Tom Harkin: “The point of my amendment is simply to say, in terms of cost-share money coming from the Government--and it is not a…”

“The point of my amendment is simply to say, in terms of cost-share money coming from the Government--and it is not a bottomless pit--let us focus that money on our smaller family farmers, who are really not that well-equipped with working capital sometimes to meet the higher standards of environmental quality. In many cases, they do not have to, but with the cost-share program, this would give them incentive to do so. The larger operations can handle themselves. They have the capital to do so. When you are talking about 15,000 hogs, that is an extremely large operation in any State. If you are talking about 10,000 cattle, that is a lot of cattle. So I think the original numbers that were in the bill, which, as the Senator from Indiana pointed out, do correspond with the regulations covering the Clean Water Act. I believe they still hold pretty true today and will in the future, again, when we are looking at a limited pot of money we can use.”