II. That the program so developed be on a fully cost sharing basis.

III. That the program must provide for a transition period of sufficient length to permit state governments and industry to meet agreed upon standards on a graduated time basis.

IV. In order to meet such agreed upon standards a state-federal committee be established jointly by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Executive Committee of National Association of State Departments of Agriculture to evaluate the program as to transition time or times, adequate financing, responsible supervision, qualified personnel, and all other pertinent functions necessary to a total meat inspection program.

RESOLUTIONS OF VIRGINIA MEAT PACKERS ASSOCIATION

Whereas, we, the members of the Virginia Meat Packers Association, assembled in annual convention at Virginia Beach, Virginia, on this 22nd day of July, 1967, have given careful consideration to the provisions of H.R. 6168, now under consideration by the Subcommittee on Livestock and Grains, House Committee on Agriculture of the Congress of the United States; and

Whereas, we desire to make our views known to all members of the Congress who may be called upon to pass upon the said Bill, we do hereby adopt resolves as follows:

Resolved, that this Association favors a high standard of meat inspection, as being in the best interest of the industry and the general public, and that it has demonstrated its good faith by wholehearted cooperation with the Department of Agriculture of the Commonwealth of Virginia in having enacted into law a compulsory meat inspection act and in the observance of all statutes and regulations on that subject;

Resolved, that with respect to meats moving only in intrastate commerce this Association feels strongly that inspection and related activities are the proper functions of the individual states, not of the federal government, and that federal pre-emption of jurisdiction over such local matters would destroy or greatly impair state and local programs, which are working well in this Commonwealth, and, we believe, in most of the other states, in all of which statutes and regulations are being constantly tightened and enforced;

Resolved, that this Association is concerned with the proposal for concurrent jurisdiction of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, because hourly decisions must be made, and administration, therefore, should be limited to one Department, which in our view should be the Department of Agriculture;

Resolved, that the Secretary of Agriculture should not be given the authority to adopt regulations to carry out the "purposes" of the Act, but that said authority should be limited to the provisions thereof, nor should he be invested with the authority to prescribe the size and shape of containers, for which there is no demonstrated need;

Resolved, that this Association believes that the public can best be served, not by the imposition of the provisions of this bill, which intrudes the Federal Government into matters which should remain with the States, but by continued cooperation between Federal and State authorities;

Resolved, that for the above reasons this Association is opposed to H.R. 6168; Resolved further, that copies hereof be sent to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Livestock and Grains, with the request that they be made a part of the record, to the Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture and to the Virginia members of the Congress.

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY MAZZOCCHI, CITIZENSHIP-LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, OIL, CHEMICAL AND ATOMIC WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION

My name is Anthony Mazzocchi. I am the Citizenship-Legislative Director of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union.

The membership of the OCAW is spread throughout the United States and Canada. We are engaged in the production of energy: petroleum and natural gases pumped from the earth, transported and refined to heat your home and move your automobile; exotic and sophisticated fuels to propel our planes; and chemical and atomic products which are contributing to the technological growth of our nation.

But however diverse our skills in harnessing nature's energies, the one sourceindeed the primary source of energy to all of us, is food. Regardless of where we toil and live, the concern we have for wholesome food unites us all as human beings and consumers to insist that the meat we eat is wholesome and pure.

The Subcommittee is to be congratulated for taking up the legislation now pending before you on the extension and improvement of Federal meat inspection. However, it is our opinion that the legislation being considered is by no means perfect and requires considerable improvement. It is absolutely essential that the Meat Inspection Act-and the Poultry Products Inspection Act-be modernized and expanded.

The Meat Inspection Act is now 60 years old. Many dramatic changes have taken place in the marketplace since Upton Sinclair's revelations in The Jungle forced the Federal Government to move boldly into our nation's slaughterhouses and packing plants with new hygienic health standards.

Another bold move is now needed, needed because 15 percent of all commercially slaughtered animals (19 million head) and 25 percent of all commercially processed meat products in the U.S.-enough meat for 30 million people a year—are not covered by adequate inspection laws, needed because we are a mobile nation with the right to expect that a hot dog purchased at a highway stand or a steak ordered at a hotel does not come from diseased livestock or was not slaughtered and packed under indecent sanitary conditions, needed because the consumer is at a great disadvantage not knowing which products are wholesome, unadulterated and truthfully labeled, needed because our states have not fully used their police powers to protect the health and safety of the American people in this vital area. One has only to look to the record.

Only 41 states have any form of law at all related to meat inspection. Of these, 26 provide for mandatory inspection of animals before and after slaughter; the rest have voluntary programs. Further, only 25 states provide for mandatory inspection of processed meat products-an important area of potential adulteration and mislabeling.

Given this basic legal authority which is weak, the statutory law is even further enfeebled because of grossly inadequate enforcement funds, personnel and laboratory facilities and the constant pressure of local packing and processing plants. It is thus alarming but not surprising that a 1963 Department of Agriculture fact-gathering mission on intrastate meat slaughtering could criticize local operators for:

"failing to use procedures to detect or control parasites transmitted to man that could lead to diseases such as trichinosis and cysticercosis;

"failure to supervise destruction of obviously diseased tissues and spoiled, putrid and filthy materials;

"allowing edible portions of carcasses to come in contact with manure, pus and other sources of contamination during the dressing operation;

"use of chemical additives and preservatives that would not have been permitted under Federal meat inspection;

"allowing meat food products, during preparation to become contaminated with filth from improperly cleaned equipment and facilities;

"inadequate controls to prevent possible adulteration of meat food products during their preparation with substitutes such as water, gum, cereals or sodium casemate;

"use of false or deceptive labels on packaging;"

The fact that 2,500 slaughterhouses and thousands of meat processors operate solely within state borders and therefore are immune from current Federal inspection should alone be enough to alter the nature of the Meat Inspection Act and particularly its 1906 definition of what constitutes interstate commerce.

In 1906, the criteria denoting interstate commerce only involved actual sales crossing state lines. Today, the test of interstate commerce has been broadened by the passage of far-ranging labor and public welfare legislation. It is now necessary to rectify the conditions which allow plants to be considered intrastate commerce as far as the Meat Inspection Act is concerned but have the very same plants be considered interstate commerce as far as labor legislation is concerned. However, the needs of the American public go beyond broadening Federal jurisdiction. Technical advances in production and processing, new modes of transportation, intensified marketing and new food preservation methods have revolutionalized and reshaped the meat industry, putting new burdens on the Federally administered Act.

Slaughtering plants are increasingly decentralized while plants processing and manufacturing meat products are locating closer to consumer markets. With meat

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sources farther from processing plants, substantial markets have developed for easily transported frozen meat, greatly complicating normal inspection procedures for fresh meat. New use of chemical "fast" curing processes plus coloring agents and other additives provide potentially deceptive or dangerous problems to the public's health if not properly regulated.

These problems are very apparent in New York State. Inspectors report that meat is doped with aureomycin as a substitute for sanitation and detergents are applied to freshen up unfit meat.

În addition, there has been a sharp rise in "instant" home dishes or food products made with a minimum of preparation. They are processed to a higher degree with more sophisticated techniques. Thus, they offer even greater opportunity for adulteration with unwholesome meat as well as deceptive labeling as to composition and quality to the shopper.

In analyzing the bills which would update and strengthen the Meat Inspection Act, the Administration's bill, H.R. 6168, is disappointing. In the vital area of increased coverage, the bill would make little change in Federal coverage. It has no mandatory extension of meat inspection over additional slaughtering and processing plants and its interpretation of commerce is based on the antiquated "sales across state lines" doctrine enumerated in the 1906 Act.

H.R. 6168 is also unrealistic in offering the states Federal assistance to toughen their laws. The bill would provide technical assistance and 50 percent of the cost of inspection if a participating state enacts a "meat inspection law that imposes mandatory ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection, reinspection and sanitation requirements that are consistent with those under Title I of this Act . . ." (New section 301 (a) (1)).

This is no more than an effort to buy the states into enforcing tougher meat inspection laws. There is no requirement for the states to do so. Nor are there any time sanctions to assure that the legislation and its enforcement is effective. Unlike H.R. 6168, H.R. 1341, introduced by Rep. Neal Smith recognizes the need for approximately uniform national standards of meat inspection. H.R. 1341 would extend Federal coverage to meat plants operating under interstate commerce standards as defined by the Labor-Management Relations Act.

As a corollary bill for more effective Federal coverage, Rep. Leonor K. Sullivan's bill, H.R. 1321, is an imaginative attempt to create machinery analogous to provisions of the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957-for the designation of "major consuming areas" which would require all meat shipped into such areas, whether interstate or intrastate, to be subject to compulsory federal inspection.

It is hoped that H.R. 1321 will be considered and incorporated into a final reported bill. It is also hoped that Congress can take remedial action to make the Poultry Production Inspection Act, particularly its "major consuming areas" provision, a far more effective instrument for the protection of the American

consumer.

Lastly, in urging the passage of comprehensive legislation safeguarding the health of the American public, we cannot condone exemptions contained both in H.R. 1314 and H.R. 6168. We believe these exemptions undermine the basic purpose of the needed legislation.

H.R. 1314 exempts slaughtering plants with 50,000 pounds of production or less a week and processing plants with 20,000 pounds or less a week (Section 2(c)). H.R. 6168 has numerous exemptions and variations. The most flagrant is the almost wideopen authority given the Secretary of Agriculture to exempt when he determines that it is impracticable to provide such inspection within the limits of the funds appropriated for the administration of this Act and that such exemption will otherwise facilitate enforcement of this Act." (New Section 23(b).)

In order to effectively protect the American consumer we urge the Subcommittee to cover all slaughter and processing of meat except that which is performed by an individual for his own household use.

Mr. Chairman, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union considers it extremely important that this committee approve new, strong and effective meat inspection legislation. The American people deserve and are entitled to wholesome meat.

Hon. GRAHAM PURCELL,

JULY 20, 1967.

Subcommittee on Livestock and Feed Grains, House Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. PURCELL: The hearings which your Subcommittee has been conducting on several bills dealing variously with the need to strengthen the federal meat inspection program are a most important step toward a sober re-appraisal of the

degree of protection afforded the consumer in this crucial area. In the course of observing these hearings, however, I have become dismayed at the misleading and non-responsive statements paraded before you and your colleagues by industry trade associations and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. Misleading the Subcommittee amounts to misleading the public.

To read these statements is to be. lulled into a false sense of security about the actual conditions which obtain in all too many of the meat packing and processing firms that operate only within the confines of a state's boundaries. The Subcommittee's potential contribution to preventing the sale of grossly unwholesome meat products is too magnificent to be undermined and overrun by disingenuous and self-serving testimony which, in my judgment, has been inflicted upon you and your colleagues during the past few days.

I shall restrict my remarks for the time being to the intrastate problem because this is the area where the effective rule of law is weakest and the reign of callousness greatest. This is not to say that there are not grave conditions and risks in interstate meat packing and processing. It is, rather, to recognize that the most adamant thrust of the anti-legislation forces is in the direction of intrastate conditions where the need for safeguards is most pressing.

As you know, only 26 states have laws providing for mandatory inspection of animals before and after slaughter and all but two of these 26 states provides for mandatory inspection of meat processing. Thirteen states have laws providing for voluntary inspection in varying scope. Nine states have no meat inspection statute. Two states only have a mandatory licensing requirement. It is well known that even in states where laws prevail, that severe lack of funds for skilled manpower, testing facilities and equipment and the chronic interference of selfish political pressure have wrecked havoc even in the enforcement of reasonably clear legal provisions. Too many loopholes and ambiguities abound in these laws as well.

Against the background of the proposed legislation, it would be expected that the testimony would deal in some part with the actual conditions in the states. Yet, as the days passed, the impression grew that those witnesses who were in a position to reveal the pertinent information, such as the State Departments of Agriculture, steadfastly avoided such disclosure. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture was unnecessarily vague about the level of safety and wholesomeness of 15% of the slaughtered meat and 25% of the processed meat that is consumed in this country without crossing state boundaries. For the Department possessed the detailed results, state by state, of a survey of intrastate packing and processing plants conducted in 1962 at the general request of the House Appropriations Committee.

A summary report by the Department was given the House Appropriations Committee in 1963. Although this report eschewed details, it sounded alarms which went unheeded. For example, the Department stated that "Processing is the area of greatest potential for adulteration, contamination, and use of meat that has become unsound through improper handling. Once processing is completed, certain types of adulteration and deterioration are almost impossible to detect. This also is the area in which industry faces its greatest pressures of competition. Short cuts in procedures tend to accentuate the potentials in meat and meat food products for the use of practices and existence of conditions that may not be wholly acceptable from the standpoint of sanitation, wholesomeness, and safety that the public has a right to expect."

Concerning control of trichinosis, the report stated: "This becomes increasingly important as consumer demands turn to the use of convenience foods, such as frozen meat dinners and ready-to-eat sausages that are served in the home after short periods of cooking at relatively low temperatures."

Concerning additives, the report stated: "Every year, new chemicals are developed that will preserve, emulsify, soften, color, increase water-binding power or inhibit rancidity of meat, and in many other ways alter the natural properties of meat. These are being offered to the food industry in ever increasing numbers. Some of these are good and represent progress in food technology. However, some are known to be unsafe and the safety of many others has not been established."

Other matters dealt with in the report included adulteration with filth, adulterants that reduce nutritional value, false or deceptive labeling and adulteration with uninspected meat.

Unfortunately, the Department lost an important opportunity to give momentum to its findings because it did not release the state by state backup studies which would have given specific substance to the general conclusions.

Numerous, concerned employees of the Meat Inspection Service surveyed the respective states where they were stationed. By and large, these state reports are the product of sensitive, observant public servants who wanted a sickening situation remedied. Their high superiors in Washington, however, placed other considerations above prompt and full disclosure. These considerations include excessive coddling of the meat industry's desire to avoid disclosure of filthy and hazardous conditions for fear that sales of meat products might be affected adversely. Other factors are the meat industry's concern that stricter standards would require investment in improved facilities and jettisoning of some of the marginal products, extenders and additives that combine to produce more marketable meat from the hoof.

If the furor of 1906 has taught this country anything, it should be that covering up unsafe and unhealthy conditions cannot be in the long range interest of the meat industry, not to mention both the short and long range interest of consumers. The meat industry recognizes that the federal meat inspection program is an asset. The industry must now recognize the need to confront candidly and meet squarely the problems which infect it. Controlled reason on the part of the industry would seem to be preferable than a policy of burying facts in order to earn delay. The latter course is fraught with the risk of a consumer backlash whose severity will be fed in proportion to the recognized dose of deception that is nourishing it.

The Department of Agriculture is presently tensed between the misguided needs of the meat industry and its primary obligation to the public at large. Your Subcommittee can help mightily in resolving this wavering in favor of the public interest. A first step toward this objective would be to study the state by state reports which the Department prepared a few years ago. According to the Department of Agriculture, the general level of conditions described still prevail. The states, by and large, have not responded to the disclosures with measures to protect the public that are actually enforced. Some states seem to be seized with paralytic torpor in this area.

At last these state reports compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been made publicily available. To illustrate their relevance to the proposed legislation, I am attaching some excerpts which are not only representative of the malaise but also indicate the various problems of poor or no inspection, adulterated filthy, and chemically camouflaged meats, deceptive labeling, and the involvement not only of smaller firms but some of the nation's best known meat packers. A great mass of supplementary detail is contained in the reports that is useful for legislative policymaking.

Thank you for taking the time to read this communication. I respectfully request that this letter with the enclosed attachments be made a part of the formal subcommittee hearing record.

Sincerely yours,

RALPH NADER.

SAMPLE DESCRIPTIONS OF UNACCEPTABLE CONDITIONS IN NONFEDERALLY INSPECTED MEAT PACKING AND PROCESSING PLANTS CONTAINED IN AFOREMENTIONED U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE SURVEY

Alabama (no meat inspection laws, provision for voluntary municipal inspection) "There is no regulation on added moisture in pork products such as sausage, hams, picnics, etc. X Co. was pumping their hams 21%. Y Co. said they were pumping 12%, but I have reason to believe the figure was closer to 20%.

"The [voluntary] inspection legend is identical to [USDA] except that the abbreviation Jefferson County Health Department is located where the establishment number is on ours, i.e. at the top. Where the initials U.S. appear on our legend, they have the establishment number. It could easily be mistaken for a federal stamp."

Arizona (voluntary laws)

"It is my opinion that no plant conducting slaughtering in Arizona or New Mexico could meet our minimum requirements of construction or facilities without a major remodeling program of the plant and the purchase of a goodly amount of acceptable equipment for the proper conduct of operations and inspections."