The Setup: I have footage that was shot progressive. The sequence settings on the timeline state that there is "none" interlacing.

I export the video in a variety of ways. Compress it in compressor in a variety of ways. I am trying to get my HDV footage to SD and looking good. So I am using lots of suggestions from the many forum discussions on this. It has yet to work. But my question is why does the footage import back into FCP with the lower field interlace setting on?

Either your export settings or your timeline settings are set up as interlaced, lower.