[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 106 (Thursday, July 24, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1514-E1516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            FISCAL YEAR 1998 AGRICULTURE APPROPRATIONS BILL

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ELIZABETH FURSE

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 24, 1997

  Ms. FURSE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I was blocked from offering an 
amendment to the Agriculture appropriations bill by an unfair gag rule. 
This rule was written by the Republican leadership midway through 
debate on the Agriculture appropriations bill to change the rules for 
debate from an open amending process to a closed, undemocratic process.
  Although we were told that no preprinting of amendments was required, 
the rule arbitrarily barred any amendments that weren't preprinted 2 
days prior. This meant that by the time Members first heard of the new 
rule, it was already too late for them to meet its new restrictions. 
Unless, of course, you were one of the three chosen Republicans that 
were inexplicably grandfathered in as exceptions to the preprinting 
deadline.
  The Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee knew that I intended to 
offer this amendment. I had sent out four dear colleagues letters, 
including one bipartisan letter signed by six other Members. 
Nonetheless, I was unjustly muzzled; my opportunity to have a debate on 
an important policy issue was held hostage to a partisan power play.
  The following paragraphs describe in detail the animal damage control 
amendment that I would have offered had I not been silenced by an 
unjust rule of the majority party.
  The goal of my amendment is to reduce the Federal subsidy for a 
practice that many Americans believe is economically unfair, 
ineffective as a livestock protection method, unnecessary, inhumane, a 
waste of money, and harmful to the environment.
  My amendment requires that those who benefit from the livestock 
protection services

[[Page E1515]]

of the Animal Damage Control Program in the West pay for those 
services. This amendment is supported by more than 80 taxpayer and 
conservation organizations from across the country, including Taxpayers 
for Common Sense, the National Wildlife Federation, Defenders of 
Wildlife, the Humane Society, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group 
and the Green Scissors budget-cutting coalition.
  My amendment is designed to eliminate the excessive, systematic, 
taxpayer-subsidized annual killing of hundreds of thousands of coyotes 
and other animals in the name of western livestock protection. 
Specifically, my amendment limits ADC funding for livestock protection 
efforts in the Western United States to $1.9 million. This amount is 
enough to provide $100,000 to each of the 19 States in ADC's Western 
region, which will allow them to continue predator control programs 
focusing on rancher education and nonlethal control techniques like 
guard dogs, shepherds, and the like.
  By limiting expenditures for livestock protection to $1.9 million, we 
provide the American taxpayers with a savings of $11.3 million. I want 
to stress that this still leaves a total of $16.6 million in the ADC 
budget. I repeat, this amendment will not eliminate the Animal Damage 
Control Program, and will not affect ADC's other activities. The only 
portion of the ADC budget my amendment would touch is moneys for 
livestock protection in the Western United States. And I take a 
moderate approach. I do not cut the entire subsidy for these activities 
as many have advocated. My amendment would still provide Federal 
funding for each State to have a predator control program.

  Let me take a moment to mention what this amendment would not do. 
This amendment would not take any of ADC's money away from measures to 
protect public health or safety. This includes ADC activities to 
prevent birds from causing problems at our Nation's airports or to 
prevent the spread of rabies. Nor would this amendment touch any ADC 
activities in the Eastern United States.
  The ADC has seven categories of resources they protect: aquaculture, 
livestock, forest and range, crops, human health and safety, property 
and natural resources--which includes endangered species. Let me stress 
again that this amendment deals only with the livestock protection 
category, and only in the West.
  Two ADC programs that protect endangered species warrant specific 
mention, if only to note that they will not be cut by this amendment. 
First, ADC plays an important role in wolf recovery by ensuring that 
problem wolves that prey upon livestock are immediately controlled. 
Almost all of ADC's wolf control activity takes place in Minnesota, 
which is in their Eastern region and therefore not affected by our 
amendment. What little wolf control activity that occurs in the Western 
region can easily be funded out of ADC's budget for threatened and 
endangered species, which is also untouched by my amendment. Second, 
ADC also plays an important role in preventing the brown tree snake 
from being introduced into Hawaii. I support the work ADC is doing on 
this issue and, again, would like to stress that my amendment does not 
reduce funds for this purpose.
  This amendment focuses on the West for several reasons. First, 97 
percent of ADC's livestock protection budget is spent in the West. 
Second, the objectionable and excessive mass-killing of coyotes and 
other predators takes place mostly in the Western States. Third, that 
region serves a livestock industry that is over-subsidized to the 
detriment of wildlife and other public land uses, such as outdoor 
recreation, including hunting and fishing. Fishing is harmed because 
the run-off from intense livestock grazing near streams reduces fish 
populations available for commercial and sport fishing. And, of course, 
subsidized coyote control may induce ranchers to increase their herds 
beyond environmentally sustainable levels. Fourth and finally, this ADC 
subsidy is unfair to the majority of livestock producers around the 
country, who do not benefit from this subsidy, even though their tax 
dollars help pay for it. This represents an unfair competitive 
disadvantage.
  Let me take a moment to talk about the ADC program and what it does. 
Each year, ADC kills more than a hundred thousand coyotes, mountain 
lions, bears, and other predators. Thousands more are accidentally 
killed. In fact, between 1990 and 1994, ADC killed 7.8 million 
critters. A number of techniques are used, including leghold steel jaw 
traps--the method chosen for this ill-fated bobcat in the photo next to 
me, who died a slow painful death, aerial gunning, field hunting with 
dogs, snares, denning--which means gassing the mother and pups in their 
dens, and M-44s--a baited device that ejects cyanide poison into the 
animal's mouth. One frequent ADC technique is the preventative shooting 
of coyotes from aircraft to kill as many coyotes as possible before 
livestock is moved to a new range area, even though they haven't 
actually harmed any livestock. This practice is comparable to a dentist 
pulling out all of a patient's teeth as a way to prevent cavities.
  In fact, we often see that the amount of wildlife killed by ADC bears 
little relation to the actual damage inflicted. In 1990, for example, 
ADC personnel in New Mexico spent more than 80 staff days killing 55 
animals--including 22 non-target animals such as kit fox, deer, 
porcupines and badgers--in response to a single lamb killed by a 
coyote--a loss of only $83. This is not a wise use of taxdollars.
  I would also point out that the ADC's predator control program is of 
very questionable effectiveness. Between 1983 and 1993, Federal 
appropriations to ADC increased 71 percent and the number of coyotes 
killed increased 30 percent--but the number of livestock losses to 
predators did not decline.
  In addition, other factors such as weather, medical problems, 
poisoning and theft account for the majority of losses of both sheep, 
60 percent, and cattle, 97 percent--not predators. Less than 3 percent 
of all cattle losses nationwide are the result of predation. Our money 
would be better spent on animal research on how to reduce these losses 
than on killing coyotes.
  The finances of the program are equally questionable. The private 
ranching interests that benefit from this program contribute only 14 
percent of the costs of the program, despite the fact that the 
Department of Agriculture is authorized to collect fees for ADC 
services. In every Western State in fiscal year 1995, ADC spent more 
money controlling predators than the value of the livestock allegedly 
lost to predators by ADC beneficiaries.
  To add insult to injury, this program uses tax dollars to benefit 
some very wealthy ranchers who can more easily afford ADC's predator 
control services than the American taxpayers. I bring to your attention 
the front page story of the New York Post from March which highlights 
how ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson, who makes $3 million 
annually, benefits from ADC. Sam's sheep ranch received 412 visits from 
ADC officers between 1991-1996, during which time they killed 74 
coyotes and 3 bobcats. This is not an appropriate use of your 
constituents' tax dollars.
  For years, official ADC policy has required ADC employees to try 
nonlethal methods of predator control before resorting to killing 
animals. Congress in fiscal year 1994 and fiscal year 1995 also 
directed that ``non-lethal methods of control should be the practice of 
choice'' for ADC personnel. Nonetheless, a 1995 GAO report found that 
ADC personnel still ``used lethal methods in essentially all instances 
to control livestock predators.'' In essence, ADC is completely 
ignoring established congressional guidance, as well as their own 
internal directives.
  Many cost effective, nonlethal control methods exist, such as the use 
of guard dogs and shepherds, confinement of sheep during the vulnerable 
lambing period, pasture rotation, removal of carcasses that attract 
predators, fencing and electronic guards, to name a few. The State of 
Kansas, which has spent less than $75,000 a year on its predator 
control program for the past 27 years, relies heavily on nonlethal 
techniques. In fact, Kansas has 20 times fewer reported predator 
problems than the State of Oklahoma, a State of comparable size and 
agriculture production which spends $1.3 million on predator control. 
We could learn a lesson or two from Kansas on this issue.
  So, let me reiterate. My amendment would save American taxpayers 
$11.3 million. It does this by reducing funds for the killing of 
predators to protect private livestock operators in the Western United 
States. My amendment still leaves more than $16 million for other ADC 
activities and does not touch funding for the protection of human 
health and safety or endangered species. It does not impact moneys to 
clear birds from airport runways, to remove beavers or groundhogs that 
cause flooding, to control mountain lions that attack joggers or to 
prevent the spread of rabies by raccoons. My amendment does not impact 
any ADC activities in the Eastern United States at all.

  While we struggle to scrape together moneys to continue the many 
important programs critical to the American people, the subcommittee 
has chosen to increase the fiscal year 1998 funding for the ADC subsidy 
by $1 million over the fiscal year 1997 appropriation and $4.25 million 
more than the President's budget. In fact, this program is consistently 
funded at an average of almost $3 million per year more than the 
administration requests for it. I would argue that our constituents 
wouldn't view this program as a priority use of their tax dollars.
  Let me close by saying that I am a Westerner. I hail from a district 
that includes rural areas and livestock ranches. Not everyone in my 
district would be happy to lose their ADC subsidy. But if we're going 
to be serious about balancing the budget and cutting the fat out of 
Government spending, then we're going to have to be critical of the 
subsidies in our own backyards. We can't just cut the pork in our 
neighbor's district.

[[Page E1516]]

  I'd like to end my statement by quoting from a letter written to the 
Governor of New Mexico from a Ph.D. rangeland scientist who just 
happens to be a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. The Cato 
Institute, as you know, is a well-respected, fiscally conservative, 
free market think tank. Karl Hess from Cato writes:

       ADC subsidies effectively shoulder what should be part of 
     the costs of operating a business . . . ADC is a gross 
     intervention in the market place. The wonderful feature of 
     America is the freedom of opportunity each of us has to make 
     it on our own merits and to do so in the arena of the free 
     market. I am, as you might surmise, a fan of the free 
     markets, just as I am a great believer in individual freedom. 
     I am certain you are too. Let's make sure that ranchers can 
     defend themselves against predators, but let's not ask 
     taxpayers to pay the bill. It's only fair.

  I couldn't have said it better myself. Please join me in reducing the 
animal damage control subsidy for private livestock owners in the West. 
Send the signal to ADC that they need to clean up their act. And give 
the American taxpayers a break.
  Vote ``yes'' on the Furse amendment.

                          ____________________