Tom Harkin: “Last year, Senator Lugar and Senator Leahy introduced S. 854 to provide for incentive payments, cost-sharing, technical…”

“Last year, Senator Lugar and Senator Leahy introduced S. 854 to provide for incentive payments, cost-sharing, technical assistance, et cetera, to livestock producers to meet certain environmental standards. In that bill, for example, there is a limit relating to the number of livestock above which you could not get cost share payments, you could not get Government money. For example, in the original bill eligibility was limited to 1,000 beef cattle and 2,500 head of hogs. In the bill before us, the limits were raised to 10,000 beef cattle and 15,000 head of hogs. We have a limited pool of money, $700 million over 7 years for the livestock environmental assistance. This money ought to go to the family-size farmers who need this help. The bigger operations have a lot of capital. They can take care of their own environmental problems. It is the small family farmers with the smaller herds that need this type of help. My amendment takes this limited pot of money we have and sets limits basically back to where the initial bill was last year at 1,000 head of cattle and 2,500 head of swine, which corresponds with the regulations that have been promulgated under the Clean Water Act.”