09/21/06 Opposition to ARS fee

Farm and Ranch September 21, 2006 USDA's Agricultural Research Service is considering a proposal to charge a ten percent overhead fee on most external funds provided to ARS scientists by non-profit agencies. That would include grants from national and state checkoff organizations like commodity commissions. ARS says the fee is needed to cover actual expenses associated with administering the agreements and the additional research undertaken. The ARS fee plan was discussed at the recent meeting of the Washington Wheat Commission and its chairman Randy Suess says it has them concerned. The Commission will provide 357-thousand dollars to ARS scientists this year. So if the fee were in place scientists would get 35-thousand dollars less for research or the Commission would have to come up with another 35-thousand. Suess: "It is a concern of ours because I don't quite understand where we are directly giving the money to those researchers over at WSU, why an additional ten percent would have to be added on that wouldn't go to those researchers. It goes back to Washington D.C. they say to administer the program. Well, I don't see the connection in that loop where the people back in Washington D.C. have anything to do with administering the program." Suess says they want more answers from Washington D.C. The National Association of Wheat Growers and four other national groups have written congressional ag appropriation subcommittees voicing their opposition to the ARS fee the agency will delay in implementing until fiscal year 2008. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.