Tom Harkin: “What this amendment does is to reinstate the limits on the size of livestock operations eligible to receive benefits…”

“What this amendment does is to reinstate the limits on the size of livestock operations eligible to receive benefits under the Environmental Quality Incentive Program. Last year, the distinguished Senator from Indiana, Senator Lugar, and Senator Leahy introduced a bill called the Environmental Quality Incentive Program. Quite frankly, it was based upon a bill I introduced several years earlier called the Water Quality Incentive Program. So I have been very supportive of it. I think it is a good bill. I have no problems with it because it provides for technical assistance. It provides for cost-sharing assistance and incentive payments for farmers to meet environmental problems with their livestock operations. In the original bill that the Senator from Indiana introduced last year, there were the following limits, and if you went over these limits, you would not be eligible for cost sharing by the Government, and things like that. Let me read the limits: 1,000 beef cattle; 100,000 laying hens or broilers; 55,000 turkeys; 2,500 swine; or 10,000 sheep and lambs. That was in the original bill last year. In the bill before us today, all of those numbers have been bumped up to incredible extremes.”