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Foreign meat and meat food products passed for entry, fiscal year 1964

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TABLE 11.-Foreign meat and meat food products passed for entry, fiscal year 1965

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FACTORS AFFECTING MEAT INSPECTION WORKLOAD

Mr. WHITTEN. My attention, too, is called to the fact that the Secretary announced on June 23 that

Federally inspected production of red meat in May was down nearly 4 percent from a year earlier, pork and lamb production each are expected to decline substantially this year, down 8 to 10 percent according to recent estimates.

Do you have any information in connection with that? Will that have any effect on your meat inspection here?

Mr. SMITH. Actually you would think that would somehow diminish the demands on the service, but every bit of information we get from the country indicates that there are more slaughtering plants going up and new processing plants coming into existence.

Mr. WHITTEN. I would have thought that would result in a reduction in personnel.

Mr. MEHREN. I think May a year ago was a rather unusual month and I think Mr. Hull would agree. There was a 13-percent increase in beef slaughter a year ago, and this to my knowledge was the only month in which the slaughter in 1965 was lower than that of 1964. But it does not mean an unusual low slaughter. It merely meant that we had substantial difficulties with beef movement in the earlier year.

Beef movement on the long trend is up. Population is up. This is one of the major explanations of why the inspection load goes up. May, to put it mildly, was an unusual month.

Mr. WHITTEN. I can realize that there is not necessarily a close tie between the amount of meat inspection required and the exact number of animals. If a plant is open all day long ituld require inspection even though the volume would go down to some degree. The committee has long realized that the dispersion of the slaughtering industry throughout the country from a few big centers is bound to create manpower problems.

Mr. SMITH. It is true on the processing side. That is where the great increase in the number of plants comes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. WHITTEN. That comes back to the question whether Congress should have required as much inspection of processing as they have, but we deal with a fact and not with a theory. It is the law and we have to live with it.

Mr. Morris.

SURVEYS OF INSPECTION SYSTEMS IN COUNTRIES EXPORTING TO THE UNITED STATES

Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. Smith a question. On the last page of your statement, you state that you recently completed surveys in foreign countries exporting meat to the United States. You are proposing in this supplemental that you use some of these funds to hire additional inspectors in foreign countries? Mr. SMITH. No not in foreign countries.

Mr. MORRIS. Not in foreign countries.

Mr. SMITH. They would be on our staff and we would put them on a circuit through these countries on a more frequent basis than has been the case heretofore.

Mr. MORRIS. This would be their primary job.

Mr. SMITH. The primary job would be to survey the adequacy of inspection systems in countries shipping meat to the United States. Mr. MORRIS. Could you separate that from your cost in other meat inspection in the United States?

Mr. SMITH. Yes. For the balance of this fiscal year we estimate. in our request the equivalent of 6 man-years and a total cost of a little over $100,000.

MEAT INSPECTION USER FEES

Mr. MORRIS. Did we have a proposal before the committee this year, or not too long ago, about a fee for the meat inspection?

Mr. WHITTEN. My recollection, and I will let the witness testify, is that similarly to the $20 million that was recommended for repayment on the soil conservation activities, that there was a recommendation from the executive branch that the meat inspection charges be passed back to the packers. But as far as I am aware it was altogether a recommendation and never did get off the ground as far as anybody introducing a bill, or any hearings being held, or anything of that sort. Mr. LENNARTSON. The bill has not been introduced yet. It would require legislation.

Mr. MORRIS. Would it require legislation to charge the people importing the meat for inspecting it?

Mr. LENNARTSON. It would, because the act reads "interstate commerce, including foreign commerce."

ACTIVITIES TO INSURE WHOLESOME MEAT SUPPLY

Mr. MORRIS. A the fraudulent movement-what do you call it illicit meat, where is all this taking place?

Mr. SMITH. We have conducted a very extensive survey the country over on the possible sources of this unwholesome meat, and the diversion of horsemeat intended for pet food which might be diverted and some of which has been diverted to human food purposes. At this juncture I would have to say I do not know of any area of the country that is exempt, although the product tends to concentrate in the populated areas of the Northeast and Middle West, and some in the South and Southwest.

Mr. MORRIS. Isn't the disclosure of this important to enforcement? Mr. LENNARTSON. Public disclosure.

Mr. MORRIS. Yes.

Mr. LENNARTSON. There will be criminal action taken where we find it.

Mr. MORRIS. Have you found any and taken any criminal action? Mr. SMITH. Yes. There are a number of cases.

Mr. LENNARTSON. We have had grand jury hearings in some of the

cases.

Mr. MORRIS. Have some of them been brought to trial?

Mr. LENNARTSON. I do not know if any of the cases have come to trial. There are grand jury investigations getting ready for criminal action.

Mr. SMITH. Indictments, but not consummated in court.

Mr. MORRIS. We are conducting this hearing and this is in the record and yet we have not come up with any cases where we have prosecuted anyone under the statute.

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Morris, if you will yield, in years past this subcommittee has been very careful and tried to be careful that we do not use names in law violations because, just by carrying the name, it could do damage when it should not be. By the same token, we have demanded that we have full information. I would like to ask, in line with the gentleman from New Mexico's question, that you supply the committee with full and detailed information on all of the activities. At the present time the subcommittee would not have any intention of publicizing it. But we need all the information and from that point decide what to do.

Mr. MORRIS. I am not talking about publicizing it. I am not making any judgment on that. You justify additional inspectors on the basis of a fraudulent movement of 4-D meat. You are bound to have somebody working on those problems now.

Mr. LENNARTSON. We do.

Mr. MORRIS. We have not come up with good enough evidence to convict anybody, which leads me to believe that maybe the problem is not quite as great as it might sound from reading the statement. Mr. WHITTEN. We might go off the record for the moment. Proceed.

(Discussion off the record.)

MEAT INSPECTION SURVEYS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Mr. WHITTEN. In connection with one question which Mr. Morris raised, this matter of inspection of foreign countries, you know this committee did not go along with inspection insofar as importation of azaleas from certain countries to be sure they were free of disease when they came here. Do I understand you correctly that what you are doing is sending somebody to check their system of inspection rather than conducting the actual detailed inspection themselves? Mr. SMITH. That is right.

Mr. LENNARTSON. It is not an inspection job. It is a check on their system so that their producers are confronted with the same rigorous inspection that our producers in this country are.

Mr. MEHREN. We also look at plants, which has not been done in some prior years. But now it is not merely the law and the basic system of the country exporting to the United States, but we want our people also to see the specific plants and the numbers thereof so that we can identify a load that reaches an American port with respect to the plant from which it originated. We want our people to have actually seen and been through that plant to know what it is like. There are many countries with beautiful systems and very poor plants. Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Michel.

BUDGETING FOR PROGRAM EXPANSION

Mr. MICHEL. You say your estimates were off to the point where 32 additional plants will need inspection. What was the original 1966 budget increase for so far as additional plants were concerned?

Mr. HOLMAAS. The 1966 budget estimated providing inspection in 1,842 plants.

Mr. MICHEL. Which was an increase over 1965.

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