[Congressional Bills 104th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 193 Introduced in Senate (IS)]





104th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 193

 To establish a forage fee formula on lands under the jurisdiction of 
   the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

             January 11 (legislative day, January 10), 1995

 Mr. Campbell introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
       referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To establish a forage fee formula on lands under the jurisdiction of 
   the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,
    That this Act may be cited as the ``Federal Forage Fee Act of 
1993''.

SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds and declares that--
            (1) it is in the national interest that the public lands 
        are producing and continue to produce water and soil 
        conservation benefits, livestock forage, wildlife forage and 
        recreation and other multiple use opportunities;
            (2) rangelands will continue to be stabilized and improved 
        long term by providing for cooperative agreements, private, 
        public partnerships and flexibility in management programs and 
        agreements;
            (3) to assure sound management and stewardship of the 
        renewable resources it is imperative to charge a fee that is 
        reasonable and equitable and represents the fair value of the 
        forage provided;
            (4) the intermingled private-public land ownership patterns 
        prevailing in much of the west create a strong interdependence 
        between public and private lands for forage, water, and habitat 
        for both wildlife and livestock;
            (5) the social and economic infrastructure of many rural 
        communities and stability of job opportunities in many areas of 
        rural America are highly independent on the protection of the 
        value of privately held production units on Federal lands.

SEC. 2. ENVIRONMENTAL AND LAND USE REQUIREMENTS.

    Unless contrary to this statute, all grazing operations conducted 
on any Federal lands shall be subject to all applicable Federal, State, 
and local laws, including but not limited to:
            (1) Animal Damage Control Act (7 U.S.C. 426-426b).
            (2) Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act (50 Stat. 522) as 
        amended.
            (3) Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401-7642) as amended.
            (4) Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1531-1544) as 
        amended.
            (5) Federal Advisory Committee Act (86 Stat. 770), as 
        amended.
            (6) Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1977 (92 
        Stat. 3).
            (7) Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (7 
        U.S.C. 136-136y), as amended.
            (8) Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 
        U.S.C. 1701 et seq.).
            (9) Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251-
        1387), as amended.
            (10) Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act 
        of 1974 (16 U.S.C. 1600-1614).
            (11) Granger-Thye Act (64 Stat. 82).
            (12) Independent Offices Appropriations Act of 1952 (31 
        U.S.C. 9701), as amended, title V.
            (13) Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960 (16 U.S.C. 
        528-531).
            (14) National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 
        4370a), as amended.
            (15) National Forest Management Act of 1976 (16 U.S.C. 
        1600, 1611-1614).
            (16) Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 1978 (92 Stat. 
        1803).
            (17) Taylor Grazing Act (48 Stat. 1269), as amended.
            (18) Wilderness Act (78 Stat. 890), as amended.

SEC. 3. FEE SCHEDULE.

    (a) For the purpose of this section the terms:
            (1) ``Sixteen Western States'' means WA, CA, ID, NV, NM, 
        WY, CO, KS, SD, ND, NE, OR, OK, AZ, UT and MT.
            (2) ``AUM'' means an animal unit month as that term is used 
        in the Public Rangeland Improvement Act (92 Stat. 1803);
            (3) ``Authorized Federal AUMs'' means all ``allotted AUMs'' 
        reported by BLM and ``permitted to graze AUMs'' reported by 
        USFS.
            (4) ``WAPLLR'' means the weighted average private land 
        lease rate determined by multiplying the private land lease 
        rate reported by the Economic Research Service for the previous 
        calendar year for each of the sixteen Western States by the 
        total number of authorized Federal AUMs, as defined in section 
        3(a)(3), in each State for the previous fiscal year, then that 
        result divided by the total number of authorized Federal AUMs 
        for the sixteen Western States. These individual State results 
        are then added together and divided by 16 to yield a weighted 
        average private land lease rate for that year.
            (5) ``Report'' means the report titled ``Grazing Fee Review 
        and Evaluation Update of the 1986 Final Report'' dated April 
        30, 1992 and prepared by the Departments of the Interior and 
        Agriculture.
            (6) ``Nonfee cost differential'' means a value calculated 
        annually by the Secretaries by multiplying the weighted 
        difference in nonfee costs per AUM between public land and 
        private land by the Input Cost Index (ICI) determined annually 
        by the Department of Agriculture. The weighted difference in 
        nonfee costs is a factor of 0.552 determined by deducting the 
        private AUM nonfee costs (as outlined on page 58 of the report) 
        from the public AUM nonfee costs for cattle times 4, added to 
        the result of deducting private AUM nonfee costs from public 
        AUM nonfee costs for sheep times 1, then that result divided by 
        5.''
            (7) ``Net production differential'' is the percentage 
        calculated annually by dividing the cash receipts per cow for 
        Federal permittee livestock producers by the cash receipts per 
        cow for western non-Federal livestock producers in the sixteen 
        Western States as surveyed by the Economic Research Service in 
        annual cost of production surveys (COPS).
            (8) ``PLFVR'' means the private lease forage value ratio 
        determined by dividing the average of the 1964-1968 base years' 
        private land lease rate into the forage value portion of the 
        private land lease rate of $1.78 as determined in the 1966 
        western livestock grazing survey.
    (b) The Secretaries of the Department of Agriculture and the 
Department of the Interior shall calculate annually the Federal forage 
fee by calculating the average of the WALLPR for the preceding three 
years; multiplying it by the PLFVR; then deducting from that result the 
nonfee cost differential; and multiplying that result by the net 
production differential. For each year that this calculation is made, 
all data used for calculating this fee shall come from the calendar 
year previous to the year for which the fee is being calculated unless 
specified otherwise in the above calculations.
    (c) The Federal forage fee shall apply to all authorized Federal 
AUMs under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of 
Agriculture and the United States Department of the Interior.
    (d) For the first year that the Secretaries calculate the Federal 
forage fee, the fee shall not be greater than 125 percent, or less than 
75 percent of the fee calculated for the previous year pursuant to 
Executive Order 12548 dated February 14, 1986. For each year after the 
first year that the Secretaries calculate the Federal forage fee, the 
fee shall not be greater than 125 percent, or less than 75 percent of 
the Federal forage fee calculated for the previous year.
    (e) The survey of nonfee costs used to calculate the nonfee cost 
differential shall be updated periodically by the Secretaries so as to 
reflect as accurately as possible the actual nonfee costs incurred by 
the cattle and sheep industry that utilizes public lands in the sixteen 
Western States. The results of the updated survey shall be incorporated 
into the calculation of the Non Fee Cost Differential as they become 
available.
                                 <all>