Bruce F. Vento: “this amendment would change what is in the bill. In other words, an AUM, an animal unit month, which is defined as a…”

“this amendment would change what is in the bill. In other words, an AUM, an animal unit month, which is defined as a cow-calf unit in terms of providing feed for a month, historically under the law has provided for the equivalent of five sheep or five goats to be the equivalent of a cow-calf combination for an animal unit month. This measure changes the AUM's from five to seven. In other words, it would be seven sheep or seven goats for an AUM. Of course, by increasing the number of sheep or goats per AUM from five to seven, that change would effectively decrease the cost of grazing sheep and goats by almost one-third, by almost 33 percent. This is a taxpayer giveaway basically, yet another reduction in revenue terms of the bill. As I said, there is disagreement. My view is that this bill will take the AUM's to $1.55 based. That is not my estimate. That is the Congressional Budget Office. Some Members have said they disagree with that, which would be more like a 15- percent increase, not the 36-percent increase that the proponents of this have advanced as to what the bill would accomplish.”