thank you.

MR. ABERNATHY: This one is going to be real quick. I hope. So, I had to use a number and I chose 2000. The program has been around, not my program but, you know, land conservation has been around a little bit longer. But we chose the number 2000 to start with. So, since 2000, 1.3 million acres, a big concern of that was the question that you had asked a second ago.
Of those 250,000, roughly 246,000 were conserved since this program took place. And of those, 28,000 acres got funding from this program. So, which basically constitutes about 11% of the total conserved property since this program has been in effect. And again, this was a question that Chairman Hildebrand asked me specifically was what's the number of properties that farm and ranch has a role in in the conservation in Texas.

And so, I went out and I got some numbers from Lori Olson, the manager of the Texas Conservation Council, the Land Conservation Council, and she provided me with these. So, these are just for the last seven years so we can get some perspective. So, in 2017, we paid money. We had money on 6,600 acres, 5,800 acres in 2018. You can just see how much land is being conserved in each fiscal time and how much of our funding went towards those programs. And so, again, it totals out to be about 11% of all funded acres since 2017 for the last five years.
And that's… actually I think that's the last slide I have. Yes.
Do you have any questions, Sir?

CHAIRMAN BELL: Yes. Because I had… there was this topic…
Well, first of all, did anyone else have any questions?
I do know that… Well, I guess, first, thanks for the presentation even though it was brief.

What I understand as far as the program goes, there were some questions about being oversubscribed and it was in great demand.
So, I was talking with Dr. Yoskowitz before the meeting and just… I know the staff has explored some expansion of the program and to the capacity. Can you tell us, can you bring us up to date on where we might stand on anything like that?

MR. ABERNATHY: Well, I'd like to address the oversubscription. I believe that Mr. Spector wants to talk a little bit about what the future plan is.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Okay.

MR. ABERNATHY: But the oversubscription every year… Yes, Sir.
Every year we have request far in excess of our finances. Sometimes as much as, you know, I mean, we've had requests of nine, ten, $12 million total, you know. And again, I can spend $1.8 million. And so, when we do our ranking, we literally rank that one through, however, one through ten or whatever. And we apply their request against our budget. And when we literally hit $1.8 million, we have to stop. So typically, we can have as many as half that go unfunded. Some of these properties have habitat that we would like to protect, but we can't. Again, it's just too much money.

MS. PAUP: I do have a question on budget.

MR. ABERNATHY: Yes, Ma'am.

MS. PAUP: And forgive me, this is my first meeting so I'm not keenly aware of your budget yet. But if you're so oversubscribed does the legislature know that you might need a larger appropriation?

MR. ABERNATHY: Last year. Well, two years ago, we asked for an additional $8 million to add to our $2 million for a $10 million appropriation. And that was not granted. You know, I'm not trying to steal thunder from Mr. Spector here. He's got a whole speech prepared for y'all about appropriation requests. So, I don't really want to get on his. But they are definitely aware… 

[INAUDIBLE COMMENT]

MS. PAUP: Just not a follow-up question, but a separate question. So, your program mission is to enable and facilitate the purchase and add conservation easements to protect habitat, water quality, etc., etc. Do you have a success story or like a great example of a project gone right? Like that everything has gone right that you've managed to secure the easement and it's been a really big deal.

MR. ABERNATHY: Probably one of the largest ones- and I would have to go back- but one of the properties in far west Texas, actually on the border of New Mexico and Texas near the Guadalupe National Monument, or Park, I'm not sure exactly. We have about 6,000 acres called the Pietila Ranch, and that holds multiple species of very high diversity, high desert, you know, arid land. You know, not typical hill country, but the number of species and the number of the watershed and everything that we're protecting is pretty substantial. Also, the biggest, most recent one- and I'm sorry I just remembered this- is Honey Creek Springs Ranch. They have an underwater cave. Literally a lake, an underwater lake.

CHAIRMAN BELL: You might have to stay a little closer to your mic.

MR. ABERNATHY: I'm sorry. I'm trying to be more personal but I can't make it… So anyway, they have an underwater cave. It has endangered karst species. It's a tributary to the Honey Creek. And so, by protecting that, we had a large development pressure placed on it. And so, we were able to protect that. We also, as the agency, we also bought other lands associated with that property.

But that was a very critical water source, again, critical species. And we were able to protect that. It cost a lot of money but we felt that… and actually the NRCS would rank that number one and we rank that number one, and we were able to protect that. And that was about two funding cycles ago, I believe.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Just for the record, those questions came from Ms. Paup. Just make sure… if you would just make sure you identify yourself as you speak.
Go ahead. Mr. Isom.

MR. ISOM: My name is Rex Isom. And just there's probably a real obvious answer to this, but what is the reason for the obvious substantial decline in acres of easements from '20 through '22?

MR. ABERNATHY: You know, Rex, I don't… Would you like to answer this? Yeah, sure.

MS. BURR: This is Kimberly Burr. I wanted… I was going to point this out, Chris, listening to the questions about funding. There's been a huge increase in land cost. And due to the huge increases in land prices…

CHAIRMAN BELL: 5X.

MS. BURR: …we have just discussed, means that we have less money to purchase easements, conservation easements. And there was a significant event in 2020 that contributed to that. It's affected us. It affects everyone. And it is very noticeable.

MR. ISOM: So, land cost in Covid.

MS. BURR: Well, at Covid, people were saying… urban sprawl became even more significant when prices went up as people came in and were able to pay cash prices, increased land prices. And I know for us and you, our budget… well, actually our budget has gone up because due to a once in a lifetime Inflation Reduction Act.

So, we do have more funds. But traditionally we have the same amount of funds each year until a new farm bill is passed and then we don't know what our new budget is going to be until a new farm bill is passed.

MR. ISOM: Thank you.

MR. ABERNATHY: I would also say… 

MS. PAUP: Just to clarify, so land price- this is Brooke Paup, Chairwoman of the Texas Water Development Board land prices have increased since Covid, since 2020, but the budget has not kept up with the increase in land prices. That has led to a decrease in the conservation easements.

MR. ABERNATHY: Yes, Ma'am. We've also seen a decrease in applications because they know that not everything can go through. It's just a matter of fact. And this is my personal opinion. I believe that that we're seeing a reduction in applications because they're only bringing us the ones that they really feel good about, that they really think have a chance for funding. And a lot of these guys are getting funding, a lot of money from NRCS. So, they are sticking to the due diligence or if they're 100% donated. Now that's free money to us, right? I mean, we would never turn down a donated property if all we have to pay is $30,000 in due diligence cost. But I think they're just ratcheting down until we get an infusion of funds. And I think we're going to start to see an increase in applications and an increase in property.

MS. PAUP: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BELL: And you mentioned since we're… I'm sorry, Mr. Lopez, go ahead.

DR. LOPEZ: Roel Lopez, I just want to add to what Chris just said. I think when we look at the numbers and the demand, it's probably very conservative because of exactly that pattern. So, I think, and I'm going to look at Elisa or Romey with the land trusts, you know, the amount of resources needed to put in an application are pretty significant. And so, if there's ten opportunities you're going to put in your top two or three. And so, we need to just be aware of that, that the demand is much higher and very conservative, I would say.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Go ahead, Mr. Swanson.

MR. SWANSON: Romey Swanson. I wanted to also share. So, this is a really great point that I think the land trusts across the state are sort of self-selecting with the recognition that there's a limited amount of resources to put into… from the Farm and Ranch Lands Conservation Program, from NRCS. And that scaling up the amount of funding will produce more potential projects. But the land trust community needs a really clear signal in advance of funding rounds with assurances on how much money is available, because a lot of this work is on the back of relationship building. And they have to set expectations with their landowners whether or not there's a real legitimate shot of being funded for a conservation easement.

And I think that's where another bottleneck occurs for the land trust community, is that the amount of funds… but also they're being asked to work in a relationship, setting expectations that they may not be able to be lived up to because we're not promised any more than $2 million. And sometimes we're trying to scale up the number of projects on the rumor of potentially having more funds.

As we discussed in the previous legislature, there was a request for a higher appropriation amount. So, I think that's an important consideration that we need to kind of deliberate over is that the land trusts are doing the work on the relationship side. That relationship can become stressed if expectations are set that can't be met by our programs.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Thank you for that comment. And I think we as part of the question that I did have on the capacity and expansion, I think we had an additional comment coming on budget issues. Right?

MR. ABERNATHY: Yes, Sir.

MS. PAUP: Chairman, can I ask a process question?

CHAIRMAN BELL: Yes, Ma'am.

MS. PAUP: If you apply in 2021, and it is not granted, does it automatically roll to the 2022 cycle?

MR. ABERNATHY: No, Ma'am.

MS. PAUP: No. So, they have to…

MR. ABERNATHY: Reapply.

MS. PAUP: It's a fresh start every year for applicants.

MR. ABERNATHY: Yes.

MS. PAUP: Okay.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Because really I think what's happening… This is Chairman Bell for the record- I don't know where we're filming and who can see what today exactly. But so, it's clear. Part of that, the applications are evaluated and they're essentially it's a rank order and it and it just rolls down. And when the funding, when it meets the funding… when the funding runs out, that's where the cut line comes. So, if there's 20 projects issued and depending on… they may not be put in a numerical or they may be put in a conservation value order, let's put it that way. And as you tick them off, all of a sudden, boom, you've hit your number, and that's your funding for the year.

MS. PAUP: What's the number for the year again, $1.8?

MR. ABERNATHY: About $1.8. Biennium.

MS. BURR: Actually, not by year. It's biennium.

MR. ABERNATHY: I get $1.8 per two years.

MS. BURR: For their program. 

MS. PAUP: Yes.

MR. ABERNATHY: Yes, Ma'am.

MR. SWANSON: This is Romey again. I wanted to also point out that, you know, sometimes two years we'll take the opportunity completely away. Landowners are competing with multiple opportunities to fund. Yeah, right. So, if you missed the funding opportunity in round one, there may not be an opportunity for round two.

MS. PAUP: Thank you.

MR. ABERNATHY: Yes, Ma'am. Thank you. Any other questions?

MR. ZACH SPECTOR: Thank you, Chris. For the record, my name is Zach Spector. I joined the department three weeks ago as the Chief of Land and Conservation Initiatives. It's nice to see many of you. I spent the last several years working as the Conservation Director at Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation. So, I'm happy to be on the team. I'll be helping Chris with this program.
 
This is a really important conversation that you all are having. You're asking very, very good questions. I think some of Romey's points, there are a lot of applications that are not being submitted because the landowner or the land trust community says we've got 10, 15, 20 plus projects and we can't compete if we know the max we're likely to get is $500,000. And we need to focus on one project, but for this program, may not get across the finish line. So, I have spent the last several years working with the land trust community in general. And what I'm told is that there are dozens and dozens of projects that are not being funded, that there are tens of millions of dollars of projects that are not being funded. And to Elisa's point, the hardest part of this is educating. Conservation easements are kind of a complicated idea for a lot of people, so you have to start with that conversation and building relationships. But the second part of that is you're asking a landowner to potentially donate a substantial cash investment, as well as future property
rights, the potential to subdivide and develop their farm or their ranch. And that's a really big pill for a lot of people to swallow. So, Parks and Wildlife has had numerous conversations with our land trust partners, with our landowner partners. We will be submitting a substantial increase in funding requests this year. Our LAR is not yet finalized. So, we're not comfortable sharing what that number is going to be quite yet, but that that should be happening in the next couple of weeks.

And I'm really optimistic. And one of the reasons for that is we've spent the last couple of years really meeting with members and educating them on the challenges. So, conservation easements, they're not state parks, they're not wildlife management areas, they're not natural…national parks, they're working lands that are not going to be subdivided and developed. They're going to stay farms, they're going to stay ranches, and they're going to stay wildlife habitat. That's the critical thing. So, once we get that message across most people feel a lot better about it. Dr. Lopez at NRI has been studying this for a long time, and I think we were talking about this before the meeting started.

We're losing, what, 50 acres a day ten years ago today, and now we're 1,000 acres a day. And so, the scale of this is tremendous and land value prices are going way, way up. So, we need the funding to match that. So, I'm looking forward to diving into this program and working with each of you a little bit more. And again, this is a pass-through granting program. This is not something that Parks and Wildlife is necessarily out on the ground talking to landowners. We're working with our land trust partners, so we depend on them to bring us great projects, and we look forward to continuing that relationship. So glad to be in this. This is my first meeting. It's fun to listen to this conversation. And I'm happy to answer any questions, Chairman.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Hang on just a second, Zach. Any questions for Zach before we… I do have one so that as we, and I know we're not talking the numbers, specific numbers for the LAR, but I think an important point to mention would be we still… that LAR, whatever number we request, we still have that additional matching funds opportunity, is that correct? So that we can… we can really put the multiplier if we get the right number. 

MR. SPECTOR: Absolutely. We're not interested in not partnering with NRCS, not working with landowners that want to make a donation, bringing in private funds to these. That's the way where you get that leverage. The 7:1, it may change to 6:1 in some projects. But the reality is we need more funding for our landowners to continue to have their farms and ranches. So, we will continue to look for leverage and match at every opportunity.

CHAIRMAN BELL: And I think on a separate note, when I was talking to some folks at the state previously, the other thing is just where people in Texas… when we were talking about trying to expand the initiative for people to basically have an outdoor experience, right. We have so many people coming to Texas, and I think statistically we were north of 80% of Texans have not had what we call an outdoor… I'm sorry, 80% of Texans live in urban areas. And two-thirds of that number had not had an outdoor experience. So, we were trying to look at how we do that. And so, this other aspect of people coming to Texas and knowing that there's, you know, stress and demand on land and land use. And we're such a big private property state, we may be the biggest private property state as far as interest in the country. And so, you know, all of these things kind of are coming together. And so, to have the right emphasis there, and just the reason for my question was just so that folks can think about the fact that, hey, we are trying to move in that direction. We are trying to be responsive to interest in things that people have communicated. And we'll see where we could end up potentially with the legislature's interest/help going forward in terms of what that might look like to be able to help with this process and encourage people to participate in this as they have their own interest to do so. Is that fair?

MR. SPECTOR: Absolutely.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Okay. Any other questions or comments on this item? All right. Seeing none, we will move on to the next.

And so, Action Item 7: NRCS Funding in the Application Process and Selection.

MS. BURR: Well, good morning, everyone. Kimberly Burr here with NRCS. Again, I want to hit a few notes listening to everyone's conversations and comments. I wasn't going to talk about the budget until the end. I'll go through the presentation and give you some numbers. But since we're on the topic of budget, NRCS manages the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. That's our farm bill dollars that we get every time they pass a new farm bill. Right now, we're just not sure what's going to happen with the farm bill so I'm going to hone it in, just give you… And then we have the Inflation Reduction Act which infused a ton… billions of dollars into conservation easements. Billions. FY '24 was our biggest budget year between the two budget sources or money sources. FY '25 will be bigger. We're looking at even more funds. And then FY '26 is even going to be the biggest year yet provided they don't pull back the IRA funding. 

So, let's look at FY '24 alone. There was $86 million nationally… and I'm going to hone in on ALE specifically; we're not going to talk about wetland easements, we're going to talk about ag land easements because that's what we're talking about here. 

So, and nationally around $86 million that was allocated for ALE. In Texas, we received $10 million in 2024 but that was split between WRE and ALE. $5.7 million was in ALE. So, let's look at FY '25 projections. $234… between $220 and $234 million for the nation, right?

In Texas, we're looking at potentially pulling in $6.6 million in IRA plus another, the same $10 million in ACEP. So that's, we get that annually. That's a little we're talking about roughly $16 million. You know, we're paying for the financial assistance to help purchase conservation easement which is very complementary to the program that you guys have that are helping these entities pay for conservation, the due diligence piece, and which is very important. It's definitely a part of what we do.

And Chris, I just want to commend you on inviting Elisa. As she mentioned, they were able to close that easement in 15 months. I know that sounds outrageous. We have the potential to do it even quicker. But they are one of our best partners, and I did send them a congratulatory note. I hope that other land trusts will learn from them and see how they were able to do it quickly because we still have a lot of room to do it better. 

So, to break it down, your four basic questions: What are the four basic steps of an easement transaction?

One: Is it a great easement? Can we make a deal?
This is all of Elisa's presentation putting it down into four spots. If we can't make a deal, we can't close, right? So that's step three. Can we make it to closing? And then four is the follow-up relationship, which is the marriage that Elisa was talking about.

I heard it put that way one time. So true. But when I'm sitting down talking with landowners, it is such a complicated discussion. But if you can break it down into those four simple questions, that's really what we're looking at.

So, I think I covered everything there about the budget. That is what we're working on right now. And we will go into a little bit about how Texas works when we're looking at ALE. A little bit, just some background about ALE.

It is called the Agricultural Land Easements Program. There's multiple resources. Also, RCPP is another one. Elisa mentioned that. I didn't even go into the dollars that we have in RCPP. But we have two basics. We have General which allows for up to 50% financial assistance. And then we have Grasslands Of Special Significance which will allow up to 75% financial assistance to the entity to purchase the property… I mean, to purchase the easement, I'm sorry, but the general allows for purchase on conservation easements on some more farmlands where Grassland of Special Significance has to meet specific criteria. 

Okay, what's the application process like? Any land trust in here that's done business with NRCS can tell you that it really does look a lot like that.

We've already announced our first sign up is October 4th for IRA. All IRA applications will be due October 4th with a second sign up on December 4th. Any of those applications that are not selected for funding under IRA will automatically compete in the ACEP program. That was announced September 4th. So, it was announced a couple of weeks ago.

But number one thing that we ask our land entities to do is to work with their landowner in getting FSA eligible, that's the first thing that we really need them to do. But there's an application process, eligibility process about the landowner and the land and the entity, let's say. And then we assess it, we rank it. If it ranks high enough and we can afford it, then we go down the line and we select applications for funding. The unique part about our program for NRCS is that if we can't afford… let's say the number one slot is a $12 million slot for a conservation easement, we're going to skip over that one and we're going to go down to the ones that we can afford. We'll pick out number two, three, four and five, write the contract, and then at that point is where the entity takes over and starts doing due diligence.

So, we talked about, is the land eligible, right? We're looking at multiple eligibility issues- landowner, the land and the entity. This kind of just breaks down for you a little bit about the two different programs between general and GSS.

That the general program… and in the middle, the four squares in the middle are the four different categories that when an entity brings an application to us from a landowner they're saying they're protecting this piece of property for this reason. It's either for the soils, it's because it furthers a state policy, protects grazing uses, or historical sites.

The deed can actually protect all four, but there has to be one main reason in the deed that you sign up for. Right? And that's what we look at for eligibility. You noticed there, when I pointed out the GSS, it is strictly to protect grazing.

Then we look at landowner eligibility, which is through FSA. NRCS does not determine whether or not a landowner is eligible for payment. FSA does. If you guys don't know the difference between… we're all one USDA, FSA is usually the arm, the other office that's within our office, or they're somewhere in the county. Set up an appointment. They're always busy. Set up an appointment with them. Have your landowner ask, what do they need to bring in? Because they'll need to bring in their evidence. And then, the FSA will be the one to tell us if they are eligible for payment or if they have a reduction in payment. If they exceed a certain income limit, they may or may not be eligible. And so that's where the payment is reduced.

Then we have, submitting the application. The entity is the applicant when it comes to NRCS ALE easements, or RCPP ALE, RCPP entity held. There's just multiple ways to go about it. There's some different forms there that have to be filled out with the supporting information that goes with it. I mean, an entity can turn in just the form, but then we can't do anything with it, really. We can't rank it if all the supporting information isn't there.

Key application support documents that NRCS is looking for that we often find are not always accurate. You'd be surprised. Proof of ownership entities bring us applications that the ownership is not accurate or an application that's incomplete. Right there, there the land eligibility category support. I don't have to go through all those for you because I know that you have them in your slide deck.

But each one of these items is very important in submitting the application because it goes towards the ranking. You have to remember in Texas you are competing across the entire state. And I remember that first question we asked, is it a great easement? Well, every landowner thinks theirs is a great easement. And really and truly when you go out and look at them, most of them really are great easements. But we're competing against the state. And so, having all of your ducks in a row is important. And that's again, kudos to Coastal Prairie Conservancy for usually having their ducks in a row and making sure we have everything we need.

And I will say this, we don't recommend one entity over another. Landowners come to me all the time, and they want to know about conservation easements. And their first homework assignment I give them is to go find an entity. They need to find who they're comfortable being in that long-term relationship with. So instead of sending them to one entity or another, I give them the web pages and I also refer them to landowners because it's up to them.

We know who we like to work with, but it's really up to the landowner when it comes to picking an entity. So, we don't refer, we don't recommend one over the other. Elisa just happens to be in the room, and they've been successful. 

More information about what we're looking at in the package that supports land eligibility. We do do site visits as well, technical and programmatic folks, preliminary title reviews, very important in Texas, hazardous materials. Just because we're such a big oil state, the Hazmat can reveal if there's some site that can't be remediated, you know, those sorts of things that we're looking at that you don't want your federal dollars going to purchasing an easement for.

A little bit of information… or this is just a snapshot of the environmental database record search that NRCS is responsible for. What I wanted to point out here is that when we're talking about ag land easements, the majority of the work is on the entity and the landowner. NRCS brings the money and we are very focused on eligibility.

And so that's what we are doing. It's really going through it to make sure that this land is really eligible and a really wise investment of the Federal dollars. We happen to use the Environmental Records database search, and they do a really good job for us. If they see a site that has an area of concern, they know what we're looking for in extra data. Different land uses that are eligible for enrollment in the program. It's pretty much any type of land use in the state of Texas. One thing that I have learned recently about forest land, I think, Elisa and I have had this conversation before and I'm going to have to go back and correct myself.

Forest land is limited to two-thirds of the agricultural land easement. What is interesting in Texas, or in ACEP, the definition of forest land is very, very, very broad. And it makes it very difficult in the Texas Hill Country to enroll grassland easement. So, it's something that we've learned recently, and we're going to have to be pretty careful with.

Finalizing the eligibility determinations. And we go to ranking. Once we go to ranking, we make the selections, tentative selections are made. And we're going to go a little bit deeper into the due diligence process. It goes to Internal Controls for review before we obligate, National Headquarters tells us, “Yay or Nay.” We don't get to make that final decision. NHQ does in reviewing the package that we submit to them. If they say yes, we move forward with a contract, and then that's when we start the acquisition process.

So basically, it has to be an eligible application. If it's not eligible, we're not even going to look at it. We're not even going to rank it. Plus, a high ranking and available funding equals a partial contract and obligation.

It boils down to that. There's a whole heck of a lot that goes in between all of that. It literally takes us all fiscal year to obligate contracts and go through the ranking process, except for, ALE is way quicker than our wetland easements. We can breeze through ALE projects a lot quicker in getting them obligated than we can… WRE, RCPP ALE is another thing. That's our slowest one.

These are a couple of web pages that I do refer the landowners to is the American Farmland Trust ALE Toolkit. I have shared it with all of our partners over and over and over again. It is the best place to go if you want to learn about conservation easements. NRCS National Headquarters worked with the American Farmland Trust to put together that page, and it is excellent. There's a ton of information there, and that's where I send all the landowners to when they come to me. And then also our Texas NRCS ALE page. I will be honest with you and tell you that we switched contractors on who does our web pages. It's semi-friendly. You have to really scroll down. If you can't figure it out, call me. I'll help you through it.

I thought I had The Texas Land Trust Council in there, but it doesn't look like I did put it in there. I meant to put it right there where it says ALE Toolkit again. But the Texas Land Trust Council also has a web page that we share with our landowners.

But I always tell landowners, you are not limited to Texas Land Trust Council members. You don't have to be a member of the Texas Land Trust Council to apply for NRCS funds. It's that simple. Are there any other… Well, I say it's that simple, but easements are quite complicated. It's simple, as in when you just go through the process, but there's a whole lot of decisions that families make to determine is this the right… is this the right decision for them and their family? And we've had people that have said yes, and we've had people that have said no, this is not the right decision for them.

So, with that, I think I covered all my notes. Are there any questions?

CHAIRMAN BELL: Are there any questions from council members?
You're getting off the hook lightly…

MS. BURR: Yeah. Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN BELL: …on a very complicated item. It seems like it's a time-consuming process, and you have to be all in. You have to dot your “I”s and cross your “T”s to have the best opportunity for success and understanding.

MS. BURR: Yes, Sir. And that is the conversation that we have continued to have year after year after year since I've been there at Texas NRCS. I'll be honest with you, I've been doing something else for the last six months, working for National Headquarters. But that's the consistent message that we deliver to our partners in conservation, is the importance of what they submit to us is what helps not only in the ranking but helping move the process through quicker. It shouldn't take 24 months. That's very frustrating to a landowner. We can do it in less than 12 if we have everything in place. And there's no bumps along the way.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Right.

MS. BURR: So, yes, Sir, it's very important to have all that in place.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Well, thank you very much.

MS. BURR: Yes, Sir. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BELL: And our next item is our public comment session.
And I don't believe we have anyone signed up. Do we have anyone signed up for public comment? Okay.

So, there's no public comment, which means we may have come to our logical conclusion today. Before I gavel out, Director Yoskowitz, did you have any comments for anyone today in regard to the meeting? I know you've been sitting there patiently. Originally I was going to have you come in and introduce Zach, but I didn't do that as we were going through. But if you had anything you wanted to say before we gavel out.

DR. DAVID YOSKOWITZ: No, thank you, Chairman Bell. Nothing to share. Only one thought in listening to everybody, and obviously I've known this for a while, is that the need is great, the demand is huge, and the supply of funds is just not adequate enough. And so, I think you've heard that here today that we really need to press forward on trying to get those resources to make even a bigger impact. So that's all I have.

CHAIRMAN BELL: Good. Well, thank you to everyone who attended today.

Thank you for the participation. Thanks for the presentations, Chris, Zach, our guests from the Conservancy. So, with that, this Council has completed this business, and I can declare this meeting adjourned at 11:50.

[GAVEL SOUNDS]

(Meeting Adjourns)

In official recognition of the adoption of this resolution in a lawfully called public meeting of the Texas Farm and Ranch Lands Conservation Council, we hereby affix our signatures this _______ day of ___________________, __________.

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Oliver Bell, Chairman

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Russell Boening, Member

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Abby Frank, Member

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Rex Isom, Member

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Leslie Kinsel, Member

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Natalie Cobb Koehler, Member

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Brooke Paup, Member

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Roel Lopez, Member

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Sid Miller, Member

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Kristy Oates, Member

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Gilbert Riojas, Member

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Romey Swanson, Member