H.R. 3293 — Support Water-Efficient Strategies and Technologies Act of 2025

This section authorizes the Secretary to increase payments under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to up to 85% of costs associated with planning, design, materials, equipment, installation, labor, management, maintenance, or training (notwithstanding standard payment limitations under sec. 1240B(d)(2)) for (1) drought-resilient practices that enable production on water-deficient eligible lands, or (2) conservation practices that conserve surface or groundwater (reducing water use in agricultural operations), reduce runoff and increase rain absorption on eligible lands, or support transition from irrigated to non-irrigated dryland farming systems. (EQIP provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural and forest producers to install conservation practices that address natural resource concerns and promote environmental quality.)

This section modifies the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)—which provides payments to producers for maintaining and enhancing conservation activities on agricultural and forested land—as follows: (1) revises conservation stewardship payment criteria in subparagraphs (c)(1) and (c)(2) to emphasize "maintaining, actively managing, and improving" activities on contract-covered land uses, expand income forgone compensation to cover increased economic risk and revenue losses from production changes or transitions to resource-conserving systems (e.g., perennial production), and require that practices be "actively managed, and, where applicable, improved"; (2) expands supplemental payments under subsection (d) to eligible producers adopting resource-conserving crop rotations, advanced grazing management, or perennial production systems (newly defined to include agroforestry such as alley cropping and silvopasture, forest farming, multi-story cropping, perennial forages, or perennial grain crops); (3) establishes a new aggregate payment limitation of $200,000 over any consecutive 5-year period for any person or legal entity (excluding Indian tribes), regardless of the number of contracts; and (4) directs the Secretary to manage the program, to the maximum extent feasible, to enhance soil health through outreach on soil health improvement and carbon sequestration and by offering payments for soil health testing.