4.

a common procedure for the designation of emergency drought impact areas which would be eligible to apply for drought assistance provided under the programs which President Carter recommended in his March 23d message to Congress to mitigate the impact of the drought. The FDAA Administrator was designated as Secretary of this committee. His responsibilities are strictly administrative in terms of publishing the actions of the committee in the Federal Register. Incidentally, all 36 counties in Oregon have been designated by this committee as emergency drought impact areas.

I shall be pleased to attempt to respond to questions regarding FDAA's role in the drought assistance programs.

Senator PACKWOOD. We will take Mr. Sehorn of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service.

STATEMENT OF TALBERT D. SEHORN, STATE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AGRICULTURAL STABILIZATION AND CONSERVATION SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. SEHORN. If I may, I would like to thank Bert Hawkins for being so restrained. I thought he might be more critical than that. We have had some very productive meetings, and I know that Bert recognizes the problems are not personal or for lack of incentive.

I have prepared a brief outline, Senator, copies of which were provided earlier. I know there are others in the audience that are looking for an opportunity to talk to you, so I won't review it unless you would like me to.

Senator PACKWOOD. Why don't you go ahead and summarize it.

Mr. SEHORN. I made it short intentionally. I looked forward to saying something positive here today, but Bill Mayer has already announced the April 15 extension, and the change in the 90-day period. These changes may not respond to all of the needs, or concerns that the cattlemen have with the Emergency Feed Program but they have certainly been the two major limitations.

The two programs I summarized are those directly emergency related that are administered by ASCS. The Emergency Feed Program has the general objective, as has been explained by others here, to provide assistance to eligible livestock producers who have lost livestock feed normally produced on the ranch as a result of emergency, in this case the drought and who need to buy unusual amounts of feed in order to get their stock through this designated period. That is why the length of the period has been a major concern. We have 19 counties authorized for the program at the present time. They were approved in a series of steps since the initial undertaking. Procedures of the program called for identifying counties where the need had become critical for immediate help. I know that you are aware of the nature of this drought which has been a creeping sort of a thing. In the early spring there was not an immediate shortage of pasture, and there was carryover feed in many locations. We were watching for countries where there was an actual lack of any sort of feed on the ranch to keep cattle from starving or being sold. There was a succession of countyby-county designations. All have the same termination dates, but several counties have different beginning dates which has a bearing on rancher eligibility and participation in the program.

The present official termination date is April 15, 1978; however, this may not be the precise date that is used for any one cattleman or in any one county. We still have an obligation under the program to close it as soon as it appears that the emergency has passed, and something resembling normal conditions have returned, and we understand that. Hopefully we will have some good winter weather and plenty of moisture when we turn out next spring so we may have a little earlier clos

ing in one county but we may have to ask for an extension in another. One of the features of the program is that it can be used in two ways. It is a cost sharing arrangement for buying almost any kind of animal feed at a livestock producer's option. Once a quantity of feed eligibility has been approved, the producer can use the assistance either to buy feed or to transport cattle to some location out of the county where pasture is available. It is an either/or sort of help. Each option has its own limitations, and these have also been mentioned earlier. The basic assistance formula is 50 percent of the cost not to exceed 2 cents per pound of feed grain or its equivalent.

Senator PACKWOOD. What is the justification of having to transport over the county line?

Mr. SEHORN. I don't know.

Senator PACKWOOD. I was trying to think of what the reason was. Mr. SEHORN. I agree with some of the comments. We have counties bigger than States, and there are really some odd situations along county lines that I can't explain.

Senator PACKWOOD. OK.

Mr. SEHORN. Some reference was made to the level of cost sharing; 50 percent up to 2 cents a pound or its equivalent. If you start with 2 cents a pound that is $40 a ton of feed grain and 50 percent, you are talking about $80 feed grain and we haven't had that for some time.

We also limit assistance to not more than 10 pounds per animal unit per day. This is a national level figure. It is established as a maximum under the program, and represents a maintenance ration.

Participation is limited to the conditions and needs during the program period, which starts with the official beginning date for every county and ends with April 15, or perhaps earlier. The intent is to supply feed for the period over and above the cattlemen's own feed resources. If he has purchased feed before the beginning date of the program or as is customary in most of the southeastern Oregon counties has a substantial carryover from year to year, we have to take into account the actual amount of feed on the ranch at the time the program started. In many cases this will result in the producer being ineligible for the year, even though he may have suffered substantial feed production losses.

Bill Mayer mentioned some program participation data and I won't repeat it.

The actual amount of payments so far has been small as might be expected. The change in the 90-day purchase limitation and the April 15 extension should result in increased use of the program this fall. That is essentially the emergency program comments that I had.

Do you want me to switch to the other program?
Senator PACKWOOD. Go ahead.

Mr. SEHORN. The drought and conservation program has been working well in many ways. This is a conservation cost-sharing activity that has been referred to by various terms today. It is the DFCP, or Drought and Flood Conservation Program. It is a special appropriation that deals with agricultural drought problems and solutions. There was $100 million originally appropriated nationally and I