AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, Subject: H.R. 6168 to amend Meat Inspection Act. Hon. GRAHAM PURCELL, Chairman, Livestock and Grains Subcommittee, Washington, D.C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN PURCELL: Our attention has been called to H.R. 6168 "to clarify and otherwise amend the Meat Inspection Act, to provide for cooperation with appropriate state agencies with respect to state meat inspection programs, and for other purposes." We would point out that the Meat Inspection Act, dating back to more than a half a century and amended from time to time to meet changing conditions, has been a good law and that it is largely responsible for the enviable reputation enjoyed by the United States for the production of wholesome meat which is not surpassed by any country in the world. We would question, therefore, the necessity or advisability of such sweeping changes in the Meat Inspection Act as proposed in H.R. 6168. Our primary objection to the proposed legislation is Title III of the bill entitled, "Federal and State Cooperation." Farm Bureau has a long-standing policy in support of funds for adequate inspection of red meat and poultry but has always insisted that federal inspection be limited to red meat and poultry in moving in interstate and foreign commerce and that the states be responsible for inspecting these products in intrastate commerce. The enactment of H.R. 6168 would, in effect, require the placing of municipal meat inspection programs under a single state agency and the development and administration of such programs under the supervision, if not the domination, of the Secretary of Agriculture since he would be in a position to withhold financial support for state programs which do not meet his requirements. We recognize that the bill limits payments up to 50 percent of the cost of state inspection programs where the states desire the assistance of the federal government. We believe that many states and municipalities now conducting meat inspection programs will be tempted to give up control of their programs in order to reduce their costs through federal assistance. It is unclear as to the effect of H.R. 6168 with regard to home slaughter. We hope that the legislation will make clear that farm slaughter meat for home consumption should not be subject to the alteration and misbranding provision of Title I of the bill. Meat inspection programs developed and administered by the Secretary of Agriculture might provide more uniformity and possibly improve inspection in a few states. On the other hand, the total cost of such programs could be considerably greater than the cost of adequate state and municipal programs. We also seriously question the advisability of giving the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare a role in the administration of the Meat Inspection Act and, therefore, suggest deletion of all language providing for such a role. The major objective of the present Meat Inspection Act is to protect consumers from unwholesome meat in interstate commerce. We feel that the objective should be basic to any new legislation and that all provisions in the bill giving authority to the Secretary of Agriculture to issue rules and regulations on labeling and packaging that are unrelated to guaranteeing wholesomeness should be deleted. We would appreciate it if you would place this letter in the record of the hearings on H.R. 6168. Sincerely yours, JOHN C. LYNN, Mr. PURCELL. The subcommittee will be in recess until 10 o'clock Wednesday morning. (Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, July 19, 1967.) AMEND MEAT INSPECTION ACT WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 1967 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON LIVESTOCK AND GRAINS OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 1301, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Graham Purcell (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Purcell (presiding), Foley, Nichols, Montgomery, Mrs. May, Dole, Mayne, Zwach, Kleppe, and Price. Also present: Representative Smith of Iowa. Martha Hannah, subcommittee clerk; and Hyde H. Murray, assistant counsel. Mr. PURCELL. The subcommittee will come to order. Our first witness this morning is Mr. Winton B. Rankin, Deputy Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration. He is accompanied by Theodore Ellenbogen, Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. We will be glad to hear from you at this time, Mr. Rankin. STATEMENT OF WINTON B. RANKIN, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION; ACCOMPANIED BY THEODORE ELLENBOGEN, ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL FOR LEGISLATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, my name is Winton B. Rankin. I am Deputy Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and I am accompanied by Theodore Ellenbogen, of the General Counsel's Office, of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this morning to comment on H.R. 6168, as well as some of the testimony that has been presented about that bill. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare adopts H.R. 6168 as it was drafted and introduced. In our view, the bill would expand the Department of Agriculture's ability to insure the quality of meats reaching the American table and would facilitate continued strong cooperation between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Some of the witnesses who have appeared before you, Mr. Chairman, have recommended changes in the bill which we oppose. We believe that they would represent regressive legislation, that they would be 157 82-270-67-11 bad legislation, and that they would not be in the interest of the American public. One of the changes proposed in the bill before you would strike the authority which the Food and Drug Administration has exercised over meats after leaving an inspected establishment. We have had such authority for more than 60 years. We believe that we have exercised it well. We have coordinated our activities with those of the Department of Agriculture. We presently have in the field more than 2,000 people total, inspectors, chemists, and supporting staff, and we believe that a well-trained, competent corps should be available to the American public to deal with the total food supply and should not be blocked from taking action with regard to meats if we find them unfit in the market. I might mention at this point that we see no problem, as I understand some witnesses have implied, of duplicated inspections should the bill be enacted into law. We do not plan to run immediately before or immediately behind the agriculture inspectors. We do not plan to duplicate their work; on the contrary, we have plans presently worked out with the States and with other agencies of the Federal Government where there is any possibility of duplication or overlapping operations to guard against such an event. We have recently inaugurated a commissioning procedure for State food and drug officials under the law that we administer, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act where we are authorized to commission State officials to administer the law in their States, and we have done so, particularly in the medicated feed area. We look into the competence of the State officials. We give them full authority to administer the Federal law in their areas, and we hold planning sessions with them to determine which of us will do what in our joint administration of that law. It will be our purpose to continue with this type of intergovernmental cooperation with the Department of Agriculture and the States. Another change, which we believe would be a serious backward step would remove the authority. Under this, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare presently determines safe levels for chemical pesticides, drugs, and color residues in meats. The Food and Drug Administration is the agency of the executive branch of the Government that has the capability of determining presently the possible impact of small residues of chemicals and pesticides in food when they are consumed by man over a long period of time. In 1958, when the food additives amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act was passed by the Congress, consideration was given to the possibility of separating at that time the authority to be exercised over residues in meat and the authority to be exercised over residues in other foods. A representative of the Grocery Manufacturers Association recommended such a split of authority. We opposed it, and the Congress rightly, we believe, concluded that one agency should have the responsibility for determining the safety of these chemicals that are in our food supply. That agency was the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and now in order to make this determination, we have a very skilled, very competent staff. We have almost 200 medical officers. They are engaged on drug problems, and in considerable measure, periodically, they are called upon to make determinations in the food area. We have about 70 pharmacologists; we have chemists and other supporting staff, specifically charged with the job of investigating the potential hazards from chemicals in food stuffs. We determine the safety of the small residues that may remain in food, including meats, including poultry, including fish, and we publish these determinations in the Federal Register as regulations for the guidance of all. I should emphasize that we have established very cooperative relationship with the Department of Agriculture in this area also. Anytime there is a question, a proposition, before us which would allow a residue in meat or in poultry, we consult the Department of Agriculture to be sure that our decisions reflect the views of that agency. When the matter before us involves fish, we consult with the Department of the Interior. The point that I am trying to make is that we do have the competence today, and if the responsiblity for determining safe levels in chemicals in meats would be taken from the Food and Drug Administration and were put with the Department of Agriculture, that Department necessarily would have to staff up with the same kind of competence that we have, with the competence I believe it does not possess at the present time. I think, for example, they do not have one medical officer in human medicine, and you have to have many. You have to have various disciplines represented. So I would say that that proposed change in the bill would be most regressive. I want to emphasize that I do not question the ability of the Secretary of Agriculture to do this job, given adequate time, and it would take him some years, and given adequate money to recruit the scientists that are necessary. I would say that he would be competing with us for people who are in very scarce supply. The 70 pharmacologists that we have represent a greater portion of the Nation's talent in the field of pharmacology. We are in competition right now with academic institutions, with industries. It would be unfortunate to require another Government agency to enter this scarce field and to start competing for the scientists who are in such a short supply all over the world. Another proposed change we believe is bad would remove the present requirement that imported meats be subjected, when they are brought into the United States, to exactly the same food requirements that apply to all other foods in the United States. There is no apparent reason that we see for singling out meat products and placing them in a special category apart from foods generally. Another thing in the bill as introduced would remove the present au-. thority which Food and Drug Administration has, to bring legal actions against illegal meats after they leave the inspected establishment. We have, over the years, brought a number of legal actions against unfit lots of meat which we found in interstate commerce. We have routinely coordinated these activities with the Department of Agriculture. We have consulted that Department and where it was apparent that adequate protection could be achieved by returning these meat products to the inspected establishment and having it reworked or relabeled, as the case might be, under inspection, we have refrained from bringing legal action and have allowed the product to go back to the inspected establishment. But where it was apparent that there was nothing to be gained by such a return, that the merchandise would have to be destroyed in any event, we have brought seizure actions under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and have forthwith removed the offending material from commerce. In addition to these steps which would remove authorities presently assigned to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, changes recommended in the bill by some of the witnesses would remove some very desirable features designed to strengthen consumer safeguards provided by the Federal Government. For example, on page 14 of the bill there is a provision that the standards of filled containers for meat products established by the Secretary of Agriculture, shall be consistent with standards to fill a container established for foods, generally, by my department. Some witnesses would have the committee strike that provision. We see no basis for striking a provision simply designed to insure consistently in the administration of law in two agencies of the Federal Government. The change, in our view, would tend towards inconsistency rather than consistency, and would not be good. Some of the witnesses who have appeared would have you remove the proposal in the bill to give the Food and Drug Administration a 20-day detainer authority over bad meat while appropriate decision is made as to the disposition of that material. This is the same 20-day detainer authority that would be given to the Department of Agriculture. The type of situation that is involved here principally is one in which we find deliberate violations of the law, violations such as ones involving the labeling of horsemeat as beef and its sale to the public as beef; violations involving the attempted reconditioning of tainted meat or the attempted sale of meat from uninspected animals, all contrary to the provisions law. Now, this type of illegal operation is not carried out in the open. It is carried surreptitiously in the dark. We may find a truckload of meat headed into New York City or into one of the other large cities of the country, and the purpose of the detainer authority in this bill is to allow the Government agency that detects the problem immediately to stop the shipment of that bad meat, to hold it unil he can refer the matter to the appropriate agency. It may be the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it may be a State regulatory agency, it may be the city authorities, but if we do not have this immediate detainer authority, we cannot stop that truckload of meat. We have to try to follow it, maybe lose it in the process, and let the consumers be given the unfit material. I would conclude these remarks, Mr. Chairman, by saying once more that our department endorses the bill as introduced and it opposes the number of changes that have been recommended in the bill. Thank you, sir. I will be glad to try to answer questions, if there are any. Mr. KLEPPE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You just said that you are for H.R. 6168 as is. Does that mean that you have no specific amendments to propose? Mr. RANKIN. We have no specific amendments, sir, other than some technical suggestions that I am sure the subcommittee would not wish to be bothered with at the present. In principle, we support this bill. |