in fact, one time last year I told them how they could save some money in North Dakota, and they wouldn't even listen to me then.

Secretary BUTZ. Well, Mr. Chairman, I don't want to go away leaving the impression that I am engaged in a battle with the Office of Management and Budget. After all, I am part of the administration here. I tried to point out, when we got our marching orders on the amount of the bumps we would take in Agriculture, that we took part in the decisions establishing priorities. Our decisions may or may not be very wise, but I want the record to be clear we were part of that process.

Senator TALMADGE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for your time. You were a very articulate witness. It was quite difficult and you fight very loyally, may I say, for an impossible cause.

Without objection, the committee will stand in recess until 10 a.m., tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., on Friday, February 2, 1973.)

The committee reconvened, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room 324, Russell Office Building, Senator Herman E. Talmadge (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Talmadge (presiding), McGovern, Huddleston, Clark, Curtis, Young, Bellmon, and Helms.

Senator TALMADGE. The committee will please be in order.

The committee is honored indeed to have this morning as the first witness the distinguished Senior Senator from Florida, Senator Gurney.

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. GURNEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Senator GURNEY. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee: I am here today to speak on behalf of the Rural Environmental Assistance Program-REAP-and in support of S. 388, which I cosponsored with the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, Senator Marlow Cook.

If passed, this bill would reinstate this program which was abruptly terminated last December by the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Chairman, I think termination of REAP would be a terrible. mistake. For the first time in recent memory, things have really been looking up for American farmers, and with the passage, last Congress, of the Rural Development Act, the future looked bright indeed. But now, with no advance warning, we find that programs that have helped improve the farm situation have been cut off.

Although I recognize and can appreciate the economy reasons given by the Administrator for the termination of the rural environmental assistance program, the water bank program, and several essential Farmer's Home Administration programs, I cannot agree with the decision itself. In fact, I violently disagree with it.

It is a fact that we need to bar the door against runaway Federal spending, but surely there are other Federal assistance programs which are less essential, and could more easily be cut back or tightened up. What is needed for this operation is not a meat ax but a doctor's scalpel.

In an attempt to explain the criticisms which they knew would surely follow, the USDA people claim that there has been a study by the

executive branch to determine which programs are low priority and could therefore be terminated. REAP and the water bank program both fell into this category in their opinion, on the basis that they could be terminated "without serious economic consequences."

Mr. Chairman, I will not argue with the Department's account of a rise in net farm income. But I will take exception to the argument that farmers can foot the whole bill for massive soil and water conservation practices. After all, farm income is still only 78 percent of non farm income-by the Department's own figures. Furthermore, I would like to remind the Department that although the net income. farm figure rose in 1972, so did production costs, taxes, real estate, and the costs of implementing Government-imposed air and water pollu-tion abatement practices.

The termination of the REAP could not have come at a worse time. After an announcement by Secretary Butz in late September, initial funding for REAP would be $140 million-which I might add was. a decrease of $55.5 million from the amount appropriated by Congress for fiscal year 1973-farmers across the country began to plan for 1973. They began to plan for such long-range environmental improvements as permanent vegetable cover, water impoundment reservoirs, the planting of new trees and shrubs, and the improvement of forest.

stands.

These are expensive conservation programs but with REAP footing half the bill, farmers across the Nation were willing to pay the other half because they recognize that such projects would improve the soil and water; build up forest areas and prevent wind and water erosion. But all this stands to go down the drain because of the decision that "REAP and WBP have been terminated to assist in curbing Government expenditures and to further dampen inflationary trends," as they

say.

Economy is fine, but there is such a thing as false economy, and ast the President indicated in his budget message, protecting the environment is a priority item requiring more, rather than less, spending.

Therefore, rather than a 100-percent cutback, what was really needed was spending of the full appropriation of fiscal year 1973 and certainly a similar funding in fiscal year 1974, an increase in REAP funding.

REAP, in the past 36 years, has done more to clear up and preserve our environment than any other federally sponsored program. It has enabled farmers to protect two of our Nation's most precious natural resources-soil and water.

Almost immediately after the announced termination of the REAP program, I started receiving letters from my constituents expressing their concern about what this action would mean to Florida. Typical of reaction was the following comment:

I believe these cutbacks will have the effect in Florida of stopping vital water and soil conservation programs which are designed to improve our environ-ment. I think that the rural environmental assistance program should be reinstated in its entirety. As you know, soil conservation in Florida is vital to all State and local planning functions and I feel that these cutbacks will put Florida further behind in environmental planning.

What made this letter different was the man who signed it, the Honorable Doyle Conner, commissioner of the Florida State Department of Agriculture. Commissioner Conner is known throughout the country as a highly competent and dedicated public servant who

has devoted the best part of his life to the betterment of Florida's agricultural community.

A few examples of what he was talking about have been relayed to me and I would like to share them with you:

For example, a general row-crop farmer in the Williston community of Levy County, Fla., has been interested in reducing the rowcrop acreage and increasing his permanent pasture for livestock to prevent further crop erosion to his farm. Last year, he started converting his cropland with REAP assistance and he planned to plant additional acres this year to protect his soil and increase his livestock operation.

Due to the termination of REAP, he stated that he could not afford. to "foot the bill" for the entire cost of carrying out the needed conservation practices on his farm. With REAP assistance, water pollution caused from erosion would be reduced in the community, and acreage cut back of crops which are in surplus.

A small farmer in the Judson community of Levy County operates a general crop and livestock farm. A bad farm-based pollution problem is arising on his farm and some of the neighboring farms due to recent heavy rains. The soil in this area has a limerock subsurface and with heavy rains causes "sinkholes" to fall in which goes into the water table.

These sinkholes generally fall in low areas, allowing the manure from livestock, pesticides, herbicides, and other harmful debris to contaminate the underground aquifer. The entire community drinks water from this aquifer. This farmer realized the need for filling the sinkholes to protect the underground water supply, but is unable to bear the financial cost. He recently tried to apply for cost-sharing assistance through REAP to obtain assistance in protecting the underground aquifer and his livestock.

Due to the termination of the 1973 REAP, his request was denied. With assistance from REAP, the entire community water supply would be protected and some 100 persons would receive benefits from this program.

Up in Suwannee County, a farmer has a feedlot in which he feeds from 1,000 to 1,500 cows. He is in need of a lagoon to dispose of the waste from this feedlot. This farmer stated that he is unable to finance the installation of this lagoon without cost-sharing assistance. The farmer stated that it would cost him $3,000 to install a lagoon to take care of the waste from this operation. He further stated that he probably would have to close down his feedlot operation because of the odor, unless he could install a lagoon.

Another Suwannee County farmer filed a request for practice B-7, for the installation of a water impoundment reservoir estimated cost was $1,300. This was a small farmer and he stated that he could not afford to dig the pond without REAP cost-sharing assistance.

In Alachua County the owner and operator of a 140-acre farm has been trying to convert his operation from producing truck crops to livestock. During the past 5 years with REAP-ACP funds, he has established 43 acres of permanent vegetation cover, applied 40 tons of lime, and engineered a gully which was eliminating a serious erosion problem. This farmer is now in the middle of conversion and reports he is not financially able to continue planting grass.

Another farm operator has been phasing out his 200-acre row crop and planting vegetable cover on the land. He is on REAP-ACP to provide cost-sharing assistance. During the past 5 years he has planted about 75 acres of permanent vegetative cover. The farmer reports that, because REAP is being eliminated, he will not be able to carry out additional vegetable cover plantings.

These are but a few examples, Mr. Chairman, and I know I don't have to press the point home with you because you know my north Florida almost as well as you know your Georgia.

When you talk about $1,000 and $1,500 to these people, it is like a million dollars might be in New York. It means a heck of a lot to these farmers and literally they can't scrape up the money. They don't have it and they can't borrow it. So these are really hardship programs and I think it is a pity and a crime to cut these out.

We also have these programs in the cities, too. City dwellers also have a stake in seeing REAP reinstated. Just because the word "rural" occurs in the name of the program, we should not forget that REAP also serves our urban areas. Agricultural wastes in the form of airborne soils, sediment, feedlot runoff and chemical runoff adversely affect city dwellers as well as ruralites.

As a matter of fact, I can remember back in the 1930's, when we had the Dust Bowl out in the Midwest, the Oklahoma region. That is when this program started and we had dust almost literally over the United States. REAP was started and so we were able to conserve our soil and husband this vast national resource.

The environment is everyone's concern. What the farmer does with his field affects not only him but the people and the wildlife around him. If today's farmer rebuilds and protects the land he isn't using for production, tomorrow's agriculturalists will be assured it will be available when it is needed. But if he doesn't or if we don't continue on with conservation programs like REAP, can we be sure that we will be able to feed America in the future?

In view of all these factors, I would hope we could agree that America needs REAP now more than ever. Therefore, I have cosponsored legislation to reinstate REAP funds and I sincerely hope that some action by Congress will soon be taken and that farmers will get back the program which should never have been taken from them in the first place.

As I say, it is all right to talk about economy, and to those of us who served in Government a long time, and I think we know something about that, the problem is that we didn't do enough of that some time ago.

(S. 388 is as follows:)

[S. 388, 93d Cong., first sess.]

A BILL To amend the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act in order to prohibit the impoundment of funds appropriated to carry out the rural environmental assistance program

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 6 of the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act (16 U.S.C. 590f) is amended by inserting between the first and second paragraphs a new paragraph as follows:

"Funds appropriated by Congress for the purpose of carrying into effect the programs authorized in sections 7 through 15, 16(a), and 17 of this Act shall