mr. chairman , i want to thank the gentleman for yielding me time very much ; and as he so aptly stated , we would not be here today except for the action of senator conrad burns in the last omnibus bill . 
what this motion and amendment that we are proposing today is really about , it is not so much about a few wild mustangs and burros , only 31 , 000 remaining in the wild western grazing lands . 
but what this is really about , it is about the fact that we have 18 , 000 permits issued by the bureau of land management to ranchers in the west on 214 million acres of land , of which these ranchers are paying less than six cents per acre , per year . 
now that is a good deal , and i can understand why they would be excited about it . 
they are grazing over 8 or 9 million cows on this land , and we are talking about 31 , 000 wild mustangs and burros on this 214 million acres of land , and the ranchers do not want any wild mustangs or burros on this land . 
that is really what this is all about . 
the question becomes , is it in the heritage of america to protect the few remaining wild mustangs and burros ? 
this amendment simply reverses the burns amendment and restores 37 years of public policy of protecting wild mustangs and burros . 
i can tell my colleagues i have a lot of cattle ranchers in my district in kentucky , and they are in tennessee and florida and texas and alabama and mississippi and louisiana and all around this country , and all of them pay a lot more than six cents per acre per year for these permits and for land . 
i might also add that these 18 , 000 permits of ranchers on these grazing lands in the west provide only 2 percent of the cows slaughtered in america , and we all like a good steak . 
we want to continue slaughtering cows for steaks because they are raised for that purpose ; but we also have a responsibility to protect wild mustangs and burros who are native to this country , who have been protected in this country . 
they simply lost that protection because of a 4 , 000 page omnibus bill , and none of us was aware that the burns amendment was in it . 
so that is what this amendment is about . 
