Pub. L. 106-78, tit. VII, sec. 769

Sec. 769. Section 1232(a)(7) of the Food Security Act of 1985 is amended— (1) by striking “except that the Secretary may permit harvesting” and inserting “except that the Secretary— “(A) may permit— “(i) harvesting”; (2) by striking “emergency, and the Secretary may permit limited” and inserting “emergency” and “(ii) limited”; (3) by inserting “and” after the semicolon at the end; and (4) by adding at the end the following: “(B) shall approve not more than six projects, no more than one of which may be in any State, under which land subject to the contract may be harvested for recovery of biomass used in energy production if— “(i) no acreage subject to the contract is harvested more than once every other year; “(ii) not more than 25 percent of the total acreage enrolled in the program under this subchapter in any crop reporting district (as designated by the Secretary), is harvested in any 1 year; “(iii) no portion of the crop is used for any commercial purpose other than energy production from biomass;113 STAT. 1175 “(iv) no wetland, or acreage of any type enrolled in a partial field conservation practice (including riparian forest buffers, filter strips, and buffer strips), is harvested; “(v) the owner or operator agrees to a payment reduction under this section in an amount determined by the Secretary. “(C) the total acres for all of the projects shall not exceed 250,000 acres.”.