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the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House and Senate 

 Agriculture Committees, was supposed to: 



(1) review all currently operating and planned agricultural 

 research facilities for research importance; 



(2) identify those agricultural research facilities that 

 should be closed, realigned, consolidated, or modernized, in 

 order to aid in carrying out the research of the Secretary; 



(3) develop recommendations concerning agricultural research 

 facilities; and 



(4) evaluate the agricultural research facilities acquisition 

 and modernization system utilized by the Department of 

 Agriculture and recommend improvements in such system. 



The Commission was modeled after the military base closing 

 commission, but in the end was not given the same decision making 

 power. Amendments to the original legislation in the Senate 

 Agriculture Committee reduced the authority of the Commission from 

 mandating closures to recommending them. Nevertheless, it was an 

 important first step. 



The Administration refused to implement the Commission, 

 arguing that it was unnecessary — USDA was well aware of which 

 facilities needed to be closed. When asked to produce a list of 

 such facilities, the Administration stalled. A year after passage 

 of the farm bill, the congressional appropriations committees did 

 not fund the Commission. This was especially easy to do because 

 the Commission was not in the President's budget request. 



Competitive grants. The National Association of State 

 Universities and Land Grant Colleges has proposed establishing a 

 $100 million annual competitive facility grants program. The 

 National Academy of Sciences has also recommended a competitive 

 grants program for facilities, but it does not address problems 

 within the current system, e.g., the difficult and politically 

 dangerous issue of facilities closing. Instead, it deals only with 



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