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I am in the Federal House now, but I speak for the whole industry. There is no opposition between the Federal and State houses in the passage of this bill. There is no jealousy.

We realize what benefits one will benefit all. And so it is with great expectation that I ask your cooperation in this legislation.

Mr. POAGE. We are very much obliged to you for your statement. I do not know whether I understood you correctly in one statement. As I understood you, you said you worked 5 years to get Federal inspection?

Mrs. GRIFFITH. I did.

Mr. POAGE. Because your house did not meet Federal requirements at that time? Is that true? If I understand it, if we pass this bill you still have to meet those Federal requirements before you can have State inspection take the place of Federal. I do not understand that this bill changes the requirements one iota.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. No; it does not.

Mr. POAGE. You would have been denied the advantage of this bill if we had had this bill in effect-you would have been denied getting the right to sell to the Army camps?

Mrs. GRIFFITH. I think I have learned my way around a little bit. Mr. POAGE. You have learned. I am talking about the effect of the legislation. I do not see how the legislation could affect you one iota.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. Well, maybe I am wrong.

Mr. POAGE. Do you understand?

Mrs. GRIFFITH. I have State inspection.

Mr. POAGE. I do not understand that this bill automatically allows you to sell to the Army camp because you have State inspection.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. How about that, Dr. Miller-how would I be benefited if I were not benefited before-how would this bill make it easier for me to have Federal inspection?

Dr. MILLER. I believe, Mr. Chairman, you have summed it up, that is, my understanding of it.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. How about you, Dr. Boyd?

Dr. BOYD. You have made considerable improvement in your establishment. I do not know whether the Federal Government has surveyed it or not.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. Yes; they have. That is exactly what they did. Mr. POAGE. Dr. Boyd, the point is, How will the passage of this bill have any effect in the world on Mrs. Griffith's problem?

Dr. BOYD. I agree with you it would have no effect.

Mr. POAGE. That is my understanding. You would still have to meet the Federal requirements before you could use the State inspection in lieu of Federal.

Are there any other questions?

Mr. HAGEN. I know, Mrs. Griffith, that you are very respectful of the Federal service. But you have a feeling that the denial over that period was somewhat capricious.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. I think that it was the dotting of "i's" and the crossing of "t's." You know there is a difference in inspections. Perhaps I did something wrong, I do not know, but I know that until I came to Washington I was unable to get it.

Mr. POAGE. I am not making any charge, but let us assume it was entirely capricious. Under the terms of this bill, if the bill had been in effect, you would have had the same problem, with the same department?

Mrs. GRIFFITH. You are right.

Mr. POAGE. It would not have helped you one iota?

Mrs. GRIFFITH. We felt we were going to be benefited greatly by it. Mr. POAGE. You were going to integrate on their terms?

Mrs. GRIFFITH. That is right.

Mr. POAGE. Their terms have not changed. It was their terms that held you up 5 years. And under this you would still be held up. Mrs. GRIFFITH. You are right.

Mr. HAGEN. Mr. Poage has touched the crucial issue but I assume that there cannot be a set of regulations specific enough to cover each without a substantial exercise of administrative discretions. I will draw this implication, that the situation could occur where a given inspector might be over-technical, unnecessarily technical, from the standpoint of unreasonably applying valid standards which of necessity cannot eliminate a large factor of personal judgment.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. We had an employee who went into the Federal inspection service and he was a very high standard man, and he always seemed, when he came to our plant, to feel that he must bend over to find everything that he could that was not right. I finally called up and asked if I could have another inspector. It was granted right away.

I do not have to submit to that.

Mr. POAGE. How does your bill change that? The bill does not change that.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. It will change the restrainer trade.

Mr. HAGEN. I have been on both sides of this question. It is a highly involved matter as we quickly learned today. The criteria stated here today appear to be valid but there is some evidence that they can get twisted in their applications either because of appropriation failures or sheer human error.

Mr. POAGE. This does not grant him any more money.

Mr. HAGEN. It grants him flexibility of recognizing services of comparable quality. And you remove some of the possibility of arbitrary refusal. That is one aspect of it.

Mr. POAGE. Thank you, Mrs. Griffith.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. Thank you.

Mr. POAGE. We will now hear from Mr. Ed Jarvis, president, the Kold-Kist Corp., Los Angeles, Calif.

STATEMENT OF ED JARVIS, PRESIDENT, KOLD-KIST CORP., LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

Mr. JARVIS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am president of the Kold-Kist Corp., frozen food.

We also operate a meatpacking plant.

I think that it would be a waste of time to go over many of the points already covered, some of them several times.

I might bring out some new points as to where this particular bill will help many people in the meat business. For instance, a meat

jobber under this bill, who could get Federal recognition of California State inspection then is free to trade with other people under this same inspection. Today, he cannot.

A State house may buy federally inspected carcass meat, but it cannot then sell persons that meat, because most of the people doing processing will lose the identity, particularly in hamburger and cuts. The Federal Government, by the same token, who furnishes the armed camps, or the armed services, are getting a higher price for that meat today, than they can and will, if this bill is recognized, because they will have much greater competition. The State houses, then, who might have a surplus of short loins or some other cuts could well bid on the order being put out for bids.

It has many, many advantages, economically, and as a packer, I do not see why we should not have that consideration. It enables the Government to save money. You know that we are paying enough taxes.

We badly need consideration, as I say, and I do not want to go over too many of the remarks already made, but I think that California State inspection with many years of experience behind it, hast proven that it is equal to and equally qualified to render this inspection service.

The Federal Government recognizes foreign inspection. I might state this because we, also, operate a packing plant in Old Mexico. The regulations there are a direct translation of the Federal law. They are lived up to as nearly as possible.

And so is the California State law a direct duplication of the Federal law, as near as it can be.

Actually, that is all we are here asking for, is a recognition of the fine State service now available.

That is all I have.

Mr. POAGE. If you are now meeting all of the Federal requirements, I presume that you are meeting all of them

Mr. JARVIS. That is right.

Mr. POAGE. If you are meeting all of the Federal requirementsand we will assume that-why can you not get Federal inspection without extra cost?

Mr. JARVIS. I can get Federal inspection. The minute I do, I cut off my source of supply a large part of it. I then can buy only from Federal houses. Now I can buy from all of these fine State houses.

Mr. POAGE. Do you mean that you are talking about processed meat? Mr. JARVIS. I am talking about cuts of meat, rounds, etc.

Mr. POAGE. You are not talking about buying animals?

Mr. JARVIS. That is right.

Mr. POAGE. You are not a slaughterer?

Mr. JARVIS. I am in Mexico but not in the State of California. We ship only boneless meat from Mexico. We buy lots of beef cuts in California.

Mr. POAGE. I fail to see what you want to do. What you are wanting to do, then, is to move this State inspection out of the plant that is not certified by the Federal Government?

Mr. JARVIS. No, we want certified, very definitely. This bill provides that it is certified if it meets the Federal standards. We are asking only that the Federal Government recognize the State of California inspection.

Mr. POAGE. The Federal Government recognize the California State inspection on a parity with the Federal Government? The bill does not do that. It says that the Federal can make an agreement to recognize a specific plant. Is that what the bill does?

Mr. JARVIS. Only if it meets the requirements.

Mr. POAGE. That is correct. But you mean that you are then going to be allowed to buy meat, and you meet all of the Federal requirements, therefore, under the terms of this bill, you can have the State inspector inspect your meat, and that is sufficient. And then your meat can move into the channels of trade in interstate com

merce.

Mr. JARVIS. Right.

Mr. POAGE. For example, here is an old-fashioned slaughterhouse, that is not too clean. He is just running an old slaughterhouse and as long as it is permissible under his State law, he can sell his meat to

you.

Mr. JARVIS. This bill does not provide for the recognition of an inspection system that is not equal to the Federal inspection system. It is very clear on that.

Mr. POAGE. I do not think it does, either, but if you are right in your interpretation, the mere fact that your plant gets Federal inspection recognition

Mr. JARVIS. If I qualify.

Mr. POAGE. Covers the slaughterer and everybody else.

Mr. JARVIS. I have to disagree with that.

Mr. POAGE. Are you telling us then that your understanding of this bill is that you can buy meat from anybody?

Mr. JARVIS. Only those houses properly qualified who have met the standards of the Federal Government.

Mr. POAGE. They can get Federal inspection and recognition right

now.

Mr. JARVIS. For some of them it is not economically sound to get Federal inspection, for this reason, No. 1, one of the requirements for Federal inspection is, "How much of your business do you anticipate doing in interstate commerce?" How do I know? How does he know until he gets into business? But that is one of the questions. Mr. POAGE. Of course, you have got to know that. That is the reason that we all feel-many of us feel-that the purpose of this bill will primarily help somebody, as Mr. Short pointed out, who is near an Army camp and sells to them. When he does, he is in interstate business, so far as the inspection service of the Government is concerned.

Mr. JARVIS. Theoretically, he is allowed the same privileges.
Mr. POAGE. And he is in the interstate business.

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, right. That is what this bill provides for. The Federal recognition of the California State inspection, which is equal to that of the Federal inspection.

Mr. POAGE. If it is equal to it, I cannot, for the life of me see why you cannot use the Federal inspection service.

Mr. JARVIS. As I stated before, it would cut off my source of supply, unless all of the other places that are duly qualified have the same privilege.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. May I question the witness?

Mr. POAGE. Yes.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. I have been interested in this problem for a couple of years, Mr. Chairman. As a matter of fact, I talked to Mrs. Griffith, I expect 2 years ago about this. And I believe that for the first time I am beginning to get an understanding of why these people from California want this bill.

Is it your assumption, Mr. Jarvis, that if this bill were enacted, virtually all of those plants which are not receiving State inspection, would become qualified as Federal plants?

Mr. JARVIS. Very definitely, if these plants are now qualified State houses, they are up to the standards asked by the Federal Government, although I cannot speak for other States.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. In other words, you assume that a great majority of them, of the California-inspected houses, their physical plants and their method of operation are such as would qualify them for the Federal recognition?

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, I think so.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. But is the reason why a great many of them cannot now obtain Federal inspection because they can make no showing that they have any chance of doing a substantial interstate business? Mr. JARVIS. That is one of the reasons, definitely.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. Is it right a processing plant is a Federal house, where you cut up the meat and resell it and process it, you could buy only federally inspected meat; is that correct?"

Mr. JARVIS. Right.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. That requirement applies to you as a Federal plant and while it does apply to you, yet the fact that a packer who is licensed under the California inspection regulations wants to sell to you, a Federal plant, is not a basis for Federal recognition, is that correct?

Mr. JARVIS. That is one of the reasons.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. Let me ask Dr. Clarkson about that. Do you understand the question I am asking?

Dr. CLARKSON. I wish that you would state it again.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. Is a showing by an intrastate plant that wants to sell its carcasses to a federally inspected plant within the same State a qualification for Federal inspection?

Dr. CLARKSON. That is right.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. It would be so recognized?

Dr. CLARKSON. That is right. That is evidence of interstate

commerce.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. Suppose I have a packing plant which up to now has been engaged only in intrastate business, and I have no intention. of ever shipping a carcass out of the State of California, but I do want to sell to Mr. Jarvis who operates some kind of processing plant, and in order for him to buy from me, I have to have Federal inspection. Is that the basis for a valid reason for Federal inspection?

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