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Show Grazing moratorium first step in range work, McKay says Utah Congressman Gunn McKay said he was gratified over recent House passage of the grazing fee moratorium, calling it a first step toward passage of his recently intro- duced Public Grazing Lands Bill. Rep. McKay, a sponsor of the moratorium, said the measure would stop adoption of a grazing fee schedule that fails to account for costs of raising livestock on the public range. McKay said that the bill passed the House by a margin of 257 to 47. McKay said that despite both a Federal Land Management Manage-ment Policy Act directive to the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture that they develop a fee formula that would "take into consideration the cost of animal production," and a Technical Committee recommendation recom-mendation favoring such a formula, the two departments disregarded both and submitted sub-mitted a schedule which would hurt the livestock industry in-dustry and the American consumer. con-sumer. In remarks prepared for delivery to colleagues on the House floor, McKay appealed to other members of the House from eastern states to view the bill not as "special legislation" but as a measure that would benefit all Americans. Ameri-cans. He said that livestock production touches everyone. "One pound of table meat now requires from 6 to 12 pounds of grain, but we cannot expect grain-fed cattle to meet future demands," he said. He predicted those demands de-mands for increased produc tion will climb steadily as popluation rises. "After passage of this grazing fee moratorium," McKay concluded, "we should then consider the Public Lands Grazing Improvement Act of 1978, which is presently present-ly being worked on in the Interior Committee. That bill mandates the Technical Committee's formula, and, even more significantly, authorizes a 20 year program for sustained range improvements. |