BROADER U.S. EEP SOUGHT BY REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS Republican members of the House Agriculture Committee said they will propose amendments tomorrow to a pending trade bill increasing funding for the export enhancement program, EEP, and significantly expanding the scope of the program. At a press conference, Republican lawmakers said they would propose expanding EEP to include all countries "willing to purchase additional commodities at reasonable prices." In addition, the Congressmen said they would propose extending the life of EEP to five years from the current three years and increasing the EEP funding ceiling to 2.5 billion dlrs from 1.5 billion at present. The Agriculture committee tomorrow will begin drafting amendments to an omnibus trade bill now before the House. Responding to the Republican plan, Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng and Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter said they favor a flexible, targeted use of EEP instead of an across-the-board program which they termed too costly. The Republican Congressmen also said they will offer an amendment to the trade bill instructing the U.S. Agriculture Department to value the bonus commodities used for EEP at the market value, rather than the cost of acquisition. But Lyng said USDA already plans to change to market value accounting rather than acquisition value, in order to avoid hitting a funding ceiling for eep of 1.5 billion dlrs. Lyng said under market value accounting only about 700 mln dlrs of EEP commodities have been used to date. Using acquisition value, USDA officials said the value is higher.