16 U.S.C. § 3839aa: Stewardship contracts

demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Secretary that the producer, at the time of the contract offer, meets or exceeds the stewardship threshold for at least 2 priority resource concerns; and installing and adopting additional conservation activities; and improving, maintaining, and managing existing conservation activities across the entire agricultural operation in a manner that increases or extends the conservation benefits in place at the time the contract offer is accepted by the Secretary. the natural resource conservation and environmental benefits that result from the conservation treatment on all applicable priority resource concerns at the time of submission of the application; the degree to which the proposed conservation activities increase natural resource conservation and environmental benefits; and other consistent criteria, as determined by the Secretary. If 2 or more applications receive the same ranking under subparagraph (A), the Secretary shall rank those contracts based on the extent to which the actual and anticipated conservation benefits from each contract are provided at the lowest cost relative to other similarly beneficial contract offers. The Secretary may not assign a higher priority to any application because the applicant is willing to accept a lower payment than the applicant would otherwise be eligible to receive. The Secretary may develop and use such additional criteria that the Secretary determines are necessary to ensure that national, State, and local priority resource concerns are effectively addressed. After a determination that a producer is eligible for a contract or contract renewal under this section, and a determination that the contract or contract renewal offer ranks sufficiently high under the evaluation criteria under subsection (b), the Secretary shall enter into a conservation stewardship contract or contract renewal with the producer to enroll the eligible land to be covered by the contract or contract renewal. A conservation stewardship contract shall be for a term of 5 years. state the amount of the payment the Secretary agrees to make to the producer for each year of the conservation stewardship contract under section 3839aa–24(c) of this title ; to implement a conservation stewardship plan that describes the program purposes to be achieved through 1 or more conservation activities; to maintain and supply information as required by the Secretary to determine compliance with the conservation stewardship plan and any other requirements of the program; and not to conduct any activities on the agricultural operation that would tend to defeat the purposes of the program; maintain the agricultural nature of the land; and are consistent with the conservation purposes of the conservation stewardship contract; include a provision to ensure that a producer shall not be considered in violation of the contract for failure to comply with the contract due to circumstances beyond the control of the producer, including a disaster or related condition, as determined by the Secretary; the producer shall forfeit all rights to receive payments under the contract; and the producer shall refund all or a portion of the payments received by the producer under the contract, including any interest on the payments, as determined by the Secretary; or if the Secretary determines that the violation does not warrant termination of the contract, the producer shall refund or accept adjustments to the payments provided to the producer, as the Secretary determines to be appropriate; include provisions in accordance with paragraphs (3) and (4); and include any additional provisions the Secretary determines are necessary to carry out the program. At the time of application, a producer shall have control of the eligible land to be enrolled in the program. Except as provided in subparagraph (B), a change in the interest of a producer in eligible land covered by a contract under the program shall result in the termination of the contract with regard to that land. within a reasonable period of time (as determined by the Secretary) after the date of the change in the interest in eligible land covered by a contract under the program, the transferee of the land provides written notice to the Secretary that all duties and rights under the contract have been transferred to, and assumed by, the transferee for the portion of the land transferred; the transferee meets the eligibility requirements of the program; and the Secretary approves the transfer of all duties and rights under the contract. the producer agrees to the modification or termination; and the Secretary determines that the modification or termination is in the public interest. The Secretary may terminate a contract if the Secretary determines that the producer violated the contract. allow the producer to retain payments already received under the contract; or require repayment, in whole or in part, of payments received and assess liquidated damages. demonstrates compliance with the terms of the existing contract; agrees to adopt and continue to integrate new or improved conservation activities across the entire agricultural operation, demonstrating continued improvement during the additional 5-year period, as determined by the Secretary; and to meet the stewardship threshold of at least 2 additional priority resource concerns on the agricultural operation; or to adopt or improve conservation activities, as determined by the Secretary, to achieve higher levels of performance with respect to not less than 2 existing priority resource concerns that are specified by the Secretary in the initial contract.