16 U.S.C. § 3871 — Establishment and purposes

(a) The Secretary must establish a regional conservation partnership program^* to carry out eligible activities on eligible land^* through partnership agreements with eligible partners, including agreements funded through alternative funding arrangements or grants under section 3871c(d), and through program contracts with producers. (b) The program’s purposes are: (1) to carry out activities with purposes and functions like the agricultural water enhancement, Chesapeake Bay watershed, cooperative conservation partnership initiative, and Great Lakes basin soil-erosion and sediment-control programs as they existed on February 6, 2014; (2) to conserve, protect, restore, and sustainably use soil, water (including drinking-water sources and groundwater), wildlife, agricultural land, and related resources on eligible land at a regional or watershed scale; (3) to encourage partners to work with producers to meet or avoid national, State, and local natural-resource regulations related to production, including by aligning projects with agencies and programs addressing similar concerns, and to carry out projects that cause eligible activities affecting multiple agricultural or nonindustrial private-forest operations to be adopted, installed, and maintained locally, regionally, statewide, or across multiple States; (4) to deliver conservation assistance to producers flexibly and efficiently through partnership agreements; and (5) to involve producers and partners in projects that achieve greater conservation results and benefits for producers than otherwise would be achieved.