By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (USDA FSA) to provide additional details regarding its management of the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) 2022.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Steve Morris, GAO director of Natural Resources and Environment, identified a transparency issue FSA should address regarding the status of ERP 2022 payments.

“We requested information from FSA in March 2024, including data on ERP 2022 payments and other documents,” Morris wrote. “In June 2024, FSA officials cited a March 2024 lawsuit and June 2024 court-ordered injunction as reasons for suspending their participation in our audit.”

The GAO review of ERP 2022 was requested in December 2023 by a group of senators, including Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member John Boozman.

In their request, the senators noted Congress allocated $3.7 billion for USDA to assist farmers and ranchers impacted by natural disasters in 2022.

“Our intent was for the department to administer the program in a manner consistent with the previous iteration of ERP and its predecessor program, the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+),” the senators wrote. “Both programs were generally well-received and should have served as the template for a 2022 disaster program.”

USDA made several policy changes for ERP 2022 that the senators said run counter to their intent to provide assistance fairly to all producers based on their loss.

“These changes include the reimbursement of crop insurance premiums for only certain producers, along with a new ‘progressive’ payment factor,” the senators wrote.

ERP 2022 used a different payment formula for underserved and non-underserved farmers and ranchers, allowing higher payments for beginning, female and minority producers, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).

A discrimination lawsuit was filed over the implementation of ERP 2022 earlier this year, saying it violated the Fifth Amendment Equal Protection Clause and Administrative Procedure Act.

A court-ordered injunction now prohibits FSA from making or increasing payments based on socially-disadvantaged status when calculating ERP 2022 payments.

According to the GAO, FSA officials said that lawsuit and injunction are the reason for the delay in providing the requested information on ERP 2022.

“FSA has not provided the information we requested in March 2024 or allowed officials to meet with us since our initial meeting with the agency in March 2024,” Morris wrote. “However, we are encouraged by our July 2024 conversation with your (Vilsack’s) office about providing us with the information we need to conduct our work.”

The GAO was asked to examine how USDA developed ERP 2022, how the payment methodology used affects payments to producers and actions USDA has taken to ensure producers meet program requirements.

Of the $3.7 billion Congress allocated for ERP 2022, FSA had issued $1.42 billion in payments as of March 19.

Morris wrote FSA has not provided GAO any updates on the status of payments through June.

“In late June 2024, FSA stated that it had halted ERP 2022 payments and had begun analyzing how to restructure payments considering the court order,” Morris said.

The GAO letter also highlighted another concern—a lack of transparency and accountability in ERP payments.

“FSA has a public website, the ERP dashboard, which contains data for payments issued for crop losses related to natural disasters that occurred in 2020 and 2021,” Morris wrote. “However, the dashboard is missing ERP 2022 payment data. In March 2024, FSA officials told us they track ERP 2022 payments using an internal dashboard that is updated weekly but had not updated the external dashboard because doing so was not a priority.”

Morris noted the publicly available dashboard may be used by producers and their advocacy organizations, as well as by oversight entities, to understand progress in implementing program activities.

“Without timely reporting of payments issued through ERP 2022, interested stakeholders, including oversight entities, may not have assurance that FSA is making sufficient progress in providing aid to agricultural producers who experienced crop losses from disasters in 2022,” Morris wrote.

The GAO recommended that FSA update its dashboard as FSA issues additional payments, a recommendation Morris said the USDA concurred with.

“They (USDA) also told us that FSA will continue collaborating with and providing the necessary information to us, when feasible in light of ongoing litigation, so that we can continue our broader review of ERP 2022,” Morris wrote.