and concern which in fact has been reflected in very constructive 

 legislation recommended by the Agriculture Committee and adopt- 

 ed by the House regarding the whole matter of the approval of fa- 

 cilities and the siting of facilities and the commission that you re- 

 ferred to calling for the review of these facilities. One of the things 

 that I would iSce to recommend is that this facilities commission 

 be funded, which it never has been up to the present time. I think 

 this is probably the next step. 



I would like to request that my full statement be inserted in the 

 record and I will probably ramble a little bit away from the text. 



Mr. Stenholm. Without objection, your prepared statement will 

 appear in the record. 



Mr. Brown. Let me say that the problem of earmarking funds 

 for academic and other research faciUties in agriculture as well as 

 in other areas of agriculture has become a major problem, one suf- 

 ficiently serious that we have undertaken a series of hearings in 

 the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology dealing with this 

 same subject and in fact had such a hearing yesterday at which 

 Mr. Volkmer was present. 



The overall nature of the problem is now running close to $1 bil- 

 lion per year with earmarked funding in the various appropriations 

 bills. The Department of .^riculture is probably not the worst of- 

 fender amongst all the various Departments and the various appro- 

 priations subcommittees, but in each of these we have a respon- 

 sibility to undertake some sort of review with the general idea of 

 making sure that the taxpayers of this country get the maximum 

 return on the investment which they are making in research facili- 

 ties and research programs in general. I think that is a good stand- 

 ard to adhere to and I am sure that the work of this subcommittee 

 will contribute to it. 



The academic earmarks in USDA funding have been a problem 

 for a number of years. For example, the special research grants 

 program at USDA has been used to fund a number of narrowly fo- 

 cused research programs, many of which are location-specific ear- 

 marks. Similar earmarking for research and academic facilities has 

 occurred in funding for the Cooperative State Research Service and 

 also the Agricultural Research Service. 



Historically, however, these earmarks were more of a nuisance 

 than a major threat to the integrity of the agricultural research 

 system. This situation changed in the mid-1980's as a result of a 

 number of shifts in agricultural research funding. First, budget 

 pressures began to limit the funding for research and extension at 

 both the Federal and State level, and land-grant institutions were 

 hit especially hard. This meant that earmarks, an excusable politi- 

 cal cost of doing business in times of good funding, began to eat 

 into the base funding for agricultural research and extension pro- 

 grams. 



Second, as a result of the funding squeeze, research institutions 

 began to use earmarking as a way of dealing with limited Federal 

 and State funding. You can easily map the increase in academic 

 earmarks from the mid-1980's. If you cross-reference this with the 

 registration of lobbyists representing academic institutions, you 

 will see a positive correlation. 



