I
118THCONGRESS
2
DSESSION H. R. 8198
To reauthorize and improve the relending program to resolve ownership and
succession on farmland, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MAY1, 2024
Mr. B
ISHOPof Georgia (for himself and Mr. DAVISof North Carolina) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Agri-
culture
A BILL
To reauthorize and improve the relending program to resolve
ownership and succession on farmland, and for other
purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Heirs Education and 4
Investment to Resolve Succession of Property Act’’. 5
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SEC. 2. REAUTHORIZATION OF THE HEIRS PROPERTY 1
INTERMEDIARY RELENDING PROGRAM. 2
Section 310I(g) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural 3
Development Act (7 U.S.C. 1936c(g)) is amended by 4
striking ‘‘2023’’ and inserting ‘‘2028’’. 5
SEC. 3. COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS FOR HEIRS PROPERTY 6
RESOLUTION THROUGH DIRECT PUBLIC IN-7
TEREST LEGAL SERVICES. 8
Section 310I of the Consolidated Farm and Rural 9
Development Act (7 U.S.C. 1936c) is amended— 10
(1) by redesignating subsections (f) and (g) as 11
subsections (g) and (h), respectively; and 12
(2) by inserting after subsection (e) the fol-13
lowing: 14
‘‘(f) C
OOPERATIVEAGREEMENTS FOR HEIRSPROP-15
ERTYRESOLUTIONTHROUGHDIRECTPUBLICINTEREST 16
L
EGALSERVICES.— 17
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—The Secretary shall enter 18
into cooperative agreements with eligible entities to 19
provide legal or accounting services to underserved 20
heirs, at no cost to the underserved heirs, to assist 21
in resolving issues related to ownership and succes-22
sion on farmland or forest land that has multiple 23
owners. Such a cooperative agreement must be for 24
any of the following purposes: 25
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‘‘(A) To assist with transitioning land to 1
agricultural production. 2
‘‘(B) To maintain land in agricultural pro-3
duction. 4
‘‘(C) To increase access to programs ad-5
ministered by the Secretary through the resolu-6
tion of real property claims in order to allow 7
real property owners to meet land ownership 8
eligibility requirements for participation in a 9
program administered by the Secretary. 10
‘‘(2) A
DMINISTRATION OF COOPERATIVE 11
AGREEMENTS.— 12
‘‘(A) D
URATION.— 13
‘‘(i) I
N GENERAL.—A cooperative 14
agreement under paragraph (1) shall be in 15
effect for not more than 5 years, subject to 16
clause (ii). 17
‘‘(ii) S
PECIAL RULE.—The Secretary 18
may re-enter into a cooperative agreement 19
with the same or a different eligible entity 20
to provide continued services for heirs if 21
property ownership is not resolved within 22
the initial term of the original cooperative 23
agreement, and the entity certifies that the 24
entity understands that the cooperative 25
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agreement is not guaranteed to be funded 1
for more than 5 years after the commence-2
ment of the original cooperative agreement. 3
‘‘(B) M
ANAGEMENT OF PERFORMANCE .— 4
‘‘(i) A
NNUAL REPORTS .—An eligible 5
entity must provide annual reports to the 6
Secretary summarizing the progress made 7
during each fiscal year towards achieving 8
the goals of the cooperative agreement for 9
the heirs for whom services are provided 10
under the cooperative agreement. 11
‘‘(ii) I
NFORMATION AND DATA .—The 12
Secretary may require an eligible entity to 13
provide the Secretary with such informa-14
tion or data, other than personally identifi-15
able information or data, as the Secretary 16
deems necessary to determine that the eli-17
gible entity is making acceptable progress. 18
‘‘(iii) E
FFECT OF FAILURE TO DEM -19
ONSTRATE SUCCESS.—If an eligible entity 20
providing services under such a cooperative 21
agreement does not demonstrate success, 22
as determined by the Secretary, in resolv-23
ing or reasonably attempting to resolve the 24
property claims of an heir, the Secretary 25
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may terminate the agreement, or elect to 1
not enter into a new cooperative agreement 2
with the eligible entity after the initial 3
term of the original cooperative agreement. 4
‘‘(C) I
MPLEMENTATION.—The Secretary 5
may utilize requests for public input or the for-6
mal rulemaking process to effectuate this sub-7
section. At a minimum, the Secretary shall 8
make publicly available the criteria for selecting 9
an eligible entity to enter into an agreement to 10
provide services, the administrative and per-11
formance requirements for cooperative agree-12
ments under this subsection, as well as codify 13
within its internal policy its implementation 14
process. 15
‘‘(D) H
EIRS PROPERTY NOT IN FARM -16
ING.—On a limited basis, and when determined 17
by the Secretary to meet the purposes of a pro-18
gram administered by the Secretary and to ex-19
pand access to such a program, the Secretary 20
may allow an eligible entity to provide services 21
at no cost to an heir who is not an underserved 22
heir if— 23
‘‘(i) the land with respect to which the 24
services are to be provided is not farmland 25
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or in agricultural production, but could be 1
viably productive for agricultural, con-2
servation, or forestry purposes; 3
‘‘(ii) the heir satisfies all other re-4
quirements of the definition of ‘under-5
served heir’; 6
‘‘(iii) the heir can provide proof to 7
substantiate that the heir is in control of 8
the real property; and 9
‘‘(iv) the heir certifies to the Secretary 10
that the heir intends to apply for, and 11
make a good faith effort to enroll the land 12
in, a program administered by the Sec-13
retary once property claims to the land are 14
resolved through services provided under a 15
cooperative agreement entered into under 16
this subsection. 17
‘‘(3) D
EFINITIONS.—In this subsection: 18
‘‘(A) E
LIGIBLE ENTITY.—The term ‘eligi-19
ble entity’ means a nonprofit organization 20
that— 21
‘‘(i) provides legal or accounting serv-22
ices to an underserved heir at no cost to 23
the underserved heir; and 24
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‘‘(ii) has demonstrated experience in 1
resolving issues related to ownership and 2
succession on farmland or forest land that 3
has multiple owners. 4
‘‘(B) L
IMITED RESOURCE HEIR .—An heir 5
shall be considered a limited resource heir for 6
purposes of this subsection if— 7
‘‘(i) the total household income of the 8
heir is at or below the national poverty 9
level for a family of 4, or less than 50 per-10
cent of the county median household in-11
come for the 2 immediately preceding cal-12
endar years, as determined annually using 13
data of the Department of Commerce; or 14
‘‘(ii) the property of the heir for which 15
legal services are provided pursuant to a 16
cooperative agreement entered into under 17
this subsection is in a persistent poverty 18
community, as determined annually on the 19
basis of data from the Department of 20
Commerce, or a socially vulnerable area, as 21
designated by the Centers on Disease Con-22
trol and Prevention. 23
‘‘(C) U
NDERSERVED HEIR.—The term ‘un-24
derserved heir’ means an heir with an undivided 25
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ownership interest in farmland that has mul-1
tiple owners, who is— 2
‘‘(i) a limited resource heir; 3
‘‘(ii) a member of a socially disadvan-4
taged group (as defined in section 2501(a) 5
of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, 6
and Trade Act of 1990); or 7
‘‘(iii) a veteran (as defined in section 8
101(2) of title 38, United States Code). 9
‘‘(4) A
NNUAL REPORTS TO CONGRESS .—Within 10
1 year after the date of the enactment of this sub-11
section, and annually thereafter, the Secretary shall 12
prepare, make public, and submit to the Committee 13
on Agriculture of the House of Representatives and 14
the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and For-15
estry of the Senate a written report on the activities 16
carried out under this subsection in the year covered 17
by the report. 18
‘‘(5) L
IMITATIONS ON AUTHORIZATION OF AP -19
PROPRIATIONS.— 20
‘‘(A) I
N GENERAL.—To carry out this sub-21
section, there is authorized to be appropriated 22
to the Secretary $60,000,000 for each of fiscal 23
years 2024 through 2028. 24
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‘‘(B) LIMITATION ON USE OF FUNDS FOR 1
ADMINISTRATION.—The Secretary may expend 2
for administrative purposes not more than 3 3
percent of the amounts made available under 4
subparagraph (A).’’. 5
SEC. 4. ANNUAL REPORT ON OPERATIONS AND OUTCOMES 6
UNDER THE RELENDING PROGRAM TO RE-7
SOLVE OWNERSHIP AND SUCCESSION ON 8
FARMLAND. 9
Section 310I(g) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural 10
Development Act, as so redesignated by section 3 of this 11
Act, is amended by striking ‘‘Not later than 1 year after 12
the date of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall’’ 13
and inserting ‘‘The Secretary shall annually’’. 14
SEC. 5. REPORTS ON LAND ACCESS AND FARMLAND OWN-15
ERSHIP DATA COLLECTION. 16
Section 12607(c) of the Agriculture Improvement Act 17
of 2018 (7 U.S.C. 2204i(c)) is amended by striking ‘‘2019 18
through 2023’’ and inserting ‘‘2024 through 2028’’. 19
Æ
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