wealth of experience which has been gained under 25 years of the voluntary program.

We have made a detailed study of Senate bill 3983 and the revised version of Senate bill 3588. Although both bills have certain weaknesses, we feel that S. 3588 more nearly fills the need of the poultry industry. S. 3983 appears to us to be simply an extension of parts of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act applying them specifically to 'the handling of poultry products. If S. 3983 were enacted into law, the provisions of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act would remain in effect with the probability of overlapping responsibilities in administration and confusion in the industry. One of the principal features of 3983 is the creation of a Poultry Inspection Section for the administration of this law placed specifically in the Meat Inspection Branch of the United States Department of Agriculture. The bill fails to delineate the direct and immediate responsibilities of this Poultry Inspection Section. This bill also fails to include in the definition of the word "adulterated" the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act provisions relating to omitting valuable constituents or the addition of substances to increase bulk or weight, reduce quality or strength, or make the product appear better or of greater value than it is. Also, there is no provision made in S. 3983 for label approvals by this inspection section. This would eliminate an important area of control which the present voluntary program provides and which the Meat Inspection Branch exercises for meat food products.

We have given careful study to the amendments which have been recommended by the Department of Agriculture during the previous hearings on these bills. Almost without exception, we commend and endorse the recommendations of the Department of Agriculture as worthy improvements, strengthening and improving S. 3588. In three respects, however, we feel that S. 3588 needs further clarification and modification in addition to the recommendations made by Department of Agriculture representatives:

(a) Appeals from label determinations of Secretary to the courts is cumbersome and unnecessary. Within the scope of the legislative authority, the label determinations of the Secretary should be final.

(b) Provisions relating to omitting valuable constituents or the addition of substances to increase bulk or weight, reduce quality or strength, or make the product appear better or of greater value than it is should be included in the definition of the word "adulterated." (c) Although the effective date of the act is the date of enactment, no firm is required to become subject to the provisions of the act prior to July 1, 1958. Any firm which voluntarily comes under the inspection service prior to July 1, 1958, is subject to all the provisions of the act. At the same time the Secretary is permitted to make exemptions up through July 1, 1960. This seems to be an undue delay and places a penalty on those concerns who seek to comply at an early date.

Now, I want to conserve your time, Senator, because we have outlined in our record here certain changes of wordage, certain amendments, which I would like to have a part of the record, but which in the interest of time I will not read.

Senator CLEMENTS. The rest of your statement will be placed in the record in its entirety.

(The changes and amendments are as follows:)

Section 7, page 5, line 22: Delete the word "or" and substitute "and." This amendment will make it clear that the name and address as well as the establishment number of the official establishment is required on all containers.

Section 7, page 6, line 3: After the word "form" add "approved by the Secretary." This amendment will clarify the label approval procedure and make it clear that such approval is required prior to actual use.

Section 7, page 6, line 6: Delete the word "or" and substitute "and." This amendment will make it clear that the name and address as well as the establishment number of the official establishment is required on all labels except where the name and address of the distributor is permitted.

Section 7, page 7, lines 4 through 17: Delete all of lines 4 through 17. This appeal procedure in respect to label approvals is cumbersome, unnecessary, and would prevent speedy processing of labels submitted for approval. Such provisions would tend to crystallize administrative regulation into an inflexible set of requirements which would not take into account varying products and situations. Existing informal and flexible but effective label approval procedures would be destroyed. Compare this with the provisions of sections 17.1 to 17.14 (particularly sec. 17.5) of the Meat Inspection Regulations.

Section 22, page 20, line 2: After the word "domesticated" insert the words "chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese,". This amendment is suggested to eliminate the impression that "poultry" means only game birds.

Section 22, page 21, line 17: After the word "Secretary" insert a comma and add "the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and regulations promulgated thereunder." This amendment will clarify the relationship between this act and the pending chemical additives amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Section 22, page 22, line 2: Following subsection (4) insert the following subsections:

"(5) If any valuable constituent has been in whole or in part omitted or abstracted therefrom; or

"(6) If any substance has been added thereto or mixed or packed therewith so as to increase its bulk or weight, or reduce its quality or strength, or make it appear better or of greater value than it is."

Comparable language is found in the Food and Drug Act. Failure to include such provisions in S. 3588 permits the inference that there is no objection to and no penalty provided for economic adulteration of poultry or poultry products. Failure to prohibit and condemn such economic adulteration is a disservice to the poultry buyer whether that buyer is the housewife or the packer who buys poultry for further processing.

Section 22, page 22, line 3: Delete the word "person" and substitute “qualified Department of Agriculture employee." This amendment will help assure that only qualified, authorized personnel are authorized to act as inspectors.

Section 22, page 23, line 2: After line 2, add the following: "(o) The term 'processing' means any operation or combination of operations whereby poultry which is intended for sale for human consumption is killed, dressed, eviscerated, cut up, heat treated, canned, packed, repacked, reprocessed, or changed in size, shape, or form for marketing for human consumption and includes the combining of poultry and poultry products with other edible ingredients for marketing for human consumption."

Section 23, pages 23 and 24, lines 16 through 24 and lines 1 through 5: Delete all of section 23 and substitute: "SEC. 23. This Act shall take effect six months following the date of enactment."

Section 15, page 15, line 1: Delete "prior to July 1, 1960" and substitute "within two years following the enactment of this Act,"

Section 15, page 15, line 6: Delete "July 1, 1960" and substitute "such two-year period."

These amendments to sections 23 and 15 will avoid the unfair application of the act to cooperating poultry processing establishments to the advantage of noncomplying and noncooperating concerns. As drafted, only volunteers would come under the provisions of the act prior to July 1, 1958. Noncomplying firms might avoid poultry inspection and regulation through July 1, 1958, and, possibly, continue to avoid inspection through July 1, 1960. The suggested amendments would require all processors to come under the provisions of the act 6 months following the date of enactment, permitting the Secretary to make exemptions

for a period of a year and a half following the effective date. This should be adequate time to expand the existing staff of the Poultry Inspection Service.

Mr. TROMBOLD. Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity. Senator CLEMENTS. I appreciate your statement made by one with long experience in the processing field.

Senator Williams, do you have any questions?
Senator WILLIAMS. No, sir.

Senator CLEMENTS. The next witness we will hear from is Elmer Wilharm, president of the North Central States Institute.

STATEMENT OF ELMER WILHARM, PRESIDENT, NORTH CENTRAL STATES INSTITUTE, TRIPOLI, IOWA

Senator CLEMENTS. Mr. Wilharm, I regret very much that we didn't call you sooner, before Senator Hickenlooper had to leave. There is an important matter before the Foreign Relations Committee this morning that required him to be there and he expressed his interest in the testimony that you are about to give. You may proceed.

Mr. WILHARM. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the North Central States Institute is a nonprofit corporation with membership in the north central area of the United States, which membership is made up of poultry and egg processors who secure their products from the producers; process and market their poultry products nationwide.

At present a large number of the poultry dressing plants in the area covered by the North Central States Institute are using the voluntary inspection for quality, wholesomeness, and grading by the United States Department of Agriculture and have complied since the voluntary plan was put into effect by the United States Department of Agriculture.

They are much interested in continuing this service, but they find it somewhat difficult to operate where all plants in the area are not under the same method of Federal inspection for quality and whole

someness.

The organization I represent realize the poultry consumer has no real effective safeguards today except those that are under the voluntary inspection program carried on by the Agricultural Marketing Service, which only covers 20 percent of the poultry moving in interstate commerce and this inspection is paid by the processor. This does fully protect consumers for only a small part of the poultry that goes to our consumers.

Most poultry processors are efficient in their service and in the North Central States Institute. Most of the poultry is handled by small processing plants rather than large packing establishments. These small businesses cannot afford to pay the cost of an inspection program such as is done in the voluntary plan and therefore we believe that appropriated funds should be provided for financing as at present in the inspection for livestock.

The North Central States Institute is pleased to see this committee give consideration to bills related to poultry inspection. The production and marketing of wholesome foods of high quality, and the expanded consumption of such foods by the consuming public, are matters of basic interest and concern to our membership as they have been for many years. Therefore, we appreciate very much the oppor

tunity of submitting our views on the proposed legislation now being considered.

At the annual meeting of the North Central States Institute, they recommended compulsory Federal inspection of poultry. Such a program they believe would be beneficial to all segments of the industry, which would include the poultry producers as they would secure benefits through increased acceptability of the product by the consuming public. Those engaged in marketing and handling would likewise benefit from such increased confidence in, and wider acceptance of, the product. Such a program would also put poultry products on an equitable footing with red-meat products which have long been under compulsory Federal program.

For the last 25 years there has been a poultry inspection program conducted by the Department of Agriculture. It is the general opinion that the program has been manned by highly trained and competent personnel. The voluntary inspection program has been under the immediate supervision of qualified veterinarians with long experience in poultry. It is our belief that this is the logical agency to conduct a widened regulatory, or a compulsory inspection in the field of poultry as it has been doing this work and has accumulated experience in this field.

We believe that S. 3588 is constructive and meaningful and will not be distrusted by the public and the public will have greater confidence in one of our fine agricultural food products. S. 3588 will give full assurance to the consuming public that poultry food products have been inspected for wholesomeness and can be marketed in interstate

commerce.

We believe that S. 3588 also makes provisions in which poultry processing plants that are in interstate commerce can compete with poultry plants whose operations are wholly intrastate.

We are in full accord with the authority given the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct an effective inspection program to determine wholesomeness but does not tie him to an ante mortem inspection. It would appear to us to be desirable to leave to the discretion of the Secretary, any plan under which ante mortem inspection should be made. It also provides that the Secretary at any time in the future may make full use of any new techniques in poultry processing.

We firmly believe that S. 3588 provides cooperation between Federal and State governments, which we believe is necessary under any inspection program.

Being close to the operation on a voluntary program, we believe when compulsory inspection program is provided that ample time to organize and train a large inspection staff by the Department of Agriculture is necessary to acquaint processing plants as to the necessary regulations in order that they would have an opportunity to comply. It is quite an undertaking for a number of small plants to shift to a compulsory program without having ample time to increase their staff and put into effect the necessary equipment for a mandatory basis and this bill we believe should not be effective until July 1, 1958.

Again I wish to express my appreciation to the committee for affording the North Central States Institute this opportunity to present its views on S. 3588.

Senator CLEMENTS. I am glad to have had your statement. Any questions, Senator Williams?

Senator WILLIAMS. No.

Senator CLEMENTS. It was stated earlier by the chairman of the subcommittee that he would take some liberties with the witnesses here this morning by calling out of turn Mr. Russell Kline of Norton Frozen Foods, in Louisville, Ky.

Come around, Mr. Kline.

Before Mr. Kline starts his statement, I would like to place in the record at this point a letter from Senator W. Kerr Scott, of North Carolina, expressing his views on the pending legislation.

(The letter referred to is as follows:)

Senator EARLE C. CLEMENTS,

JUNE 19, 1956.

Chairman, Subcommittee on Agricultural Research and General Legislation,

Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR: Since your subcommittee is now in the process of holding hearings on the poultry inspection bills, S. 3983 and S. 3588, I would like to convey to the members of the subcommittee my views on this matter.

It is my sincere belief that the compulsory poultry inspection program can be more effectively carried out by permitting the Secretary of Agriculture to use his own good discretion in assigning this service to a division within the Department of Agriculture.

Sincerely,

W. KERR SCOTT, United States Senator.

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL KLINE, MORTON FROZEN FOODS, INC., LOUISVILLE, KY.

Mr. KLINE. I am Russell Kline, of Morton Frozen Foods, Louisville, Ky.

This statement is made in support of S. 3983, introduced by Senator Murray, and to propose certain amendments to that bill. S. 3983, if enacted, will provide excellent, much-needed safeguards to the consumer of poultry and poultry products and will permit the same confidence in the purchase of those products as has existed toward red meat and red-meat products since adoption of the Meat Inspection Act providing for inspection and regulation of cattle, sheep, swine, and goats and products containing their meats.

In addition to rendering this public service, this legislation will, we believe, benefit the poultry growing industry by encouraging the upbreeding of flocks and, if amended as we shall propose, by enabling the poultry processing industry to increase poultry usage through producing wholesome quality products.

A principal member of the family of poultry products is the chicken potpie. Its manufacture accounts for a large segment, generally placed at one-fifth, of the fowl usage in this country.

Morton Frozen Foods, Inc., for whom I speak, are the largest American producer of chicken, turkey, and beef potpies and were a forerunner in this industry. Our sales area includes each of the 48 States and the District of Columbia, and our production facilities for poultry pies voluntarily utilize the inspection service of the Poultry Division of the Department of Agriculture.

It is pertinent that, practically without exception, those companies who began early in this industry and have thereby executed the burden of advertising and consumer education employ the voluntary inspection service.