Bruce F. Vento: “Using ERS's most recent data for the total gross value of production and projecting changes in cattle price and interest…”

“Using ERS's most recent data for the total gross value of production and projecting changes in cattle price and interest rates, CBO estimates that the proposed new formula would result in grazing fee averaging about 20 cents more per AUM over the 1998 to 2000 period in the western States in the grazing fee based on current law. And I might say, in terms of the cost figures that I used, these are directly from the BLM figures. It indicates consistently, from 1991 to 1995, nearly a threefold cost in terms of the grazing program versus the receipts that come into it. So it is consistently 2-to-1, 3-to-1 more in terms of what we are spending. So there is a subsidy, in essence, here, and that is what we are facing. No one is saying we are going to go to cost with this. But the fact is that we have got to recognize that in terms of where we are at. If we put this on a fair market value, if we put it on a cost basis, clearly it would be to the benefit of the environment and to the taxpayer.”