64 



been facilities built for things that really don't have much relation- 

 ship to agriculture, if you get right down to it. 



Mr. Stenholm. Well, that's what I'm tndng to get at, to get a 

 generEil consensus on the part of the five of you as to whether that 

 is a desirable process for us to continue or if that is a process that 

 perhaps we should take a little in-depth look at and see if it can 

 be improved. 



Mr. Foil. I think you'd find support fi'om the community for an 

 in-depth look. I beheve in Mr. Guernsey's testimony he referred to 

 a position of the land-grant association on facihties and the manner 

 in which they are funded. We feel very strongly that is something 

 that can be improved and improved significantly. 



With regard to the special grants for the conduct of research, I 

 think Dr. Fischer's proposal to look closely at them and use them 

 as contracts to accomplish tsirgeted needs, that's the strength of 

 our system and that's good by most people's standards. You can 

 argue around that $150 million, but probably $75 miUion of it was 

 as good a use as you could make of it. Maybe more. Maybe $100 

 miluon. Some of the others you could argue about compared to 

 what. So we need to get a good system. 



The Congress needs a chance to express their priorities just as 

 the executive branch has, and in my State we're pretty comfortable 

 with a lot of those priorities because we're pretty close to the same 

 people that send you all to come represent them. But there are 

 some very real needs to look at the mechanisms that make it easier 

 perhaps to create a State resource with Federal dollars through the 

 ag appropriations bill. I've got some good examples in my State 

 that happened that way just because it was a way in which a need 

 could be addressed that was not available through another branch 

 of the Government. And the need was real. It's not a question of 

 the priority of the need. It's just the mechanism. 



Mr. Fischer. If I may, Mr. Chairman, just further comment, 

 judging from our interaction with you, I hope you take a lot of con- 

 solation in the fact that we're wrestling with some of these same 

 issues that you are, and we're super appreciative that you're will- 

 ing to work with us on it, and anything that we can do to facihtate 

 this, we'd be more than happy. But it's time for us to ask some of 

 these questions. 



Mr. Stenholm. I appreciate that statement. 



Any final comments? 



Mr. Carpenter. Mr. Chairmsin, the Extension budget was able 

 to go along for quite a number of years of not having many of the 

 special earmark projects. There has been some increase in this over 

 the last 4 or 5 years. However, there are some special project 

 fundings on national initiatives that, I would submit to you, have 

 been extremely successful. For instance, the water quality initia- 

 tive that's a targeted project, educational program, rather than for- 

 mula. We beheve that has been supported on behalf of the exten- 

 sion system. 



There have been criticisms that the formula funds were com- 

 pletely flexible. That's not the case. However, some of the targeted 

 programs, like on water quality, on food safety and quahty, on inte- 

 grated pest management, are really targeted to national needs, £ind 

 we fully support those. There are some of those that have been ear- 



