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Show " enator Bennett protests against azing fee increase proposal enator Wallace F. Bennett, s tah, today strongly protest-. protest-. to the Secretaries of Agri-i- ure and Interior against ( posed grazing fee increases ? high as 400 per cent which , Bennett said "would le a disasterous effect on j economies of rant hers ind r communities through v -t ih and the West." ' : Utahn also called for - !iic hearings to- be held in .: western states as well as t; Congress and requested the -prtments to postpone im-' im-' nentation of the new rates i such hearings were held. 31 In addition, the public Land s j Review Commission cur-, cur-, jy is studying fees and iges on public lands. The I; ilts will be available June v 1970, and until that time !t: new radical fee changes ,id be made," he said. ;m. Bennett explained, "The ipsal of these Departments iicrease grazing fees by an s ;3je 250 per cent on U.S. C. riSt Sei-vice lands and an ft ;Bge 375 per cent on Bur-D: Bur-D: , of Land Management lands b over the next 10 years is exorbitant ex-orbitant and completely out of line with the results of Federal studies to determine the true economic facts of operating on public lands." In separate letters to Agricultural Agri-cultural Sec. Crville Freeman and , Interior Sec. Stewart L. Udall, Sen. Bennett said, "If the increased grazing fees go intn effect, Utah ranchers would lose about $850,000 in annual net income. "Since in essence grazing permits are capital assets, the Utah ranchers' capital losses would be about $33 Cm) million. mil-lion. In addition, in the secondary secon-dary sectors of the economy, community losses could reach $1.7 fm) million annually in Utah." Sen. Bennett said, "I feel that the new Administration taking office in January should have an opportunity to study this suggested increase which could have a far-reaching destructive de-structive effect upon the West. Therefore, I strongly urge that any decision on new fee rates be postponed until full public hearings have been conducted in the western states and in Congress to determine what effect, the proposal will have on the economies of sheepmen, cattlemen, and the many western wes-tern communities that depend on livestock production." |