OCR Text |
Show "j Public grazing arguments to be heard by committee j Utah Congressman Gunn n McKay recently announced he , and members of the Interior Public Lands Subcommittee would hear arguments for and Ifj against his proposed Public i Grazing Lands Improvement J Act in Salt Lake City, Thurs. jj March 30- the only field i hearing for the bill outside ilf Washington, D. C. , Rep. McKay proclaimed his bill "the most far-reaching f j public lands legislation of the i 95th congress," saying that he and Rep. Teno Roncalio (D-I (D-I Wyo.), who introduced the bill j in his Public Lands subcom-j subcom-j mittee and who will chair the I panel, are anxious to explore 1 the impact of the bill on I western ranchers. I According to McKay, 83 9 of the total land area of 11 western states is grazing Lj land, almost half of which is federally controlled. He cited . recent figures from Interior I and Agriculture Departments showing that 75 of the grazing land under their jurisdiction juris-diction is in fair-to-bad condition. "Our public grazing lands are sick. We need to get them back into shape to the point where they can sustain the livestock and the native wildlife wild-life the way they used to," said McKay. Rep. McKay, second ranking rank-ing member of the Interior ' Appropriations Subcommittee, Subcommit-tee, said his bill would inaugurate inaug-urate re-vegetation of western wes-tern ranges with a minimum 1360 million infusion over the next 20 years, peg grazing lees to the cost of animal production, do away with environmental impact state ments on non-impact range improvements and allow humane adoption or disposal of the west's overpopulation of wild horses and burros. Rep. McKay invited ranchers ranch-ers and interested parties to testify at the hearings which will begin at 9:30 a.m., Thurs. March 30, at a yet to be announced location in Salt Lake City, Utah. McKay said four hearings are scheduled, only one of which will be outside Washington, Wash-ington, and urged those wishing wish-ing to testify to contact either his Ogden, Utah office at 801-399-6816 or his office in Provo, Utah at 801-373-4150. In a related matter, the House Rules Committee recently re-cently granted a rule for the Grazing Fee Moratorium bill allowing it a place on the House voting schedule. The moratorium would freeze a proposed Forest Service-Bureau of Land Management Manage-ment grazing fee hike for one year. Rep. McKay opposes the hike saying it unfairly ties grazing fees to private grazing graz-ing land rates rather than the rancher's own cost of production. produc-tion. Rep. McKay, who co-sponsored the bill, called the moratorium a "set-up" for his Grazing Lands Improvement Act. 'The moratorium will stop for one year the regulations regula-tions my legislation is designed de-signed to change. The moratorium mora-torium should give us time to get the grazing lands act rolling." McKay predicted the House would vote on the moratorium "within the next few weeks." |