views of a few of the senior members of the Appropriations Com- 

 mittee in both the House and Senate — ^which is fairly normal — but 

 again it misses the overall intent, which is to spend the taxpayers' 

 money as wisely as possible to get the best possible result. This is 

 the problem to which we must address ourselves. 



Rather than relying on the serendipitous results of earmarking 

 based on political strength, we must develop a system of allocating 

 facilities funding based upon need and merit. In the 1985 farm bill, 

 the House Agriculture Committee took the first steps toward re- 

 forming the facilities funding process. In section 1431, we require 

 that any ARS facility that involves planning funding in excess of 

 $500,000 and construction funding in excess of $5 million must be 

 authorized in advance. This measure was a first step in opening up 

 the deliberations around ARS facility funding. 



I must point out that only two facilities that I know of have gone 

 through this process, and they are the ones which Mr. Stenholm, 

 the chairman of this subcommittee, supported and I supported 

 funding for: The Plant Stress Laboratory at Lubbock, Texas and 

 the Salinity Research Laboratory at Riverside, California. In each 

 case, public hearings were held, the opinions of the USDA and the 

 research community were heard, and separate legislation was en- 

 acted based upon its merit. Only after this process was completed 

 was construction funding sought. 



I point these out because these two operated in the way that the 

 law was supposed to operate and they are the rare exceptions to 

 what the process actually is. 



The earlier effort has two major limitations. First, it only deals 

 with ARS facilities and not the CSRS facilities, earmarks of which 

 now total over $400 million if all the current earmarks are funded 

 to completion. Second, many of the facilities' earmarks are con- 

 tained in report language of appropriation bills and are thereby out 

 of reach of points of order against projects not being authorized 

 under section 1431. 



You have already commented, Mr. Chairman, on the provisions 

 inserted into the 1990 farm bill by Senator Leahy, which proposed 

 a commission on agricultural research facilities. I point out again 

 that that commission has never been funded and that it deserves 

 an opportunity to work to see if it can't successfully resolve some 

 of these problems. As you pointed out, the situation may be similar 

 to what we have in the Defense Department where we set up a 

 base closure commission to review the priority of military bases 

 and which should be kept open or those that should be closed. I 

 think we have reached the point in the Department of Agriculture 

 where something similar should be done. 



I should point out also in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, that there 

 is a slow but steady increase in the amount of money being rec- 

 ommended by the administration — and this was through the past 

 administration and I expect this one — for competitively reviewed 

 research grants. That has been a slow progress, although competi- 

 tive grants for agricultural research have been recommended by 

 the National Academy of Sciences and by various other groups. 



It has been slow progress because of the large amount of money 

 going to fund existing earmarked facilities. I think it would be ex- 

 tremely helpful to the process of securing better research in agri- 



