DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE OFFICIALS HEARINGS BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY " SEVENTY-SIXTH CONGRESS THIRD SESSION ON S. Res. 143 A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN EXAMINATION OF APRIL 25 AND 27, 1940 Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry AUTHORIZING EXAMINATION OF DEPARTMENT THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1940 UNITED STATES SENATE, The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a. m., in the committee room of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 324 Senate Office Building, Senator Lewis B. Schwellenbach presiding. The subcommittee was composed of Senator Schwellenbach, Senator Hatch, and Senator McNary. Senator SCHWELLENBACH. The committee will come to order. We have for consideration this morning Senate Resolution 143, which will be placed in the record at this point. (S. Res. 143 follows:) [S. Res. 143, 76th Cong., 3d sess.] RESOLUTION Resolved, That a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, to be appointed by the chairman of the committee, is authorized and directed to examine the Secretary of Agriculture and Doctor Lee A. Strong, Chief of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, with respect to the following matters: 1. Why the Department of Agriculture failed to keep the agreement made with the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, acting on behalf of the Senate, on March 17, 1936, providing for the necessary sterilization of the bulbs imported into the United States which were described in Senate bill numbered S. 2983, Seventy-fourth Congress, first session. 2. Why the Department of Agriculture failed to keep the agreement with individual Members of the Senate, the basis of which is correspondence dated June 13, 1938, and July 5, 1938. 3. Why, after the Department of Agriculture presented to individual Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives and caused to be introduced the bills S. 1364 and H. R. 4036, and an adverse report on such legislation was later submitted by the Department of Agriculture. The subcommittee shall report to the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry the results of its investigations, together with its recommendations. This is my resolution, and for that reason I want to make a statement of the history behind it. Under the Plant Quarantine Act of 1912 the Secretary of Agriculture is given authority to place a quarantine on the importation of certain products which he felt were infested, and in 1923 a quarantine was instituted against the importation of narcissus bulbs from Holland, on the basis that such bulbs were infested with a nematode known as the eelworm. That quarantine became effective in 1926. 1 |