(ii) a farmer or rancher may purchase hay under the program sufficient to permit the maintenance of up to 180 days' supply. However, the quantity of hay sold under the program may not exceed 40 pounds a cow per day in the case of dairy cows; 20 pounds a cow per day in the case of replacement heifers; and 20 pounds a head per day in the case of beef cattle; and

(iii) the Secretary may utilize the facilities of the Commodity Credit Corporation in carrying out any emergency livestock feed program under section 305 of the Disaster Relief Act.

The House bill contains no comparable provision.

In lieu of the language proposed to be inserted by the Senate amendment, the Committee of Conference agreed to a provision requiring the Secretary of Agriculture to pay 80 percent of the cost of transporting hay (not to exceed $50 per ton) from areas in which hay is in plentiful supply to disaster or emergency areas where farmers or ranchers are located. The new section will expire on October 1, 1977. Under the present hay transportation assistance program being conducted under section 305 of the Disaster Relief Act, the Government is providing up to two-thirds of the actual cost to transport hay (not to exceed $27 per ton) to drought-affected areas in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Except for the increase in the transportation assistance, the new section of the bill does not affect the existing program.

JOSEPH P. VIGORITO,

BOB BERGLAND,

GEORGE E. BROWN, Jr.,
FREDERICK W. RICHMOND,
PAUL FINDLEY,

JAMES P. JOHNSON,

Managers on the Part of the House.

HERMAN E. TALMADGE,

GEORGE MCGOVERN,

HUBERT HUMPHREY,

WALTER D. HUDDLESTON,

DICK CLARK,

ROBERT DOLE,

MILTON R. YOUNG,

HENRY BELLMON,

Managers on the Part of the Senate.

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REDUCING AGRICULTURAL CENSUS REQUIREMENTS

SEPTEMBER 14, 1976.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mrs. SCHROEDER, from the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H.R. 14830]

The Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 14830) to provide for a 50-percent reduction of the burden of respondents in the censuses of agriculture, drainage, and irrigation taken in 1979 and thereafter, for other purposes, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with an amendment and recommend that the bill as amended do pass.

AMENDMENT

The committee has amended the bill to strike out all after the enacting clause and insert a new text.

EXPLANATION OF AMENDMENT

The committee has amended the bill as introduced to modify section. 3 of the bill. As introduced, section 3 would have required the Secretary of Commerce to determine the reporting burden on farmers whose annual sales of agricultural produce do not exceed $50,000, and to report the results of efforts to reduce the reporting requirements by at least 50 percent for these farmers, and to a maximum extent feasible for other farmers.

As amended, the bill will not differentiate between the determination of reporting burden upon small and large farmers, but will require the Secretary to determine the overall burden on all farmers, and to report his efforts to achieve a 50 percent reduction in such a burden. for the 1979 census.

PURPOSE

The primary purpose of H.R. 14830 is to reduce the paperwork burden on respondents to the agricultural census by 50 percent. The bill also requires the Department of Commerce to continue to collect.

certain limited information on very small farms, and to continue to consider them as farms. Finally, H.R. 14830 would require the Department of Commerce to improve the statistics on the ownership structure of American farms.

COMMITTEE ACTION

The Subcommittee on Census and Population of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service held hearings on September 26, 1975, and June 22 and 23, 1976, regarding the Census of Agriculture. On July 27, 1976, the Subcommittee reported H.R. 14830 with amendments by a voice vote. On September 9, 1976, the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service ordered H.R. 14830 reported with amendments by a unanimous voice vote.

STATEMENT

The most recent census of agriculture required American farmers to fill out long, complex, and sometimes irrelevant questionnaires. While it is important that reliable agricultural information be collected and published regularly, it is neither necessary nor desirable for farmers to be forced to fill out incredibly detailed forms which many times ask questions for which farmers just do not have answers.

The most recent census of agriculture has met with great resistance throughout rural America because of the unreasonable burden it has placed on farmers. Clearly, too little thought and effort went into considering the average farmer's time and frustration in fillng out these forms. The end product was an agricultural census which was a marketer's dream, but a farmer's nightmare.

The legislation is designed to meet this problem by forcing a 50 percent reduction in the paperwork burden of the American farmer.

The Bureau of the Census estimates that it took an aggregate of 3.4 million hours to fill out forms for the most recent census of agriculture. Although this is probably an understatement, it points out in graphic terms what the net result of this legislation would be—a reduction by at least 1.7 million hours of the time required to fill out unnecessary government forms. In order to reduce the paperwork so dramatically, the Bureau of the Census would be forced to cut the size of its questionnaires and to make much greater use of sampling techniques something it should have been doing all along.

The committee is convinced that this legislation presents an opportunty to reduce substantially the paperwork burden on one sector of our economy without damaging in any way the information needs of our society. The committee believes that it is necessary to mandate a reduction of this magnitude. Otherwise, the Bureau of the Census (which does not have exclusive control over the content of the Census of Agriculture) will not be able to reduce appreciably the paperwork burden by 1979.

Some have advocated transferring the function of conducting the Census of Agriculture to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The committee has rejected this idea at this time for the following reasons: (1) USDA itself opposes the transfer. Indeed, it would not be able to conduct an agricultural census by 1979.

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(2) The Bureau of the Census is committed to give more attention to the Census of Agriculture in 1979, because many of the problems surrounding the 1974 census were beyond the control of the Bureau of the Census.

(3) Every major farm group in the country including the National Farmers Organization, the National Farmers Union, the National Grange, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the National Council of Farmers Cooperatives, favors having the Bureau of the Census continue to conduct the census of agricul

ture.

(4) The Census of Agriculture is better conducted by a purely statistical agency in order to mitigate any potential charges of political manipulation of agriculture statistics.

The committee wishes to advise the Bureau of the Census that if there is not a considerable improvement in the 1979 Census of Agriculture-including the time that it takes to process and publish the information-the committee will consider transferring the agriculture census to another agency.

II.R. 14830 would also make two other changes. First, it would require the Bureau of the Census to continue to collect certain limited information on very small farms, and to continue to consider them as farms. Last year, the Bureau of the Census and the Department of Agriculture adopted regulations to increase by 400 percent the minimum sales required for an establishment to be considered a farm. This would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of small farms being redefined out of existence.

Because of an adverse congressional response to this redefinition, the action was later rescinded. The committee believes that Congress ought to preclude anticipated future attempts to redefine large number of farms out of existence. Therefore, the bill provides that any future changes in definition which would increase sales needed to qualify as a farm cannot exceed inflationary trends, using 1969 as a base year.

The committee does not intend to require the Department of Commerce to continue to collect the same detailed information on very small farms as it does on larger units. But some information on small farming enterprises are necessary to develop a comprehensive rural policy for this Nation. One of the components of that policy should be an attempt to help small farm operations become more self sufficient. As a result of joint hearings with the Committee on Agriculture, the Committee became concerned that, if the Bureau of the Census stops counting very small establishments as farms, the Executive Branch may decide that small farms are no longer viable in America. For proof one would need only look at the most recent Bureau of Census statistics showing a precipitous decline in the number of farms in the United States which was caused, in fact, by a redefinition of terms. Finally, H.R. 14830 recognizes that there have been great changes in the ownership structure of American farms in recent years many of which are not fully understood or documented. Therefore, the bill requires the Department of Commerce to improve its collection of data. on farm ownership within the United States.

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COST

This legislation would not increase the cost over any prior census of agriculture. There would be a substantial cost savings involved in reducing the respondent burden for the 1979 Census of Agriculture. However, section 5 of this legislation would require the continued collection of certain limited information which the Department of Commerce might wish to stop collecting in the next Census of Agriculture.

COMPLIANCE WITH CLAUSE 2(1) (3) OF RULE XI

With respect to the requirement of clause 2(1) (3) of rule XI of the Rules of the House of Representatives—

(A) The Subcommittee on Census and Population is vested under the committee rules with legislative and oversight jurisdiction and responsibility over the subject matter of H.R. 14380 and as a result of the hearings on this matter has concluded that the action is necessary and that the law should be revised in the manner provided under this legislation;

(B) The enactment of II.R. 14830 would not result in budget authority for fiscal year 1977 and therefore the requirement of section 308 (a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 are not applicable;

(C) No cost estimates have been submitted by the Congressional Budget Office; and

(D) The committee has received no report from the Committee on Government Operations of oversight findings and recommendations arrived at pursuant to clause 2(b) (2) of Rule X.

INFLATIONARY IMPACT STATEMENT

Pursuant to clause 2(1) (4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House of Representatives, the committee has concluded that the enactment of II.R. 14830 will have no inflationary impact on prices and costs in the operation of the national economy.

ADMINISTRATIVE VIEWS

The Bureau of the Census is opposed to this legislation because it sets specific requirements for reducing respondent burden and classifying farms for the census of agriculture, thereby removing administrative discretion which is desirable to meet changing circumstances. These views are set out in detail in the following letters to the chairwoman and ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Census and Population. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE,

BUREAU OF THE CENSUS. Washington, D.C., July 29, 1976.

Hon. PATRICIA SCHROEDER, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Census and Population, Post Office and Civil Service Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR PAT: This is in repsonse to your request of July 22 for my views on II.R. 14830, a bill to provide for a 50-percent reduction of

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