STATEMENT OF HON. THEODORE M. RISENHOOVER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Mr. RISEN HOOVER. When the House convenes later today, I will introduce a bill amending the Older Americans Act, and I wanted to appear before this committee now because you are in the midst of hearings on that act.

My bill has two major objectives: A better diet for older Americans who receive some of their meals through title VII of the act, and better conditions for a very troubled and severely damaged section of the American farm economy.

That section is the beef industry, and I am referring specifically to the farmer and the rancher who raise cattle for the market.

I was talking about this last Friday with Bob Barr, Oklahoma's Commissioner of Agriculture, and I would like to quote just three sentences from that conversation.

Bob said that:

Prices received by beef producers are critically depressed and the situation deteriorates daily. The problems are excessive cattle and inflated production costs. Increased use of beef in nutrition programs for the elderly will produce positive and lasting success in correcting the ills of this vital American industry.

Hundreds of farmers and ranchers have told me the same thingthey are going broke because they are not getting enough for their cows to pay the costs of raising them.

Now, I'll admit that I know a lot more about the economics of cattle raising than about nutrition problems of the elderly, but I have given myself a crash course in title VII.

I find that about 220,000 meals are being served daily, but 2 years ago, when Elliot Richardson was Secretary of HEW, he said that a minimum 5 million older Americans were eligible. That was back in January of 1973. Other estimates placed the figure at 8 million.

The program was set up to aid people without enough income to buy food-there were 4,400,000 who were over 60 and below the poverty level in 1973.

Title VII was set up to also help the isolated elderly, and we know that more than one-third of the old people in the country live alone, or with people who are not related to them.

Then, there are the elderly with very little mobility-they cannot get around, and those who can't cook their own meals any more.

I've tried to describe the two sides of the problem-the millions of elderly people who need the assistance of title VII, and the thousands and thousands of cattle farmers who are going broke.

But I would like to add one more dimension to the problem before I discuss a solution, in the form of my amendment.

A few years ago, when beef prices started rising, Secretary Butz said beef shortages were here to stay. Mr. Butz has maintained his usual consistency when it comes to farming-the exact opposite of what he predicted has come true, which is the way it usually is for that gentleman.

We now have an excess of beef, created by an increase in herd totals of about 12 million mattle in 1973 and 1974.

The countryside and the pastures are loaded with cows, and farmers are raising them on grass, instead of feed grains, because grass is cheaper.

Now, the beef is out there, on the hoof.

There is apparently a tremendous amount of beef in the packers' freezers, because those friends of Mr. Butz are his friends only--they certainly are not the friends of the cattle raiser or the consumer. AÏl you have to do is look at the huge spread in what the farmer gets, and what the consumer pays, to know the ripoff is in the middle. But that aspect should be the subject of a special investigation of its own.

This committee is concerned with more and better nutrition for the elderly, and I would like to suggest one way that this can be accomplished.

My amendment would add a new provision to the act, requiring that the Secretary of Agriculture must use $8 million of section 32 funds to acquire beef for distribution to feeding programs under title VII. This would be over and above the present required rate of 10 cents a meal in commodities which must be furnished.

I am glad that the 10-cent provision was adopted last year, and I know it is now being implemented through purchases of canned beef and processed American cheese.

Almost 1,500 tons of beef have been bought, at a cost of about $2.8

million.

My amendment would add another 14 cents in commodity purchases, but we are not talking about any appropriated money.

The section 32 fund comes from a retention of 30 percent of customs receipts on incoming dutiable goods, and I have been informed that there will be a carryover of about $50 million next fiscal year.

In fiscal 1976, the money would be appropriated; but if the appropriation should be denied, section 32 funds would again be used. A subsequent appropriation would replace the funds.

The committee is familiar with the section 32 purchases for the school feeding programs, and what a help that has been.

We can help another group-our elderly-and a vital segment of our economy-the cattle farmer-if we adopt my amendment, and I would like to urge you to give it your fullest consideration. Thank you. Mr. BRADEMAS. The chairman is going to violate the rules of the committee and recognize the chairman of the full committee.

Chairman PERKINS. Mr. Chairman, I have examined the nutrition program for the elderly in Kentucky, which presently serves 3,500 people on a daily basis. There is a waiting list of 500 people in need of this kind of help, but a lack of funds prevents the program from being expanded to include them.

Additionally, as a result of the furious rate of inflation, it is estimated that an additional $450,000 will be needed this year to keep the program operating at its present levels. This is over and above the current level of funding of $1.5 million and makes a total of nearly $2 million needed for the program. That is a 25-percent increase just to keep the current program going.

I am talking about the program in Kentucky only. Even this will not allow for expansion of the program to meet the needs of six additional areas in the State which do not have any nutrition programs for the elderly. If it were possible to expand the program to take care of these additional areas, more than $600,000 would be needed.

We are talking about a budget of over $2,500,000 as a minimum to fund the nutrition program for the elderly in the State of Kentucky.

This is a distressing report because it shows how poor a job we are doing. It becomes even more distressing when one considers that the President is now asking what amounts to a rescission of $50 million in the feeding program.

Let me say in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I personally feel that the amendment offered by the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma will work well in your bill as an amendment to the Older Americans Act. It will accelerate the feeding program and will do no harm to section 32 funds.

These funds are available in the school lunch program. But for the section 32 funds we would have never gotten the school lunch program off the ground. We never would have been able to expand it to take care of the needy and the free school lunches over the Nation. I am of the opinion that the $18 million that the gentleman's amendment suggests in commodities through section 32, $8 million now and $10 million at a later date, is a reasonable approach, a reasonable amendment, and should be adopted by the committee.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Perkins.

Mr. Pressler.

Mr. PRESSLER. I would just like to say I very much agree with the sentiments put forth, being from the First District of South Dakota, where we have a combination of a lot of cattle, as well as a lot of senior citizens.

We recently held some hearings out there among the senior citizens on the question of hunger. We found that there was a great deal of very tight budgeting on food by our senior citizens, of and indeed, some outright hunger. I don't know if these hearings were conducted in eastern South Dakota by a combination of religious and State groups, and I don't know if there have been any other hearings quite like them recently in the United States, but I did want to say we did find hunger among senior citizens in eastern South Dakota, which you wouldn't ordinarily expect in the midst of cattle country.

Maybe you have some observations. How can this be? This Blatant inconsistency in our great country. Maybe you have some reflections? Mr. RISEN HOOVER. It has been my experience and I am sure also yours when you meet people in your campaign. My people in my district particularly in Oklahoma we have a much larger than average group of retired people. That is the northeastern part of Oklahoma, where the lakes and recreational areas are, and many retired people have moved into that area.

Because of inflation and economic conditions, conditions which prevail all across the country, it has been my experience that older people cut down on their food first. They have fixed income and fixed obligations, and about the only variation allowable to most of them is in their nutrition.

I find it becomes a very serious problem and it is greatly helped in most of my district by the meals on wheels, the nutrition project for the elderly and they are taking care of it. We have the same thing, a large waiting list and counties and communities that have not been able to take advantage of the program yet because there are not enough funds.

Mr. PRESSLER. I might go a step further with that. We held over 3 weeks of meetings on the Wapatan Reservation and others in which

we found several senior citizens who, during the winter months, cut meat out of their budget because it is so expensive.

That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Lehman.

Mr. LEHMAN. I was kind of interested in your nutritional program. I certainly think it could very much help the farmers. I am not sure it is going to help the older people, because according to what I understand, one of the things that can increase the length of life of older people is the lack of cholesterol in their systems and I am not sure we have the kind of research available that would indicate that eating larger quantities of beef might give them a sense of well-being while they are eating it but it might not increase their life span.

Do you know of any hard research? Perhaps Dr. Woodruff could enlighten us. Maybe it would not be good for older people. I would just like to know. I don't want a debate on it, but I think it is important. I know in the TV show I saw last night about the aid to longevity of the Russians, there were two things noted, the fact that their diet was 800 calories which is less than the prescribed 2,600 for the aging of older mature Americans and also the fact that it was very, very low in meat content and high in grains.

I just wondered-I am for better nutrition, but I just want us to push this scientifically and assure the kind of diet that we need in that direction. I am not trying to take issue with you, but I think this is something we have to think about.

Mr. RISENHOOVER. Yes, I don't really have hard information as far as cholesterol levels from eating beef, but it is my understanding that red meat is one of the things that really helps a diet. I don't have any hard facts, but I just don't believe eating beef is going to shorten anyone's life span.

Mr. LEHMAN. Would you mind if I ask Dr. Woodruff at this point in time? Is that all right, Mr. Chairman ?

Mr. BRADEMAS. Yes.

Mr. LEHMAN. Would you care to comment on increasing beef for older people?

Dr. WOODRUFF. I really can't claim to be an expert in this area, but I know that, Congressman Lehman, the studies you and I talked about and the evidence on long-lived people in Russia suggests that those individuals who have almost no red meat diet are people who live a very long time. As you pointed out, these people may have a genetic kind of background for longevity as well.

I think the kind of question you are asking points out again the need for research. I am not aware of any research evidence on longevity in terms of whether high red meat content is what we need or not. The fish eating people in Africa and in Scandanavia seem to have less hearing loss. Cholesterol seems to be deleterious for this aspect of perception, but I can't comment any more directly than that. Mr. LEHMAN. Maybe we can get MacDonald's to fund something like that.

Mr. RISENHOOVER. What I am talking about is not just feeding large amounts of beef but the problem I see is they are not getting beef at all or very little and what I am talking about is increasing that, not saturating them.

Mr. LEHMAN. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Cornell.

Mr. CORNELL. Just another observation along the same line. Of course, during the course of the past years I visited many of these places, schools, churches, and in some instances, hotels, where they had food programs for the elderly. In all of those instances I have

never seen beef on the menu.

My question was very much in line with what Mr. Lehman had to say, whether the dietician was responsible for this or whether it was just the lack of beef that was available for such programs?

Mr. RISENHOOVER. I think probably more than anything else it is the cost of the beef at the retail outlet. But what we are doing here is with commodities for the Department of Agriculture to purchase it and make it available. I think if we can implement the program we will see a lot more beef on the plans.

Mr. CORNELL. In line with the same thing, there is a bill that has been introduced to require the Commodity Credit Corporation to buy $1 or $2 billion worth of animal products and to be used for starving people at home as well as abroad, which might also be helpful, of course, insofar as your beef producing efforts are concerned. Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Jeffords.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I am interested in the proposed method of distribution of the beef and the funds for it. Would you give me a little better idea of how you propose it is to come about. In other words, if the goal is to help farmers as well as older citizens, certainly it will not be by purchasing at the retail level. The money from these purchases never seems to filter down to the farmer.

I wonder how your system would work to benefit the farmer over and above some of our existing programs?

Mr. RISENHOOVER. First of all my opinion is the only solution to the beef problem is increased consumption. I think the problem is now that the packers have purchased beef and they are depressing the price from the farmer, processing and freezing the beef and then letting it out slowly so the price stays high at the retail level.

Like I said, it should be the subject of another investigation which I understand is currently underway. I am not really that familiar with how the Department of Agriculture operates its commodity program. But my understanding is that the beef would be purchased by the Department of Agriculture through the commodity program from the sale barns.

Now I am not exactly sure how they process and freeze this, but the distribution then would be through the commodities program. Here again. I am not expert enough in that area. That is what it would be. They wouldn't be buying the beef at the retail level, but through the commodity program.

Mr. JEFFORDS. You are not just sure how it would operate, who they would purchase the beef from?

Mr. RISENHOOVER. No; I am not. The Department of Agriculture's commodity program-I am not that familiar with how they operate it. Mr. JEFFORDS. Thank you.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Miller.
Mr. MILLER. No questions.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Risenhoover. We will certainly take into account your proposal and are grateful for you appearing to testify today.