[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AFTER THE BEEF RECALL: EXPLORING GREATER TRANSPARENCY IN THE MEAT
INDUSTRY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 17, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-189
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.oversight.house.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
51-700 WASHINGTON : 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
Fax: (202) 512�092104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402�090001
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York TOM DAVIS, Virginia
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DAN BURTON, Indiana
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah
DIANE E. WATSON, California JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York DARRELL E. ISSA, California
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
Columbia VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BILL SALI, Idaho
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JIM JORDAN, Ohio
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
------ ------
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
Lawrence Halloran, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Domestic Policy
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Chairman
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland DARRELL E. ISSA, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California DAN BURTON, Indiana
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois JOHN L. MICA, Florida
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York CHRIS CANNON, Utah
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
------ ------
Jaron R. Bourke, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 17, 2008................................... 1
Statement of:
Eggleston, Bev, owner, Ecofriendly Foods, LLC; Joel Salatin,
owner, Polyface Farms; and Patrick Boyle, CEO, American
Meat Institute............................................. 101
Boyle, Patrick........................................... 118
Eggleston, Bev........................................... 101
Salatin, Joel............................................ 108
Grandin, Dr. Temple, professor, Colorado State University;
Dr. Richard Raymond, Under Secretary for Food Safety, Food
Safety and Inspection Service, USDA; Stan Painter,
chairman, National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals,
American Federation of Government Employees; and Lisa
Shames, Director, GAO, Natural Resources and the
Environment................................................ 8
Grandin, Dr. Temple...................................... 8
Painter, Stan............................................ 37
Raymond, Dr. Richard..................................... 15
Shames, Lisa............................................. 57
Pacelle, Wayne, CEO, Humane Society of the United States;
John J. McGlone, fellow, American Humane, and professor,
Texas Tech University; and Adam Aronson, CEO, Arrowsight... 142
Aronson, Adam............................................ 171
McGlone, John J.......................................... 163
Pacelle, Wayne........................................... 142
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Aronson, Adam, CEO, Arrowsight, prepared statement of........ 173
Boyle, Patrick, CEO, American Meat Institute, prepared
statement of............................................... 121
Eggleston, Bev, owner, Ecofriendly Foods, LLC, prepared
statement of............................................... 104
Grandin, Dr. Temple, professor, Colorado State University,
prepared statement of...................................... 10
Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio:
Followup questions and response.......................... 128
Letter dated April 15, 2008.............................. 138
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
McGlone, John J., fellow, American Humane, and professor,
Texas Tech University, prepared statement of............... 166
Pacelle, Wayne, CEO, Humane Society of the United States,
prepared statement of...................................... 145
Painter, Stan, chairman, National Joint Council of Food
Inspection Locals, American Federation of Government
Employees, prepared statement of........................... 40
Raymond, Dr. Richard, Under Secretary for Food Safety, Food
Safety and Inspection Service, USDA, prepared statement of. 18
Salatin, Joel, owner, Polyface Farms, prepared statement of.. 111
Shames, Lisa, Director, GAO, Natural Resources and the
Environment, prepared statement of......................... 59
AFTER THE BEEF RECALL: EXPLORING GREATER TRANSPARENCY IN THE MEAT
INDUSTRY
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2008
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Domestic Policy,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:05 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dennis J.
Kucinich (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Kucinich, Cummings, Watson,
Tierney, and Issa.
Staff present: Jaron R. Bourke, staff director; Noura
Erakat, counsel; Jean Gosa, clerk; Charisma Williams, staff
assistant; Cate Veith, legislative assistant, Office of
Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich; Leneal Scott, information
systems manager, full committee; Alex Cooper, minority
professional staff member; Larry Brady, minority senior
investigator and policy advisor; and Meredith Liberty, minority
staff assistant and correspondence coordinator.
Mr. Kucinich. The Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will now come to
order. Today's hearing will explore how transparency can
enhance compliance with humane handling and food safety laws in
the Nation's slaughterhouses. We will also examine the means
for achieving such transparency.
Without objection, the Chair and the ranking minority
member have 5 minutes to make opening statements followed by
opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Members
who seek recognition. Without objection, Members and witnesses
may have 5 legislative days to submit a written statement or
extraneous materials for the record.
In January, American consumers watched the Humane Society
undercover video with horror. They saw cows enduring simulated
drownings, being pushed by forklifts and dragged by chains,
cows that for many of the viewers would become the protein in
their families' meals. For these consumers this was probably
the first time they were bearing witness to what happens behind
slaughterhouse walls. The impact of their national gaze was
tremendous. The USDA oversaw the largest voluntary beef recall
in U.S. history.
In press briefings concerning the beef recall, USDA
officials repeatedly affirmed that the incidents at Westland/
Hallmark represented an aberration in the meat industry. Dr.
Kenneth Petersen said, ``Food Safety Inspection Services
believes this to be an isolated incident of egregious
violations to humane handling requirements and the prohibition
of non-ambulatory, disabled cattle from entering the food
supply.''
However, upon investigation the subcommittee discovered
that USDA had conducted two audits at Westland/Hallmark in the
past 3 years, one in December 2005 and again in May 2007. The
2005 audit cited minimal infractions. In 2007, the USDA noted
no infractions and instead gave Westland/Hallmark a faultless
report. Yet only a few months later a Humane Society undercover
investigation revealed the USDA's findings were a dismal
reflection of reality at Westland/Hallmark.
The contrast between the Humane Society's investigation and
the USDA audits raises significant questions. Did the USDA
audit consider actual practices at the plant or the company
paperwork assertions about practices instead? In general, does
the USDA rely upon direct evidence or accompanying assertions?
Are the abuses documented by the Humane Society but missed by
the USDA really unique to this plant? How reliable are USDA's
assurances about other plants when its auditors failed to
discover the widespread violations at the Westland/Hallmark
plant?
Then again perhaps USDA knows more than has been made
public. We will hear from the head of the Food Safety
Inspectors Union. He himself has been an FSIS inspector for
22\1/2\ years and he tells us that there is a severe shortage
of inspectors, which often results in inadequate or incomplete
inspections. And he tells us something else, too, there is a
suppression of inspectors who blow the whistle on unsafe
practices and policies.
In today's hearing we will examine how the Humane Society's
undercover video is an object lesson in the value of
transparency in shaking up a company, a regulator in an
industry to improve compliance with and enforcement of humane
handling and food safety laws in the Nation's slaughterhouses.
We will consider how we might encourage greater transparency as
a means to improve both industries compliance with the laws and
USDA's enforcement of them.
The Chair would be pleased to recognize either Mr. Tierney
or Mr. Cummings for an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich
follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.003
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no particular
opening statement. I am anxious to hear the witnesses, but I
thank you for having this hearing.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I will be brief. I thank you for holding this
vitally important hearing to examine the compliance with humane
handling and food safety laws in the Nation's slaughterhouses.
The American people expect that the meat that they purchase at
local grocery stores and the butcher shops is safe for
consumption, as they should. And so the public was rightfully
disturbed to learn of the horrific practices by the Hallmark/
Westland Meat Packing Co. of California.
The video of the plant that was released to the media
reviewed inhumane handling of downed cattle and raised serious
concerns about tainted meat making its way into our food supply
and to the dinner tables of Americans. Public outcry following
the incident led to the swift action by the government and by
the company itself. Hallmark/Westland voluntarily recalled 143
million pounds of fresh and frozen beef dating back to February
1, 2006. I'm glad, as I know many Americans are, that the
potentially tainted meat will not make it to our families'
kitchen tables.
But this recent incident raises larger questions about
whether it was an isolated event involving just one plant or
part of a more widespread problem in our meat packing industry.
All indicators, Mr. Chairman, lead one to conclude the latter.
Investigations by the Government Accountability Office and the
U.S. Department of Agriculture Inspector Generals reveal
serious concerns with regard to the way that we regulate the
meat packing industry. The time is long overdue for us to
strengthen practices at the USDA and to explore new methods of
oversight such as video surveillance.
To be sure, the recent incident at Hallmark/Westland Meat
Packing Co. is nothing new. The 2001 book, Fast Food Nation,
reported that similar conditions with regard to downed cows are
present at meat packing plants across the country. Not since
Upton Sinclair's eye opening 1906 book, The Jungle, have we
seen such widespread concerns raised about our Nation's food
supply.
Mr. Chairman, our response today must be just as aggressive
as it was back then. So I look forward to the testimonies of
today's witnesses, and I yield back.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Cummings, for your
statement. I appreciate the presence of the Members here. Mr.
Issa is expected momentarily. As ranking member he will be
entitled to an opening statement.
If there are no additional opening statements, the
subcommittee will now receive testimony from the witnesses
before us today. So I want to start by introducing our first
panel.
I want to start by introducing our first panel. Dr. Richard
Raymond was first appointed as Under Secretary for Food Safety
in 2005. In this position Dr. Raymond is responsible for
overseeing the policies and programs of the Food Safety and
Inspection Service [FSIS]. He chairs the U.S. Codex Steering
Committee, which provides guidance to U.S. Delegations to the
Codex Commission. Prior to joining USDA, Dr. Raymond served as
the Director of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human
Services Regulation and Licensure Division, where he oversaw
regulatory programs involving health care and environmental
issues. A life long resident of Nebraska, Dr. Raymond practiced
medicine in rural Nebraska for 17 years.
Mr. Stan Painter is the chairman of the National Joint
Council of Food Inspection Local Unions that is affiliated with
the American Federation of Government Employees [AFL-CIO].
The National Joint Council represents some 6,000
nonsupervisory inspectors who work for the Food Safety and
Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He
has been an FSIS inspector for nearly 23 years and served as
the chairman of the Joint Council for nearly 5 years. Prior to
coming to work for FSIS, he worked in the poultry processing
industry for 3 years.
Linda--and how do you pronounce that?
Ms. Shames. Lisa Shames.
Mr. Kucinich. Shames. Linda Shames is the GAO's Director
for Food Safety and Agriculture Issues. In that capacity she
oversees GAO evaluations on livestock health, USDA and FDA
oversight and management capacity, farm program payments,
agricultural conservation and many other issues. Last year she
managed the designation of the Federal Oversight of Food Safety
on GAO's high risk list. She has worked at GAO since 1978.
Dr. Temple Grandin has worked as a consultant to the meat
industry for over 30 years. She has either designed animal
handling equipment or worked on training employees for many
major meat companies. She's also a professor of animal science
at Colorado State University, where she teaches a course on
livestock handling and is author of the American Meat Institute
Guidelines. She has received numerous awards for her work in
animal welfare groups. Some of her awards are from the American
Meat Institute and the Humane Society of the United States. She
is author of the New York Times best seller on animal behavior,
livestock handling and slaughter, called Animals in
Translation.
Thank you for appearing to the subcommittee today. It is
the policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
to swear in all witness before they testify. I would ask that
all the witnesses please rise.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Kucinich. Let the record reflect the witnesses answered
in the affirmative.
I'm asking that each of the witnesses give a brief summary
of their testimony. I would ask that you keep in mind that your
entire written statement will be included in the hearing
record, but try to keep your summary under 5 minutes in
duration. And so I would ask you to watch the clock, because
sometimes these machines are not the most effective. We're
going to start with Dr. Grandin who has some flight
obligations, and we want to take note of that and we'd like you
to be so kind as to begin with your testimony. Please stay
close to that mic so everyone can hear you. Please proceed.
STATEMENTS OF DR. TEMPLE GRANDIN, PROFESSOR, COLORADO STATE
UNIVERSITY; DR. RICHARD RAYMOND, UNDER SECRETARY FOR FOOD
SAFETY, FOOD SAFETY AND INSPECTION SERVICE, USDA; STAN PAINTER,
CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL JOINT COUNCIL OF FOOD INSPECTION LOCALS,
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES; AND LISA SHAMES,
DIRECTOR, GAO, NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT
STATEMENT OF DR. TEMPLE GRANDIN
Ms. Grandin. Thank you very much. I feel honored to be
here. I have worked with the meat industry for over 30 years as
an industry consultant and in the last 18 years as professor of
animal science, and I have seen a lot of changes. When I first
started out in the industry in the 1970's, 1980's and early
1990's, things were really bad. And I want to add that video at
Hallmark just made me absolutely sick.
One of my biggest frustrations as an equipment designer is
getting people to operate equipment correctly. Good equipment
gives you the tools for good handling, but you have to have the
management to go with it.
In 1996, the USDA hired me to do a survey of practices in
over 20 plants in the United States, and only 30 percent of the
big plants were able to stun 90 percent of the cattle on the
first shot. That's just absolutely atrocious.
The No. 1 problem was maintenance. They just didn't take
care of the equipment. In 1999, McDonald's Corp. and Wendy's
and Burger King--I don't know if Burger King was in 1999 but
Wendy's and McDonald's was--hired me to institute their
auditing program and I used the objective scoring system that I
originally developed for the USDA.
The thing is we need to get much more even enforcement and
have clear standards. I mean right now what does excessive prod
use mean? That's not clear. One person's excessive prod use
would be you'd use it on a few animals, another person's
excessive prod use would be to poke every pig once with it,
there is too much variation. You can read the entire objective
scoring system in my testimony handout, but it measures
outcomes of bad practices, animals can fall down because the
floor is slippery or they are too old or they've been handled
roughly and they have been poked too many times with prods.
I want to address the issue of announced versus unannounced
audits. In the beginning when we started, like in 1999, 2000,
it didn't make any difference because plants didn't know how to
behave. Today plants know what they are supposed to be doing so
they can behave well during an audit and sometimes the auditors
have gotten paid not so well. And basically I have found
there's kind of two different sectors in the industry, ones
that behave well all the time and ones that don't. And where
you have the problem is mainly in the handling.
I do want to add that the overall--there has been an
overall improvement trend since the early 90's. When we
implemented the McDonald's and Wendy's audits there was big
improvements compared to what we had before. I can remember
working night shift on the plants and it was just four broken
stun guns out there. I mean that was the enforcement. It was
disgusting.
I want just to overview some of my experiences with using
video. One of my first experiences was around 20 years ago at a
pork plant. They installed a closed circuit camera over the pig
shoot area with a TV down in the manager's office. And they
know that people are watching all the time. Then a few years
ago another one of the plants had their own internal audit
system--internal video camera system, and when I did prod
scoring I was standing there. It was lower than when I was
looking through the video camera.
I want to just end up very quickly because some kind of
buzzer is going off.
Mr. Kucinich. Listen, that's--you have a couple more
minutes.
Ms. Grandin. That's what I figured. I figured I had a
couple more minutes.
Mr. Kucinich. That buzzer is not for you.
Ms. Grandin. Oh, OK, OK. But on the--the stunning score
stayed about the same between the video and being--that's so
dependent on the maintenance of the equipment, but the prod
score went up some. Now I want to add it didn't go back to the
bad old days of the 1980's and early 1990's. I have done some
consulting with Arrowsight, on their over-the-Web video
auditing.
I just want to conclude that I recommend that the USDA work
on more objective scoring, preferably some numerical scoring
systems so we get more even enforcement because how does an
inspector interpret excessive prod use. And there are some
management people that need oversight, and there are a lot of
good people out there that do a really good job of running
their plants.
And I'm really sorry that I do have to go to the airport.
There are 500 people waiting for me in Atlanta, waiting for me
tonight, and they would be very upset if I didn't show up. I'm
going to have to do written questions. I am going to give you
my phone number if someone wants to call me, (970) 229-0703,
and leave a message so I can call you back. I'm really sorry I
have to go to the airport. I had to jam this hearing in between
two other engagements.
I thank you for having me.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Grandin follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.007
Mr. Kucinich. First of all, thank you. We appreciate you
being here. We understand you have to go. We will give you
written questions and we will need your response, and we do
appreciate very much your presence here and your testimony,
which is very important and will be included in the record of
the hearing.
Ms. Grandin. And how soon will I be getting the written
questions?
Mr. Issa. 5 legislative days.
Mr. Kucinich. You will get the questions at the beginning
of next week.
Ms. Grandin. OK, good.
Mr. Kucinich. If you need to leave right now.
Ms. Grandin. I probably do need to leave right now. I don't
want to get caught behind the Popemobile.
Mr. Kucinich. What we're going to do, we have a vote on,
but we're going to defer to the ranking member of the
committee, who we are pleased to have with us, Congressman Issa
from California. He's going to make his opening statement and
then when we return after the votes, welcome back to continue
the statements. So Mr. Issa.
Mr. Issa. I thank the chairman and thank you for holding
this bipartisan committee hearing, and I apologize, one of my
other committees required that I be there for a bit.
This issue hits very close to home for me. Chino, CA, where
Hallmark is located, is very near my district.
Ensuring safety of our public food supply is critical and
not just to our Nation, but we lead the world in food safety. I
know that some people have noted the European Union's food
safety standards, but when it comes to delivering consistently
edible food safely and at the lowest price we do lead the
world.
America's the No. 1 supplier of food around the world and
there's a good reason, we do have stringent health standards
and the most advanced agricultural technology in the world.
Having said that, for these reasons that are among others
Hallmark is a matter that is particularly disturbing to me. Let
me make this very clear, there can be no excuse, no
rationalization for not having the very best food safety
regulations obeyed. More importantly as a technology leader
here and around the world, there is no excuse not to employ
modern technologies to further leverage food safety.
I'm aware of the 2004 GAO report indicating that incomplete
and inconsistent inspection records made it difficult to
monitor enforcement. Certainly when it comes to recordkeeping
the government has spent enough that we should be able to do it
among the best. The Inspector General of the Department of
Agriculture noted in December 2007 that some of the issues the
GAO raised in 2004 were every bit as relevant as they had been
then.
I do not want to prejudge the outcome of this hearing, but
to me it is clear that the inspection program and the process
has failed and will continue to fail unless Congress takes an
appropriately close eye at it. We must get to the root cause of
this failure.
Do we have more inspectors than we did 20 years ago? We
certainly have more people, more livestock and more need. Have
the number of inspectors increased as our population has
increased? That's a self-known answer. Has the number of
inspectors increased as the food supply has increased? How many
inspectors do we employ overseas? And I say that because it's
not just lead based paint being put onto toys that comes into
America and can represent a poison, but in fact an amazing
amount of imported foods.
One of the most important issues is what is the current
level of technology that we are using? Do we employ cameras?
And what other technologies could we use that are available or
that are at our expense or leveraged expense could we develop?
I'm aware that there are IT systems involved that may not be
functioning in the best way possible today. We need to do more
and we need to do it now.
It is unclear that our food supply standards are keeping
pace with advances being made in other sectors, such as safety
standards for toys and pharmaceuticals. The highest food
standards must be our first priority. This committee on a
bipartisan basis I believe will ensure and insist that both
sufficient personnel and sufficient and appropriate technology
be brought to bear to solve these problems and to make America
once again not just the safest in the world, but the safest
that it can be.
With that, I yield back and thank the gentleman.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to thank my colleague for his opening
statement, which does reflect that there is no space between us
on these issues and we are working together.
At this point the committee is going to recess. We'll
probably be back in a half hour.
Mr. Issa. A little less, maybe.
Mr. Kucinich. Or a little less. We have a number of votes,
25 minutes to a half hour. The committee stands in recess. I
would ask our witness to please be back here, and we are about
to get into an even more interesting phase in this hearing,
thanks.
[Recess.]
Mr. Kucinich. The House has concluded its business for the
day, so the committee hearing can be expected to continue from
this point on uninterrupted. The witnesses are already sworn
and we are going to return to your testimony. I will repeat
that I would ask that your testimony be kept to 5 minutes or
less in duration, your full statement will be included in the
record of the hearing.
I would ask Dr. Raymond to begin. Thank you, sir.
STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD RAYMOND
Dr. Raymond. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for having me here today. I am Dr.
Richard Raymond, Under Secretary for Food Safety at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
While there are a number of agencies at the Department
working together on the Hallmark/Westland matter, the agency
for which I have responsibility is the Food Safety and
Inspection Service. We are the public health regulatory agency
responsible for ensuring that domestic and imported meat,
poultry, and processed egg products are safe, wholesome and
accurately labeled. The agency enforces several longstanding
Federal acts that relate to these foods that are outlined in
our submitted testimony.
Like many Americans, I was appalled by the Humane Society's
video which was released on January 30th. Immediately upon its
release Secretary Schafer called for an investigation into the
matter. The USDA's Office of the Inspector General is leading
that investigation with support from FSIS and the Agricultural
Marketing Service. This investigation is ongoing, and in the
meantime FSIS has implemented a series of interim actions to
verify and analyze humane handling activities in federally
inspected establishments.
I remain confident in the safety of U.S. food supply, and
to help ensure its safety we take a number of steps to prevent
food borne illnesses. The agency currently employs over 9,000
personnel, including 7,800 full time in plant and other front
line personnel to protect the public health in approximately
6,200 federally inspected establishments nationwide. Agency
personnel must be continuously present for slaughter operations
to provide ante-mortem, or before slaughter, inspection for all
animals and carcass-by-carcass inspection after slaughter, and
they must also inspect processing plants at least once per
shift per day. To protect against exposure to bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease, the Federal Government has
an interlocking system of safeguards, as explained in detail in
my submitted testimony, the most important of which for the
protection of human health is the removal of specified risk
materials which is confirmed by our inspection work force.
When we learned of the problems at Hallmark, we took
immediate steps to determine if the allegations made public by
the Humane Society of the United States were accurate. We
suspended inspection at that time on February 4, 2008, based on
our findings that the establishment failed to prevent the
inhumane handling of animals at the facility as required by
regulations and by the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
It is important to note that certain cattle while
ambulatory when they pass the ante-mortem inspection, may
become nonambulatory from acute injury or another circumstance.
Regulations in effect since January 2004 require that if such a
situation occurs our public health veterinarians must inspect
the animal again and determine if the animal did indeed suffer
from an acute injury before that animal is permitted to go to
slaughter, otherwise the animal is condemned.
Evidence from the ongoing investigation demonstrates that
over the past 2 years this plant did not always notify the
public health veterinarian when cattle became nonambulatory
after passing the ante-mortem inspection as required by our
regs. This failure by Hallmark is what led to the company's
February 17, 2008 voluntary recall and its subsequent request
for withdrawal of inspection.
I would like to stress that the establishment's failure to
notify the FSIS inspector was not as some of have implied as a
result of a shortage of inspectors at Hallmark. There were no
impact vacancies at that establishment during these 2 years,
and time spent on humane handling activities as verified by the
humane activities tracking system [HATS] as we know it, was
reasonably constant over that period of time at about 90
minutes per day.
Overall as of March 29, 2008, our nationwide vacancy rate
in slaughter and processing establishments was 6.1 percent. For
fiscal year 2007 the agency requested and received additional
appropriation to hire 184 additional inspectors, and by October
27, 2007, we achieved a net gain of 194 inspection personnel,
surpassing the goal of 184 for which the President had
requested this budget increase.
This particular plant had five assigned full-time
inspectors. There were three on-line inspectors, one public
health veterinarian and one off-line inspector. Over the last 3
years they inspected over 370,000 cattle and carcasses and they
condemned 4.6 percent, or nearly 1 out of every 20 cattle that
went to this plant were condemned either ante- or post-mortem
to protect the public's health.
While it is extremely unlikely that this recalled meat
product posed any risk to human health, the recall action was
deemed necessary because the establishment didn't fully comply
with our regulation.
The USDA has taken a number of steps to strengthen our
humane activities inspection system. We have temporarily
increased the amount of time allocated per shift by inspection
program personnel to verify humane handling activities. The
agency is also conducting surveillance activities to observe
the handling of animals outside the approved hours of operation
from vantage points both within and adjacent to the official
premises and also doing more observation without being
observed.
FSIS has conducted the reported humane handling
verification audits at all 18 federally inspected beef
slaughter establishments that as of March 2008 were under
contract and were actively participating in the USDA's Federal
food assistance programs. We will continue to audit additional
establishments based on priorities that have been established
by the agency.
In conclusion, I want to state that FSIS is committed to
improving its approach to inspection to focus on public health
and risk. We will make the necessary changes after our
increased surveillance is completed, our audits concluded, and
the results of the OIG investigation are available to us.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today and I look forward to taking your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Raymond follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.026
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Mr.
Painter.
STATEMENT OF STAN PAINTER
Mr. Painter. Good afternoon, Chairman Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. If you could speak closely to that mic, thank
you.
Mr. Painter. Good afternoon, Chairman Kucinich, Ranking
Member Issa and other members of subcommittee. My name is Stan
Painter. I'm the chairman for the National Joint Council of
Food Inspection Locals that is affiliated with American
Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO. The National Joint
Council represents some 6,000 nonsupervisory inspectors who
work in the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. We are the inspection work force
that enforces the provisions of the Federal Meat Inspection,
Poultry Products Inspection and Egg Products Inspection Acts to
ensure that consumers receive safe, wholesome and unadulterated
products under USDA jurisdiction. I welcome the opportunity to
share our views on four important points, the Hallmark/Westland
recall, letting the system work when dealing with FSIS
violations, employee intimidation and inspector shortages.
One, Hallmark/Westland recall. The recent recall of some
143 million pounds of beef products from Hallmark/Westland Meat
Co. in Chino, CA, the largest recall in USDA history, is an
event that we hope will shed some light on the deficiencies
under the current inspection process. It highlights one of the
problems that we have attempted to raise with the agency ever
since 1996, when the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control
Points [HACCP], inspection was put into place.
As I show in my written testimony, in the Hallmark/Westland
event it points out an inspection system that can be gamed by
those in industry who want to skirt the law. There have been
some who have argued that since there were five inspection
personnel assigned to the plant how did this happen. That is a
good question, and I hope the investigation being conducted by
the USDA's Office of Inspector General produces some answers,
but the bottom line is that plant management creates a culture
for those employees to skirt around emphasized regulations.
They can usually find a way do it because the inspection
personnel are usually outnumbered.
I also hope that the investigation explores what the agency
management did know about the possible past violations at this
plant, because it would not be the first time that the agency
sat on information about regulatory violations and did nothing
about it.
Letting the system work when dealing with violations. My
members are very passionate about their jobs. Consumer
protection is the first thing that we think about when we go to
work every day. We are trained to enforce the various laws and
regulations under FSIS jurisdiction. When we see a violation we
are trained to document and write noncompliance reports.
However, in practice this does not always occur. It frustrates
me and many of my members when we are told by our supervisors
to let the system work when we see violations of FSIS
regulations and we are instructed not to write noncompliance
reports in order to give companies a chance to fix the problem
on their own. Sometimes even if we write noncompliance reports
some of the larger companies use their political muscle to get
those overturned at the agency level or by going to the
congressional delegation to get this inspection staff to back
off.
As a result of the agency data base not--as a result, the
agency's data base may not contain accurate information about
the compliance history of meat and poultry plants because of
pressure being applied not to write them up for violations,
employee intimidation. Some of the members have been
intimidated by agency management in the past when they came
forward to try to enforce regulations and policies.
I will give a personal example. In response to the December
2003 discovery of BSE in a cow in Washington State, FSIS issued
a series of interim final rules in January 2004 to enhance the
safety of the beef supply. Among those new regulations included
the ban on meat from downed animals from entering the food
supply and the removal of the SRM, Specified Risk Material,
from slaughtered cattle over the age of 30 months before the
meat of these animals could be processed and enter commerce.
In late 2004, I became aware and received reports that new
SRM regulations were not being uniformly enforced. I wrote a
letter to Assistant Food Administrator Field Operations at the
time conveying to him what I had heard. On December 23, 2004, I
was paid a visit at my home in Alabama by an FSIS official who
was dispatched from the Atlanta regional office to convince me
to drop the issue. I told him I would not. Then the agency
summoned me to Washington, DC, where agency officials subjected
me to several hours of interrogation, including wanting me to
identify the sources of the information on the SRM removals. I
refused to do so.
I was then placed on disciplinary--under disciplinary
investigation status. The agency even contacted the USDA Office
of Inspector General to explore the possibility of filing
criminal charges against me. Those charges were never filed.
Both my union, AFGE, and the consumer group Public Citizen
filed separate Freedom of Information Act requests in December
2004 for the noncompliance records in the data base that would
support my allegation. It was not until August 2005 after 1,000
noncompliance reports weighing over 16 pounds were turned over
to both AFGE and Public Citizen. These reports proved that the
information received was correct and that some beef slaughter
facilities were not complying with the SRM regulations.
Consequently on the same day that the records were released
I received written notification from the agency that they were
dropping their disciplinary investigations into the actions,
some 8 months after the investigation began. While I was
completely exonerated of this incident, it caused a chilling
affect on others in my bargaining unit to come forward and
stand up when agency management is wrong.
Inspector shortages. As you know both the Federal Meat
Inspection Act and the Poultry Product Inspection Act require
that FSIS provide continuous inspection in meat and poultry
facilities in the operation. Continuous inspection has come to
mean that in slaughter facilities FSIS inspectors must be
present at all times and to provide carcass-by-carcass
inspection.
In processing facilities FSIS inspectors must visit plants
at least once per shift. Unfortunately, we are experiencing
severe inspector shortages in many parts of the country and the
agency would seem to be very aware of those shortages.
In July 2007, the consumer group, Food and Water Watch,
submitted a Freedom of Information Act request that the agency
asking for in plant-inspection personnel vacancy data by FSA's
district for the 2007 fiscal year. Food and Water Watch
received this response in October 2007. While the data shows
some progress in filling inspection vacancies, it also shows at
the end of 2007 fiscal year FSIS was short 800 plant inspection
personnel, running a 10.25 percent national vacancy rate. There
was also wide variations in vacancy rates among the FSIS
districts, ranging from 6.03 in the Jackson district to a
whopping 21.25 percent in the Atlanta--excuse me, Albany
district.
These are not our numbers. These are the agency numbers.
These shortages are putting consumers at risk because FSIS
inspectors are not able to do a thorough job in inspecting meat
and poultry products because there is not enough of us to do
it.
In closing, I thank you for your attention and would be
happy to answer any of your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Painter follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.043
Ms. Shames. Chairman Kucinich----
Mr. Kucinich. I thank the gentleman. I just want the make
sure the record reflects that Ms. Shames' first name is Lisa.
And thank you very much for proceeding.
STATEMENT OF LISA SHAMES
Ms. Shames. Chairman Kucinich and members of the
subcommittee, I am pleased to be here today to discuss three
issues, FSIS recordkeeping related to the Humane Methods of
Slaughter Act [HMSA], challenges that FSIS faces, and more
generally the Federal oversight of food safety.
First, concerning FSIS recordkeeping, in 2004 we reported
that it was difficult to determine the extent of humane
handling and slaughter violations. We were told that some
inspectors did not always document violations because they were
unsure about regulatory requirements. In addition, FSIS could
not provide a complete set of records for the period we were
reviewing and the records that were available did not
consistently document the scope and severity of the violations.
For example, some cited ineffective stunning but did not
provide additional information on the cause or number of
animals affected.
We also reported that FSIS took inconsistent enforcement
actions. For example, in one case a plant's operations were not
suspended after 16 violations related to ineffective stunning.
In contrast, another plant's operations were suspended when it
failed to provide access to water and to maintain acceptable
pen conditions.
In response, FSIS has taken actions and issued additional
guidance. Among other things, this guidance clarifies the
categories for the types of causes of violations to be
reported. It also provides examples of egregious inhumane
treatment that would warrant immediate enforcement. However, we
have not assessed how effectively the guidance is being applied
in day-to-day operations.
Central to the purpose of today's hearing, greater
transparency in the meat industry, is that in 2002 the Congress
urged the Secretary of Agriculture to report annually on HMSA
violations and trends. However, FSIS last reported to the
Congress in March 2003. At that time FSIS indicated there were
very few infractions related to humane handling and slaughter.
However, our review of the records arrived at a different
finding. Whereas, FSIS sampled about half of the noncompliance
records, we reviewed them all and found that one-fourth
documented ineffective stunning.
I should note that in the last few years USDA has provided
some information at the request of House and Senate
Appropriation Committees as part of their budget process.
Second, regarding challenges, unlike the budgets of other
Federal agencies responsible for food safety, FSIS has seen a
marked increase since 1988, from $392 to $930 million. When
adjusted for inflation the increase is about 47 percent.
However, the number of FSIS employees has declined since fiscal
year 1995 by 4 percent. Agency officials attribute this overall
decline in part to industry consolidation. Vacancy rates for
its inspectors have declined to about 4 percent. But two
districts, Boulder and Des Moines, reported vacancy rates of
about 22 and 11 percent respectively.
During my site visits last week to two slaughterhouses in
Colorado, veterinarians told us that they were stretched thin
and often had to backfill for the inspectors. On a positive
note FSIS staff levels are estimated to grow in 2008.
As a backdrop the quantity of meat and poultry inspected by
FSIS has increased over the last 20 years from 65 to more than
100 billion pounds. This is due mostly to the expanding poultry
market. In addition, while the number of recalls has declined
from 125 to 58 in the last 5 years, the quantity of meat and
poultry recalled has sharply increased. Further, two of the
biggest recalls in U.S. history occurred in the last 6 months
at Tops and Westland/Hallmark Meat Companies.
Third, regarding the Federal oversight of food safety, 15
agencies collectively administer at least 30 food safety laws.
This fragmentation is a key reason we designated the Federal
oversight of food safety as a high risk area that needs
governmentwide reexamination. Over the last 30 years we have
reported on inconsistent oversight, ineffective coordination,
and inefficient use of resources.
Most noteworthy for today's hearing is that Federal funds
have not kept pace with the volume of foods regulated or
consumed by the public. We have reported that USDA receive most
of the Federal food inspection funds even though it's
responsible for about 20 percent of the food supply. In
contrast, FDA received about a quarter of the funds, even
though it is responsible for regulating about 80 percent of the
food supply.
Taken as a whole, now is the time to look across agency
programs. To that end GAO has recommended, among other things,
comprehensive and risk based food safety legislation, a
reconvened President's Counsel on Food Safety and a
governmentwide performance plan.
In conclusion, FSIS must assure the Congress that animals
are being handled and slaughtered humanely. In view of the
challenges FSIS faces, public reporting, including the annual
reports urged by the Congress, is in the public interest and
promotes transparency and government operations.
This concludes my statement, and I would be pleased to
respond to any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Shames follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.060
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much for your testimony. We
are now going to proceed with questions, and I would like to
begin with Dr. Raymond.
Dr. Raymond, USDA has said publicly and repeatedly that the
animal handling abuses and other violations documented at
Westland/Hallmark were an aberration, an isolated incident. Is
that your testimony today as well?
Mr. Raymond. Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned in my testimony,
we have done audits of the 18 plants that were contracted to
provide food to the Federal programs and we have increased our
surveillance in plants that also slaughter. And that's been
going on for about 45 days now, the increased surveillance.
When we did the audits, we found no evidence of this type of
egregious behavior fortunately. We did suspend inspection in 1
of the 18 plants because of repeated failures of adequate
stunning. That plant has corrected that problem and is now
operating again.
In the increased surveillance that we have done, we have
suspended inspections as a result of that, partly as a result
that. We haven't suspended inspections in 22 plants so far this
year. That's compared to 12 plants last year, but again they
were for situations such as inadequate pens, inadequate
stunning, etc. None of them were for the egregious behavior
that we saw in those videos from Hallmark.
Mr. Kucinich. Is it true that there's more than 600 plants
worth looking at, not just 18.
Mr. Raymond. The 18 that I referenced were the plants that
were contracted in March to provide food to the school lunch
program and other Federal programs. We are doing audits in all
of the plants and we are doing them systematically based on the
type of--the priorities we've established. For instance, the
old cull cows which are at the highest risk of inhumane
handling, the next set of plants we'll audit, we'll go through
every single one of our slaughter plants, yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Isn't it true that the USDA conducted two
audits at Westland/Hallmark in the past 3 years, one in 2005
and again in 2007, and that the 2005 audit cited minimal
infractions; namely, that the client used his electronic prod
excessively. The plant responded that the excessive use was due
to lack of battery power in the equipment and immediately
rectified this shortcoming. That's what we were told. Isn't
that true?
Mr. Raymond. That is true. There are also some other
shortcomings in the 2005 audit.
Mr. Kucinich. And in the 2007 audit isn't it true that the
audit noted no infractions and instead gave Westland/Hallmark
glowing reports?
Mr. Raymond. We noted no infractions and I don't know if I
would use the word ``glowing'' but we noted no infractions,
yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. And yet only a few months later the Humane
Society investigation revealed that the USDA's findings were a
dismal reflection of the underlying reality at Hallmark/
Westland?
Mr. Raymond. When we do the audits, sir, there are nine
specific areas we look at and then the overall system effect.
If we had seen this egregious behavior going on, of course they
would not have passed audit, they would not have had inspection
the rest of that day. We did not see that behavior going on.
The rest of the humane handling that we do enforce includes
safety, the pens, adequate water, shelter from inclement
weather.
Mr. Kucinich. You--at a press briefing we had Dr. Kenneth
Petersen saying that the FSIS believes this to be an isolated
incident of egregious violations of human handling requirements
and prohibition of non-ambulatory disabled cattle from entering
the food supply. This was said somewhat prematurely, wasn't it?
Mr. Raymond. I believe the egregious behavior that we saw
on those tapes was isolated. We are doing the increased
auditing to confirm that. We do not need to--perhaps it was
slightly premature to say that until we completed our audits
and our increased surveillance.
Mr. Kucinich. Those statements were made prior to the
completion of an audit?
Mr. Raymond. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. And so I want to go to Mr. Painter.
You are head of the union of USDA inspectors; is that
correct?
Mr. Painter. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to ask you the same question. Are the
animal handling abuses and other violations documented at
Westland Hallmark an aberration, an isolated incident?
Mr. Painter. I'm of the opinion, no.
Mr. Kucinich. Why or why not?
Mr. Painter. Because the agency has a policy enforced
across the Nation and were allowing and not only allowing, were
requiring plants to police themselves.
Mr. Kucinich. You are--repeat that.
Mr. Painter. Yes, sir. I'm saying that I do not believe
this is an isolated incident. The reason I'm stating this is
because of the HACCP program, Hazard Analysis and Critical
Control Program, where the agency has turned a lot of the
process over to the plants.
Mr. Kucinich. Is the agency sitting on regulatory
violations?
Mr. Painter. Excuse me. I'm sorry, would you repeat that,
please?
Mr. Kucinich. You made an assertion in your opening
statement that it wouldn't be the first time the agency sat on
information about regulatory violations and did nothing about
it.
Mr. Painter. That's--that's the truth.
Mr. Kucinich. And what do you have to base that on?
Mr. Painter. Yes, sir. That was based on information that
came to me back in the fall of 2004 regarding SRM violations.
And the--ones I brought this to the agency's attention, the
agency didn't want to admit there was a problem, placed me
under personal misconduct investigation for some 8 months, and
then finally produced over 1,000 documents actually stating
exactly what--what I had said. I see one of two things going
on. Either they knew it or they didn't know it. If they knew
it, they skirted the problem. If they didn't know it, then they
have a lot of explaining to do to Congress and the consumer
public.
Mr. Kucinich. Can you cite any information from your
recollection, discussions that you've had with any of your
members with respect to noncompliance reports being written and
companies using, as you state in your remarks, political muscle
to get noncompliance reports overturned at the agency level?
Mr. Painter. Yes, sir. I actually experienced that myself.
Mr. Kucinich. Tell me about that.
Mr. Painter. I have--I held product for an entire run one
night at a processing facility. I tagged the product, I
documented that noncompliance through NNR, and the plant called
their Congressman and worked through congressional channels to
get that product released.
Mr. Kucinich. And what happened as a result? You cited a
violation and you're saying that there was no enforcement
because an effort was made that was political in nature?
Mr. Painter. Correct.
Mr. Kucinich. Did that have an effect on the enforcement,
that there was a lack of enforcement consequently?
Mr. Painter. Well, it was told to me in the future, you
know, if this is the kind of process that's going to take
place, you know, if you see this in the future don't even
bother with it because it is going to go through the same steps
and be released.
Mr. Kucinich. So is it possible that inspectors could be
discouraged from doing their job if they think there will be
political influence overruling their judgment?
Mr. Painter. Yes, sir, most definitely.
Mr. Kucinich. This committee is very interested in any
document that you want to provide us with respect to--with
respect to what you've just said and with respect to any of the
other individuals who you are working with who have had their
inspections, data essentially overruled by what you described
as political interference. We take that very seriously and we
are going to need more information.
My time for asking questions has concluded on this round.
We're going to go to another Member, but we're going to come
back for one more round of questioning on this panel. I will go
to Mr. Issa.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, I think your line of questioning was a very good
start and hopefully I will just follow on. Dr. Raymond, an
answer that I asked for and was given from I believe USDA's
legislative person earlier tells us that in 1988 there were
7,600 Federal inspectors covering 6,900 establishments. Today
there's approximately 7,800 covering 6,200 establishments. Seem
about right?
Mr. Raymond. Yes, sir.
Mr. Issa. So about a 25 percent increase in population and
probably pretty proportional increase in consumption--perhaps
from our waist lines we consume a little more than
proportional--we haven't kept pace. The number of workers
clearly has not increased proportional to the population or to
the amount of food we consume. Would that be fair to say?
Mr. Raymond. Yes.
Mr. Issa. And then if we assume that the reason is because
you are leveraging technology and efficiencies, what are those
technologies and efficiencies that would allow us to believe
that part of the problem isn't simply not enough eyes on the
process?
Mr. Raymond. Yes, sir. First of all, I would preface my
response by saying of course we do not base the number of
inspectors on the population of the United States. That would
obviously not be a wise thing to do.
Mr. Issa. How about the population of the cattle, pigs and
chickens passing through the process?
Mr. Raymond. Yes, sir. What we have seen over the last 20
years is more of the meat and the poultry products passing
through larger plants where there are efficiencies of scale.
That 6,900 establishments that were present 20 years ago, if
you look at our records you will probably find that most of the
closures have been very small plants located primarily in very
rural areas. That was our--as Mr. Painter will tell you, a lot
of inspectors have plants, many plants that they inspect in 1
day, sometimes too many plants in 1 day due to inspector
shortages. I think that was in his written testimony. And so if
you have an inspector going to four plants in a day and driving
between each one of those plants, that inspector is spending a
lot of time on the road that we are paying for, but it's not
doing anything for the safety of the food supply. If one of the
four plants closes its doors, we're not going to need--that
inspector can do a better job in the three plants that are
left. So when we lose those plants it is not necessarily
technology, it is the fact that there is less travel time and
inspectors spend more time in the plants.
Mr. Issa. I appreciate that.
Mr. Painter, if we assume that there is for all practical
purposes a 1:1 ratio, one inspector per plant, it is slightly
better than that, but only slightly better, 1\1/2\ per, and we
assume people have vacation, they have sick leave, they have
training days, by the time you get through the available on any
1 day, there is probably less than 1 inspector per plant per
day in any way, shape or form available. Is it sufficient,
particularly in line with such things as forklifting a live
animal in what certainly did not seem to be an appropriate way
from my watching the video? Is there any way you can do
anything about that if you don't have cameras or some other
kind of data collection system? If in fact there's only one or
less inspector that can have eyes anywhere in a plant no matter
how large or efficient it is, you still only have one inspector
per day at the most at a plant.
Mr. Painter. Ranking Member Issa, we currently have at
least one visit per day in processing. Slaughter operations are
different, but you know you're going to have--in most slaughter
operations you're going to have three stations, you're going
have the head and the viscera and carcass station. So like in
the Westland/Hallmark situation, of the five people that were
there for inspection three of them were tied up every single
day on the slaughter line. That's required by law. A carcass-
by-carcass and bird-by-bird inspection is required by law. And
if there is a shortage, if someone is out as you mentioned due
to vacation or what have you and there is no one available to
take their place, that floor person has to go, that would
normally be in a position to go to the yard, you know, have
full range of the plant, things of that nature, would have to
go to the line. That would only leave one person on the floor
to do all animal mortem, to do all floor work, and to give the
required breaks and the necessary breaks that the inspectors
would actually need on the line.
And you know, we have had some locations, especially the
Northeast, that one inspector would be assigned 21 facilities
to go to. And I don't care if they are right across the street
from one another, you know, you cannot physically go to 21
facilities in a day. The agency has said well, we assigned
those people that job to do, so therefore that position was
covered.
Mr. Issa. And I'm hoping for a second round, but on that
round if I could just do a little followup. Technology in
addition to more human beings, let's just assume we gave you
enough people to have one inspector on each shift in each plant
without leveraging additional eyes, sensors, capability,
essentially other things do the checking and you check the
checking. If we don't do that, is there any way that you can
quantumly improve inspection to where you can say that events
such as the forklifting of a cow aren't occurring? And I say
this as someone who has been a manufacturer and ultimately our
entire process had to depend on our quality assurance people
being able to essentially train and trust people down the line
and then just check them. Don't you have a situation in which
today two sets of eyes, no matter even if you had 10 of them in
a plant there are things they are not going to see, don't you
need a quantum leap in the tools available to your inspectors
if we are going to begin to assure the public that these things
aren't going to go on?
Mr. Painter. Certainly I think that the agency and Congress
needs to explore different ways of doing and looking at things.
It was mentioned about video surveillance, and the question
that I would have would be who would then do the video
surveillance and who would maintain the cameras? We work in an
environment that is extremely hot, it's extremely cold, and
it's extremely wet. Could the video cameras survive in that
kind of arena?
But that is not going to show direct product contamination
that you would be looking for. That would not show product
contact surfaces that a person could physically go and look and
see and feel and be aware of what is happening.
But as far as the process with the humane slaughter,
certainly anything that would give us a position to be able to
monitor more closely would be helpful. Because I worked for
industry prior to becoming an FSIS inspector, and I see it even
today. Plants have radios, and they radio ahead and say the
inspector is coming. They tell when we're coming through the
gate that the guardspeople are told to notify the
superintendent that we are on the way.
Mr. Issa. Ms. Shames, perhaps, from your perspective, is
any of this something that from you past inspections that you
think you could weigh in on?
Ms. Shames. Certainly from our 2004 report we would want to
look at the noncompliance records and to see if, in fact, the
guidance that FSIS issued subsequent to our report was actually
taking some traction and, in fact, if there has been more
consistency and more thoroughness in the recording. And the
other thing we would be looking for is what USDA and FSIS in
particular is doing with that data to see if there are any
trends in terms of the violations, the causes, to then be able
to take any remedial action.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, and I look forward to another round.
But, Mr. Chairman, I certainly think that this is a great non-
gotcha type of hearing, one in which we are trying to figure
out and get answers to how we can improve safety, and I think
that is the most important thing this committee can do.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentlelady from
California, Diane Watson.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you also for
holding this important hearing, one of the largest beef recalls
in American history.
I'm interested in knowing, do we have to have an Inspector
General, Mr. Painter, come in and see if--say we had a video--a
video process where we could look in and see what is happening
on any normal day. Would we need something like that? Because
I'm going to associate it to the fact that we were over in
Korea and we were trying to establish free trade. Well, they
didn't want our beef because of mad cow; and I'm thinking they
really aren't going to want it when they find out that--some of
the processing and the tainted meat that is in these plants.
So I was sitting here listening to your testimony, the two
of you, and hoping that we could find a way, Mr. Chairman, to
enforce the transparency so we would not have to depend on
these, shall I say, spared visitations and the fact that I
understand that we are under supply of inspectors. And so would
we have to have some group come in to oversee?
Mr. Painter. Yes, ma'am. I am of the opinion, yes. Because,
like I said earlier, someone to be there to physically see what
is going on. Because I look at plant documentation, and then I
go into the plant. And you may have some trivial things
documented, a person that wasn't wearing a pair of gloves, you
know, and which may be a plant policy.
When you go into the plant and you may see beaded
condensation directly over product, you may see--you may find
fragments of metal and ice that go directly onto the product.
And certainly that is something that could not be detected
under video surveillance, those types of direct product
contaminations and the monitoring of surfaces as well for
direct product contact.
If someone knew they were under the eyes of a camera
regarding the video surveillance of the monitoring of the
antemortem pens, I think that would certainly help and
certainly be a deterrent. But I don't think it would totally
take the place of someone physically going to actually do the
antemortem to make sure that what is going on is going on.
I think we saw from the video a lot of these cattle came in
on the trailers, that they were actually trained to get off the
trailers, that they were, you know, trying to get them to stand
by using the batons, to hit them in the eyes and prodding them
and, you know, and the cattle just screaming. And, you know, it
is like if I could get up, I would. And, you know, if something
cannot physically get up, you know, that--money in my opinion
is the driving factor.
Ms. Watson. Let me ask Dr. Raymond. What would you think
about video surveillance and some overall agency like the
Inspector General taking a look on a random basis?
Dr. Raymond. First of all, the Inspector General, of
course, is taking a look. It is obviously not random. They are
taking a very long and thorough look at what did transpire at
the Hallmark/Westland meat company to try to figure----
Ms. Watson. Yeah, that one meat company.
Dr. Raymond. As far as video cameras, they are used by the
industry voluntarily. I can't tell you to what degree of the 18
plants that we did the audits that----
Ms. Watson. What would you think about compulsory----
Dr. Raymond. Pardon?
Ms. Watson. What would you think about compulsory?
Dr. Raymond. I would like to defer giving you my answer
until we are done with our----
Ms. Watson. I mean, what would you think about it? You
know, I know you're looking into it, but what would you think
about having video, you know, surveillance in all these plants?
Dr. Raymond. I think it would be very expensive to do it
right.
Ms. Watson. Oh, so you're going to look at--what about the
technology of it? Are you looking at the cost only?
Dr. Raymond. No, no, ma'am. But it is not as simple as a
camera. If you're going to do 24-hour----
Ms. Watson. I know all that. But what would you think about
having surveillance? I just want to get your opinion. Is it a
good way to monitor?
Dr. Raymond. Human eyes are a good way to monitor, also;
And if the human eyes are working well in the other 800
establishments----
Ms. Watson. I asked about video surveillance.
Dr. Raymond. Pardon?
Ms. Watson. I asked you about video surveillance.
Dr. Raymond. I don't think video surveillance can replace
the human factor. The human factor can detect things that video
surveillance cannot.
Ms. Watson. OK. And I understand that we are short
inspectors and the agency now, FSIS, is spread too thin at this
particular time; is that true?
Dr. Raymond. No, it is not, ma'am. Last year we asked for
and received $27.4 million so we could hire an additional 184
inspection work force. At this time, we are above that number.
In fact, in December, we were plus 220 inspectors from where we
had been the year before. We recognized the shortage last year,
and we came to you, and we asked for help, and we got the help.
And within about 6 months, we had hired those additional 184
inspectors, which I do believe gives us an adequate work force.
At the current time, we do have a vacancy rate of
approximately 6.1 percent. That is the lowest it has been since
I have been here, and we are continuing to hire.
Ms. Watson. These are the eyes you're just talking about.
Can these eyes do the kind of inspection that can catch the
tainting of the cattle and the mishandling and the working
below the standards? Do you have enough eyes now to do that?
Dr. Raymond. In this particular plant, we had five full-
time inspectors. We had no vacancies. We are trying to figure
out how this could happen.
Ms. Watson. No, not just that plant but the Food Safety and
Inspection Service within the Department of Agriculture. Do you
have an adequate number now?
Dr. Raymond. Yes, we do.
Ms. Watson. All right. And they are not stretched too thin?
Dr. Raymond. There are instances where we have temporary
shortages that they are stretched thin. Yes, I will acknowledge
that. Our goal is to avoid that.
Ms. Watson. OK. Do you think that--we're trying to look for
solutions; and if you will work with us on that, it would be
very helpful. Do you think video surveillance, then, can
complete that? If you do have vacancies, then we can use video
surveillance. Would that help out?
Dr. Raymond. At the current work force that we have today,
it would not. Because someone would have to spend their time
looking at that camera instead of doing some of the other
things----
Ms. Watson. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You know, I
mentioned--I opened up and said, do we need an oversight agency
like the Inspector General called in?
Dr. Raymond. And they are our oversight agency, and they do
do audits on a very regular basis of the Food Safety and
Inspection Service.
Ms. Watson. Everything is fine? We don't even need to
bother about this issue is what I'm hearing you say?
Dr. Raymond. No, ma'am. I said----
Ms. Watson. And you don't need anymore personnel?
Dr. Raymond. I said in my testimony that we are looking for
ways to always do better at the job that we do to guarantee----
Ms. Watson. That's what I'm trying to get you to help us
with.
Dr. Raymond. And you did, when I asked for $27.4 million so
I could hire----
Ms. Watson. So we have everything we need now. I am
wondering how Hallmark and Westland meat packing got into the
condition they are in if we have everything we need.
Dr. Raymond. We are wondering that, too, ma'am; and that's
why we are waiting anxiously for the OIG audit report to tell
us how this could happen.
Ms. Watson. I think my point is being addressed. And I'll
just explain to you, Mr. Chairman, I think that we need some
way to look at video surveillance to be used at the behest of
some agency. Because I don't think that there are enough
inspectors or they are inspecting regularly enough. I mean,
there is an expose on television all the time, and it is really
worrisome to me in terms of our food supply.
I see my red light on. But, anyway, I'd like us to discuss
that maybe at another time.
Mr. Kucinich. I think the gentlelady.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
You know, one of the things that concerns this subcommittee
and the Congress, actually, is that we are seeing what I call a
culture of mediocrity when it comes to the trust that--I mean,
when it comes to various agencies. We see it--I sit on the
Transportation Committee. We see it in the aviation folk who
are supposed to be inspecting planes, and they inspect some and
don't inspect others, and the ones they do inspect, they let
them fly. We have seen problems at the FDA. We have seen--when
it comes to accountability, this very committee has seen a lot
of problems with the spending in Iraq.
And, you know, the problem is that in Covey's book--Steve
Covey's book entitled The Dispute of Trust, he talks about how
when people lose trust, it slows the processes down.
And I have to tell you that when it comes to--I mean, while
our--you know, our Agriculture Department, the USDA, may be
doing the right things. Sadly, because of what we have seen in
this case and a few others, that trust is evaporating. And when
you think about something as massive as meat on dinner tables
and when you just think about just the supermarkets that sell
meat, the idea that we have to wonder about whether that meat
is fit for human consumption is a major, major, major, major,
major problem.
So, Ms. Shames, when the GAO investigated the practice by
the USDA in 2004, in a report entitled, ``Humane Methods of
Slaughter Act, the USDA has Addressed Some Problems but Still
Faces Enforcement Challenges.'' That is a long title. But can
you describe for us what recommendations GAO made in that
report and which of the recommendations were followed by the
USDA?
Ms. Shames. We made six recommendations in that report, and
they generally fell into two categories. The first category of
recommendations was to try to encourage that the reporting on
FSIS's part be more consistent and more detailed. So we
recommended that there be categories of violations to then
better be able to track what was going on. Because we had found
that there were inconsistencies.
We also suggested in another set of recommendations that
FSIS come up with a means to determine the resources that it
needed.
In response, as I said in my statement, FSIS has issued
some guidance. They have put in place information systems that
are to track the time that inspectors are spending on humane
activities. That was mentioned by Dr. Raymond. HPSD is one of
those systems.
One recommendation that I feel is outstanding is that we
recommended that FSIS do a needs assessment in terms of the
work force that it needs. We have been talking in the aggregate
in terms of whether or not FSIS has full staffing. That really
ought to be disaggregated and look in terms of the
veterinarians that it has, the food inspectors, as well as the
consumer safety inspectors. USDA data show that there are
pockets with some high vacancy rates, and that is something
that really I think needs to be done on a wholesale matter.
Again, it gets back to human capital challenges that are
typical for many Federal agencies.
Mr. Cummings. Now, let me make sure I'm clear what you're
saying. You said there were two categories. And I guess your
concerns came in that second category; is that right? Did you
have concerns in the first category?
Ms. Shames. The first category, guidance was issued. But
the caveat with that is that we haven't gone back to assess how
effectively that guidance is being applied. It is one thing to
issue the guidance. It is another thing to make sure that it
becomes inculcated in day-to-day operations.
Mr. Cummings. And how would that normally be done? Because,
see, you are getting to the very point that I just made. We can
put out all the regulations, put out all the laws we want, but
if we don't have anybody enforcing it, we might as well--I
mean, we might as well not write them. Is that what you are
basically saying?
Ms. Shames. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. I'm sure you would have said it better than
what I said it.
Ms. Shames. No, sir.
Mr. Cummings. So this piece, this second piece, the
second--that you just talked about a moment ago about the
personnel, how significant is that? In other words, you talked
about having--needing personnel. I mean, how important is that?
You talked about veterinarians.
Ms. Shames. It is absolutely critical. Because these are
the individuals that are really looking at the extent to which
animals are being treated humanely. It looks to the extent that
they are being slaughtered humanely. And, ultimately, it gets
to inspecting the meat as it is being processed. These people
are on hand to see what is going on as operations continue, so
it really is something that requires, you know, onsite
supervision, onsite presence.
Mr. Cummings. I see my time has run out. But just one other
thing. In 2000--this report came out in 2004; is that right?
Ms. Shames. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. And so you mean these recommendations or
these requests that you just talked about that fall into two
categories, you mean to tell me that, in 3 or 4 years, they
have not been carried out to the satisfaction of GAO?
Ms. Shames. That is not completely accurate.
Mr. Cummings. Well, make it completely accurate.
Ms. Shames. FSIS has implemented action in response to five
of the six recommendations, and GAO has closed them out. In
other words, we felt that the action was responsive to our
recommendations. There is still one open one. We've been
discussing with FSIS the actions that we have taken. We're
still evaluating to determine if that was really in the full
spirit of----
Mr. Cummings. And what was that you're still evaluating?
Ms. Shames. It is the last recommendation, and let me read
it to you. Is that FSIS periodically assess whether the
staffing level is sufficient to effectively enforce the Humane
Methods of Slaughter Act.
Mr. Cummings. And can you tell us whether you can assess
whether USDA's response to your recommendations have been
adequate? So you said you closed them out. Does ``close them
out'' mean, you know, you got 100 percent and I give you an A?
Or does it mean that we think you tried, but we are not sure,
but we know you tried? What does that mean?
Ms. Shames. To close out a recommendation is that an agency
was responsive. We don't give any credit for trying or for
wanting to do something. In our evaluation, the agency was
responsive to what we wanted. We do not close out
recommendations if it is not clear to us that it was fully
implemented or that they took one step but not carry it out to
the degree that we expected.
Mr. Cummings. And that is where the No. 6 recommendation
that you just talked about formed?
Ms. Shames. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Kucinich. Dr. Raymond, did you testify today that you
believed those bad practices at Westland/Hallmark were an
aberration? Did you not say that?
Dr. Raymond. I said we were doing enhanced surveillance in
all of our slaughter plants, and we're doing the audits to try
to determine for sure that was an aberration. I do not believe
I said----
Mr. Kucinich. Were they an aberration or not? Were they or
were they not an aberration, the practices at Westland/
Hallmark?
Dr. Raymond. I know of no other plants that have had that
type of activity, but we are trying to determine to make
certain that was an aberration, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Painter, did you testify that you believe
that the violations evidenced at Westland/Hallmark were not an
isolated incident? Did you say that or did you not?
Mr. Painter. I'm of the opinion, yes, that is correct.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, members of the committee, it is
troubling to hear two different answers. What is the American
public to think when they hear that the top management of the
regulatory agency says one thing, while the head of the
inspectors of that regulatory agency says another? Mr. Painter.
Mr. Painter. I would say, with all due respect, that Dr.
Raymond is not in touch with the field; and as I have worked in
the field and I continue to work in the field, with all due
respect, I don't think he is in touch with the field.
Mr. Kucinich. Dr. Raymond, let's go to the May 2007, audit
and discover what serves as a basis for your previous opinion
that Westland/Hallmark was in compliance with humane animal
handling laws. How much of the May 2007, audit's findings and
conclusions is based on direct observation by USDA auditors and
how much is based on assertions made by plant's management?
Dr. Raymond. The auditing was there for the full day; and
observations were made of the handling of, I believe, 100 head
of cattle. Observations were made in improvements that were
made in the safety of the pens based on recommendations from
the previous audit. Some observations were made of stunning--
inadequacy of stunning. There were also--you know, there was
input from the plant regarding some paperwork that is required
that we did review. We were there for just that 1 day, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Let's get into this a little bit more. Let's
talk about some specific findings.
The audit notes that, ``per establishment managers, all
employees who handle livestock get humane training at least
monthly.'' Again, per establishment managers. However, in a
conversation with subcommittee staff, the Humane Society
undercover investigator said he never received any formal
training. Instead, a plant manager gave him an employee
handbook and an informal run-through the materials which lasted
about 5 minutes. So, Dr. Raymond, were your auditors right to
believe what plant management reported or were they not right
to believe what plant management reported?
Dr. Raymond. They had no evidence or reason at that
particular time to not believe what the plant reported to them.
Mr. Kucinich. Was it sufficient to base their assessment on
the assertion of the plant management? Is that sufficient?
Dr. Raymond. Our assessment was of the humane handling
system of that plant and the physical plant. Our assessment
does not involve how many hours or how much detail is spent in
training the employees. It is the outcome. It is the results
that we are interested in.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, isn't it true that the video makes it
indisputably clear that Westland/Hallmark violated Federal law?
Dr. Raymond. Yes, it does, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, a picture is worth a thousand words;
and, in this case, the words of plant management weren't worth
very much, were they?
Dr. Raymond. That's correct, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. So, in light of this, you should be able to
answer confidently that FSIS inspectors should have done more
to determine compliance, rather than just take management's
word for it. Is that or is that not correct, Dr. Raymond?
Dr. Raymond. In the May audit, there was no evidence of any
inhumane animal handling that we found at the time of the
audit. And so to assume plant management is telling the truth,
I think you have to have an element of trust.
Mr. Kucinich. Are you saying that the circumstances in May
and November are not related, then?
Dr. Raymond. No, I'm not, sir. But I'm--of all the audits
that we do, of all the plants that we are in, for all the
reasons that we are, we have to have a working relationship
with plant management. We have to have an element of trust, but
we are there to verify that trust. In this case, we were--we
did not verify that we shouldn't be trusting them, and we're
trying to find out why that happened.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Painter, trust--you're an inspector.
When--can inspectors just go to the plant, and the plant says
trust me?
Mr. Painter. We are to work with the plant to meet
regulatory compliance, but the plants are there to make a
profit. We are there to regulate the people. And, as I
testified to earlier, what you see in the plant does not look
like their documentation. So, you know----
Mr. Kucinich. What does that mean, then? If it doesn't look
like their documentation, what are you suggesting?
Mr. Painter. Their documentation, if any, will show minimal
or trivial issues, nothing that would be major, nothing that
would get them shut down, nothing that would produce major
violations.
Mr. Kucinich. Do they know you're coming?
Mr. Painter. Oh, without a doubt. I have physically been
standing by a supervisor in a plant before, and I am hearing
the radio, beware, Stan is coming your way.
Mr. Kucinich. If you show up announced, is that any
different than if you show up unannounced?
Mr. Painter. Well, I was trained as an inspector that you
do two things. No. 1, you be consistent on your calls. If you
call a violation today, you call it tomorrow. And you be
inconsistent on your visits. But we--especially in processing
facilities, we are one person, and they have radios, and the
supervisors, you know, let each other know when you're coming
when you come in the door.
Mr. Kucinich. So if they know when you're coming, they can
talk together and say, hey, watch what you are doing when the
inspectors are here? Does that happen?
Mr. Painter. Yes, it happens. It happens often. And, as I
said earlier, I worked for industry prior to becoming an--
becoming an FSIS employee and, you know, I kind of know the
inside workings of the plant operations.
Mr. Kucinich. These May and November incidents, are they
comparable? The May incident, November incident that this
committee has been talking about, are they comparable?
Mr. Painter. I'm sorry. Could you be more specific, please?
Mr. Kucinich. Let me go on. I want to talk about the--given
your extensive experience at slaughterhouses--the USDA audit
notes that, per establishment managers, if a nonambulatory cow
is on a trailer and arrives at night, it is euthanized in its
place by an establishment employee. However, the undercover
investigator explained to my staff, in many instances, that
downer cows were stacked on one side of the truck, that were
dragged off--and that were dragged off the truck, rather than
euthanized. What do you have to say about that?
Mr. Painter. That doesn't surprise me at all.
Mr. Kucinich. Dr. Raymond, were plant managers telling the
truth to your auditors?
Dr. Raymond. No, they were not, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Let me point out another incident to you, Dr.
Raymond. In a 2007 audit, the USDA notes that, per
establishment managers, a number of changes have been made to
address the non-compliance and concerns--that is about the
excessive prodding--identified during a previous verification
visit. In contrast, the undercover investigator told my staff
he had personally witnessed the electric prods that were
systematically, rather than exceptionally, used on animals
while they are in the chute. Dr. Raymond, were the plant
managers telling the truth to your auditors?
Dr. Raymond. No, they were not, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. So would you say that your auditors rely on
assertions made by the management of the plant they are
auditing to draw conclusions about compliance with the law? In
other words, your enforcement of humane animal handling laws
relies on the self-interested assertions of management of the
plant that you are auditing; isn't that right?
Dr. Raymond. No, It is not--it's not--no, it is not, sir.
That's why we have the inspection work force in those plants on
a continuous basis when the plant is operating, so we can
verify what the plant is telling us.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Issa.
Mr. Issa. Dr. Raymond, I know your answers are not
necessarily as somebody skilled in business practices and what
is in the good--best interests of a beef slaughterhouse or any
other kind of operation, but you certainly can appreciate a
couple of things, and I'll run you through them, and if you
feel uncomfortable answering them, just tell me.
But whether it is bone chips, metal chips in hamburger or
E. Coli in beef products, including hamburger, isn't it
basically in the slaughterhouse's best interest to catch that?
I mean, essentially, there is nothing to be gained by sloppy
work that leads to large-scale recalls or shutdowns of their
facility on a net basis, wouldn't you say?
Dr. Raymond. Absolutely. And the great majority of our
slaughterhouses and processing plants would agree with you,
also.
Mr. Issa. Although I have never visited this
slaughterhouse, I have been to the one in Brawley in the 2003/
2004 timeframe. It is a co-op unit but very large. And, you
know, I was impressed. I had worked for a rabbi growing up in
Cleveland in a very small slaughterhouse and, by definition,
attempting to be humane. And--but I was impressed with the
professionalism, the chemicals, their cleaning cycles,
everything they did to try to make sure that, on a 24-hour
cycle basis, they delivered absolutely safe meat products.
Can we and should we as a government either assist them in
some way or mandate them in some way that they improve the
tools at their disposal so that, in fact, they can catch these
problems?
And I'm going onto the food safety for a moment and leaving
humane for a moment. But these large-scale recalls,
particularly of hamburger, although it is not your area, the
widespread recall of spinach last year--or year before last--in
which we knew or should have known where it came from and yet
we recalled it all, aren't these all signs that the Federal
Government needs to intervene at some level to assist or to
promote behavior that is in their best interest?
Dr. Raymond. Yes, sir. And I do believe that we actively do
intervene with the industry, sometimes through recommendations,
sometimes through rules and regs and sometimes through statute.
And I find the industry for the most part to be very
cooperative. They do want a safe product. They do not want the
embarrassment or the cost of a recall, and they certainly do
not want people getting sick from eating their product and
losing confidence. As Mr. Cummings mentioned, confidence is
important. It is not important when you keep reading about
recalls.
Mr. Issa. You know, I guess it was now a year before last
when the tainted or E. Coli-tainted spinach was recalled.
Although that is not your side of USDA. My understanding, we
knew right down to the field based on the bags where it came
from. And yet I was told there wasn't sufficient confidence in
the data base to only recall that product but, rather, we
recalled it all. And for several weeks there was no spinach
available anywhere in America.
On the government side, on your side of the house, can you
say with confidence that wouldn't or shouldn't happen with meat
products, that you can--you do have the tools you need or the
industry provides the tools that would allow you to isolate
these problems down to only the area of recall that needs to
occur?
Dr. Raymond. We aren't there yet. We're getting there. We
are doing better. We have more tools now than we had a while
back.
The spinach was discovered because of something called
PulseNet, which is a cooperative venture between the USDA, the
FDA and the CDC. It used to be those were sporadic outbreaks,
never linked to a farm in California.
It is the same with beef. Oftentimes, we have a recall that
is for 1 day's lot production or sometimes even just a portion
of a day's production based on recordkeeping of the plants.
Other plants, unfortunately, have recordkeeping that is less
than stellar.
An example would be the recall for Tops last year that went
back for a whole year, and that was because of inadequate
recordkeeping. When that happens in a plant, our confidence
goes down, the recall gets big, and the plant generally closes.
But, again, if you look at our recalls, you'll see many of
them are for one production date from one plant. And we do the
best we can, and we try to trace back from not only the
processing plant that may have been in the hamburger, but the
slaughter plant that provided the carcass that was contaminated
with E. Coli as a result of the slaughter process. We try to
get upstream and work with those plants, also. So sometimes
there will be two recalls due to one product.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, today, RFID chips can cost roughly a
dollar a chip, but there are new technologies that have been
publicized with a 10 cent RFID chip. Do you believe that this
Congress and this government should start looking at that level
of unique IDs so that in fact--we'll call it 10 cents a bulk
package or perhaps even 10 cents an individual package--we can
track with specificity a serial number that can be
electronically checked right at the checkout register?
Dr. Raymond. If you're talking about animal ID, at this
particular time, animal ID, in the opinion of the USDA, is it
is a voluntary program, and it is growing on a regular basis
with a number of establishments.
As far as establishing food as it goes through the chain to
where it can be identified at the store where it was bought, I
have seen that technology. I do not--I do not know that we have
taken any particular position on that at this point in time.
Mr. Issa. If you don't mind, when you go back, if you can
see what additional thoughts you have on the feasibility.
Because I'm very interested in whether or not the ID systems
that, for example, UPS and FedEx use so successfully to tell
you exactly which truck and which location, even down to a GPS
coordinate your package is, it seems like if the private sector
is doing that in one area, can we as the government implement
it or cause it to be implemented so as to dramatically reduce
the amount of a recall if, in fact, what we are talking about
is one shift line, one part of 1 day?
Dr. Raymond. We can look into that. I believe anything we
can do to make recalls more efficient, more effective is good.
I don't like recalls, but as long as we are going to have them,
I want to make sure we do them better.
We're having a 2-day summit in May where we'll bring all of
our public health partners, the consumers and industry together
to take a look at that specific topic. And we also, of course,
as most everyone in this room knows, are trying to get a final
rule to be published that would identify retail stores, the
time of a recall; and I believe that would be another benefit
to the consuming public.
Mr. Issa. OK. Last question for me on this round.
The test for E. Coli particularly, getting tests that are,
if you will, more advanced, whether they are chemical, electro
fiber optic, whatever, so that we can be looking right down to
the meat slicer as it passes the assembly line, the whole
process, how much--and I know that is not, per se, your exact
line, but it is obviously symbiotic to you. How much of that
should Congress be funding? How should we do it? How soon can
we see, if you will, advancements that would allow us to know
that food safety--essentially, that a food hasn't gone bad or
hasn't been tainted in a more advanced way than we do today so
that we could, you know, essentially get down to quality
control, sort of like when you want to candle an egg to figure
out, you know, whether it is good or not. Do we have that
technology on the horizon and should we be contributing to that
process?
Dr. Raymond. That technology, sir, you do contribute to;
and it is improving. The research service which is part of the
USDA is doing extensive research in that area which Congress is
funding. You're also funding us for the large amount of
surveying that we do, the surveillance that we do through
testing for listeria, monocytogenes, escherichia Coli 157:H7,
salmonella, campylobacter and other pathogens and residues.
When I say it is getting better, it wasn't too many years
ago that it took at least 48 hours to turn around an E. Coli
test. That is a long time for a plant to hold product,
especially if it is a large plant that is making maybe a
million pounds of ground beef a day. And that is product they
have to have refrigeration for, and they certainly aren't
selling it, and it is becoming less fresh on a daily basis.
We now have that technology down to what we use is about 8
hours. I have had industry come in and show me a 4-hour test
that could be turned around. You know, if we can get to where
we do that in the plant, then all plants should hold and test
the product.
We had 21 recalls last year for E. Coli, and 11 of those
were for a product that tested positive. There were no
illnesses associated with that we know of, but it was out in
commerce, and we know that it tested positive. If we could get
all plants to hold and test by having more rapid technology
that could be done in plant, that is 11 recalls that aren't
going to happen and that is 11 times the American public won't
be exposed to that.
So, yes, sir, you are helping us, and I thank you for that,
and we are making progress.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Doctor. And I hope we can underline
this part, that, in fact, if there is a 4-hour test we could,
in fact, see 100 percent testing before hamburger and other
appropriate meats leave the plant so that we would prevent, as
you said, 11 recalls that occurred last year.
Mr. Kucinich. I thank the gentleman.
The Chair recognizes Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Chairman, I was sorry that I was late
coming in.
But, Mr. Painter, when I came in, I thought I heard you
talking about your personal experiences with the agencies and
their treatment of whistle-blowers. And we don't have to go
over all of that, but I think you said that the chilling effect
of the inspection or the investigation of the whistle-blower
allows bad practices to continue.
And, Dr. Raymond, in speaking with you, you mentioned the
cost when I talked about video surveillance. I'm curious to
know why the focus would be placed more on the whistle-blowers
than on the procedures that are used in these slaughterhouses.
Why are the whistle-blowers investigated? You can't trust them
or you feel that they are not really doing thorough inspections
enough? What is going on there?
Mr. Raymond. Well, Ms. Watson, this is one area where Mr.
Painter and I do have a difference of opinion, although we
agree on a lot of things, and I think we work together well.
I'll give you some examples.
Last year, we suspended 66 plants. That is 66 plants that
didn't have inspections, so they could not process, could not
slaughter. That is a huge economic impact on those plants. And
that is because of the good work of our inspection work force
that found reasons to suspend.
Of those 66 suspensions, 12 of those were in slaughter
plants for non--for inhumane handling practices. That is an
inspection work force that is seeing something that is
egregiously wrong and saying, we are going home. You're shut
down for the rest of the day. Those cows in the pen, you'll
have to find something else to do with them, because we're
going home.
And I don't believe the entire work force is cowering from
us. I get regular e-mails from our work force telling me things
they want to see done differently. I don't think they are
afraid to e-mail me.
I don't know Mr. Painter's experience back in 2004. I was
not here then. He and I have talked about it.
Ms. Watson. Let me see if I can make a distinction between
those special forces and a whistle-blower. Do you make a
distinction between the two? Is the whistle-blower in a
different category than these special forces?
Dr. Raymond. A whistle-blower is someone--I don't know the
exact definition--but is someone that sees something that is
wrong and wants to bring it to someone's attention who can
correct it. And Mr. Painter used the example of inadequate
removal of specified risk materials, of which there were 1,000
noncompliance reports written out of 8 million procedures done
that year. That is 1,000 times our inspectors saw a problem and
wrote it up.
As long as we want to talk about whistle-blowers, if Mr.
Painter has evidence, as he has indicated, that there is
egregious behavior going on in plants like we saw on this
Hallmark, it is their obligation to bring that to our
attention. So that is inhumane handling, and it is against the
law, and we will act on it if it is brought to our attention.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Painter, maybe you can help me understand.
Because I hear a little difference between what is perceived as
a whistle-blower and a special force. Can you help me
understand the difference?
Mr. Painter. Yes, ma'am. Not only in my case but in other
cases as well, this agency has traditionally gone after the
whistle-blower; and there is a definite distinction between the
whistle-blower and the agency taking regulatory action on
something, you know, based on noncompliance reports and things
of that nature.
You know, when you go directly to someone in Washington and
tell them there is a problem and they don't want to look into
the problem, they only want to investigate the individual--I
went through 9\1/2\ hours of interrogation and interviews based
on this issue; and, instead, the agency should have been out
looking at the problem instead of trying to haul me in to
interrogate.
And there has been a number of people in the field that
have said my inspectors that I represented, they say we don't
want to have to be hauled into Washington to have to go through
what you went through.
Ms. Watson. What really bothers me--I'm a consumer born in
the city. You know, I don't go out to slaughter plants, hardly
know what a cow looks like except what I see on a milk carton,
you know. But what does bother me--I watch a lot of television
and get caught up--you know, there is always a revelation of
what is going on in these places.
And I really think our food supply is very vulnerable at
this particular point. We talk about protection of our homeland
from terrorists. Boy, if they can put a few of these people in
our slaughterhouses and allow for poisoning and contamination,
we are in real trouble; and, as a consumer, I think we need to
really, really focus the light on this. So that is why I
started off asking about video surveillance. To me, that is
focusing the light on.
And, Dr. Raymond, you said the cost. Well, you know, you
have to choose priorities. That is what we do. We, the
policymakers, have to set priorities in our budget; and I don't
think there is any other higher priority than protecting the
integrity of our food supply.
If somebody sees something wrong and reports it, why would
you spend all that time and money investigating the whistle-
blower and not the problem that the whistle-blower is
identifying? Can you explain that to me? As I said, I'm an
urban dweller. I don't know a lot about this.
Dr. Raymond. I'll try to do it from a--coming from a
slightly different angle.
In this particular plant, Hallmark, in the largest meat
recall in history, which I hated to be the undersecretary
during that time, it was not about food safety. It was not
about tainted meat. It was about a plant that did not follow
the rules. And because the plant did not follow the rules, we
took swift and decisive action and pulled the inspection from
that plant; and, of course, it has since gone out of business.
It was not about food safety. It was about rules and
regulations. We had five inspectors there for food safety----
Ms. Watson. Hold on. I need to understand. What are the
rules and regulations? They all go to food safety, don't they?
Dr. Raymond. In this particular----
Ms. Watson. They all go to food safety, don't they? Yes or
no?
Dr. Raymond. I don't know that I would say yes.
Ms. Watson. Why do you promulgate standards when you're
working with food and they don't go to keeping that food safe,
the integrity of that food?
Dr. Raymond. The majority are for food safety. Some are for
our workers' safety. Some are for--you know, for--the majority
is for food safety, yes.
Ms. Watson. So the product that they produce will be safe
for consumers. I'm one of those consumers.
Dr. Raymond. Yes, ma'am. So am I.
Ms. Watson. So I think we are talking about the same thing.
And if--OK, let me have you go ahead. I'm trying to really
understand this.
Dr. Raymond. If they did not follow our rules, it was a
rule that was put there for food safety, yes, as part of an
interlocking system which I will go into, if you would like me
to. But, first, I really want to say this was a humane handling
issue. It was not a food safety issue. Our inspectors----
Ms. Watson. Humane handling is a food safety issue? Is
humane handling of cattle a food safety issue? Humane handling?
Dr. Raymond. Humane handling is--yes, it can be. Our five
inspectors that were there were not only in charge of humane
handling, but they are also there to make sure that the Federal
Meat Inspection Act was being followed and that our rules and
regulations were being followed.
In the last 3 years, those inspectors condemned about
16,000 cows that went into that plant because of very obvious
food safety issues, diseases, tainted meat, etc. That is 1 out
of every 20 cows that went in there did not enter the food
supply that you and I would eat. On a very rare occasion there
was a cow that did enter the food supply that had been examined
by the veterinarian, was considered to be healthy enough to
enter the food supply and then subsequently went down and did
not get back up.
And by our rules, the only way that animal can enter the
food supply is that the veterinarian comes back out and
determines there was an acute injury, and they did not follow
that step, and that's what the recall was all about. It
wasn't--it wasn't about the stuff that we saw on the video with
those cows that were terribly old and terribly sick and
terribly weak that were being terribly mishandled. Those cows
did not go into our food supply.
Ms. Watson. Well, taken as a whole, I would think that
standards are a major part of the inspection to be sure we have
a product out there that we believe has integrity. I think
following standards--you've got to take this all as a whole.
Mr. Painter, why do you think that you were under such
interrogation for 8 hours? Was there intimidation involved?
Mr. Painter. Most definitely, from the get-go, you know.
Ms. Watson. Why?
Mr. Painter. I'm sorry?
Ms. Watson. Why?
Mr. Painter. Like I said earlier, I have been with this
agency almost 23 years; and, in my career, anytime that a
person has blown the whistle regarding a problem, the agency
has always, always gone after the whistle-blower. And I have--
you know, instead of looking at the problem, they go after the
whistle-blower. And it seems to me that the reason--I can't--I
can just speculate as to a reason why it is easier to shut that
one individual up or a few individuals versus make a change
nationwide.
Ms. Watson. Because it might mean a matter of their profit,
right?
Mr. Painter. It could be for plants, correct.
Ms. Watson. You know, I have really been concerned lately
about the greed factor in this capitalistic system of ours in
many other areas beside consumable goods, edible consumable
goods. There is a greed factor. And the more I look at this--
and, remember, I'm the city girl. The more I look at this, the
more I see that we are really not focusing on the integrity of
the product that comes out of the slaughterhouse and we are
looking on, you know, let's just keep things as they are, guys,
and look the other way. That is what I'm hearing from you.
Now if you want to try to narrow my perception and get it
more along with yours, speak up. Because I'm hearing that we
would rather protect these plants rather than the people that
we send in to inspect them and we take that input and we start
doing something about the problems.
I'm horrified when I hear about these recalls, because I'm
seeing how many thousands and ten thousands of consumers have
taken these products believing that stamp on them means that
they are OK. And what will the effect on whatever the product
is, if it is edible, what is the effect going to be? And so I'm
wondering how do they get by with this so long until somebody
blows the whistle and they get caught.
So what I'm hearing today is that the whistle-blower is the
one that is looked at and intimidated and maybe the message
there is that, you know, just keep still.
Mr. Kucinich. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I'm going to be very brief, but I have to
tell you I'm confused. I mean, I have listened to this
testimony, and I have tried to kind of put it together, and
there is something wrong with this picture.
On the one hand, we have our witness from the GAO talking
about an employee problem; and I guess she is still trying to
figure that out. And when I came in, Mr. Raymond, you were
talking about how wonderful it is that you have all the
employees you need and all the inspectors you need; is that
right? Am I correct about that, Mr. Raymond? Do you have enough
inspectors? You were ranting about it when I came in here.
Dr. Raymond. Yes, we are always re-assessing our needs. But
at this particular point in time, I feel confident in saying
that we have the inspection work force that we need, sir.
Mr. Cummings. And I'm looking at this report from Ms.
Shames; and this is dated Thursday, April 17, 2008. And I'm
looking in this report; and it says some very interesting
things, Mr. Raymond. It says--on page 8, it says, while FSIS's
budget authority has significantly increased since the late
1980's, the number of SIS employees has declined. It is shown,
in figure 2, for fiscal year 1995 to fiscal year 2007, the
number of full-time employees at FSIS fell from 9,600 to about
9,200, or 4 percent. Vacancy rates across FSIS have declined
about 7 percent. OK. That is OK.
Then let's go to page 10. It says, meat and poultry
consumption in the United States has increased sharply. The
quantity of meat and poultry inspected and approved by the
agency has increased from about 65 billion pounds in 1988 to
more than 100 billion pounds in 2007.
And I'm just trying to figure out--on the one hand, Ms.
Shames, you're saying that you question whether or not there
are enough employees or you just haven't been given enough
information yet.
Ms. Shames. Right.
Mr. Cummings. So you don't even--although you're sitting
here today and Dr. Raymond is--is this your first knowledge
that they have enough employees? I mean, has somebody told you
all, GAO, we have enough employees before today?
Ms. Shames. We were going by the data that was presented by
the USDA in the government's budget, and those are the trend
lines that we presented in the statement today.
Mr. Cummings. You've got to keep your voice up. I'm sorry.
Ms. Shames. I'm sorry. The data that we present in the
statement today are from the U.S. budget. So these are actual
figures that USDA has reported.
Mr. Cummings. So help me, Dr. Raymond. Help me with this. I
know I'm missing something.
Dr. Raymond. First of all, sir, there are a lot fewer
plants today than there were back in 1995, where this reference
is to--that the GAO had made. A lot fewer plants, a lot more
efficiencies, a lot larger plants. It doesn't take as many
inspectors to do the poundage that goes through a large plant
as it does inspectors to take care of very small plants where
they have to travel from plant to plant to plant.
Mr. Cummings. I want you to hold that thought right there.
I don't want you to lose your train of thought. I want you to
hold it.
Because you've got sitting right next to you Mr. Painter,
and he is shaking his head as if it is going to fall off. So I
need to hear what he has to say, and then I want to hear your
other points so I can hear what he has to say.
Because this is what it is about. We are trying to get to
the truth. Because people's lives depend on it. And I just want
to hear the truth because we cannot solve a problem unless we
know what we are dealing with. And there is something wrong
with this picture. Something doesn't smell right. No pun
intended.
Mr. Painter. Yes, sir. And I appreciate you. My body
language is hard to hide.
Mr. Cummings. It is all right. You were dancing then.
Mr. Painter. I can tell you where the money is going. The
20 to 25 percent of the budget--I mean, 20 to 25 of the numbers
the agency give you are management people. They are management
people that are not doing any inspectional duties in the field.
You know, a number of years ago, the first President Bush
gave a mandate, cut numbers in Washington. They did. They just
sent them all to Omaha, Nebraska, and developed a technical
service center. And I would imagine President Bush's mindset
was cut numbers, period. They just moved them. And, you know,
we have basically one manager for every three field inspectors.
That is where the money is going. The money is increasing, but
every time the money increases, we see more managers.
Mr. Cummings. And so what you are saying is you need more
field inspectors?
Mr. Painter. Yes, sir, that is correct.
Mr. Cummings. And how did you come to that conclusion and
why do you say that?
Mr. Painter. Well, it is the agency's numbers. The agency
just printed in a publication called the Beacon. It is a
publication that comes out monthly, and it gives the breakdown.
It gives the breakdown of how many field inspectors that you
have. And in a recent publication of the Beacon, there were
9,996 employees, and about 7,500 of those employees were field
inspectors. So, therefore, approximately one-fourth of the
agency is management people, which the field inspectors are--
about 75 percent of the field inspectors are GS-7s. You know,
they start out as a 5, and after a year you go to a 7.
And, you know, the agency first started the districts in
1997, and there was a district manager and one deputy. Now in
some locations you have as many as five levels of district
managers at GS-14 and GS-15 pay making $100,000 a year. There
is where the budget is going.
Mr. Cummings. And I would take it that what we need is--and
so if you had more field inspectors--and correct me if I'm
wrong--we could do more inspections? Is that a conclusion--a
reasonable conclusion?
Mr. Painter. That is correct. For what we are paying one
deputy district manager in a district office, we could hire
about four field inspectors.
Mr. Cummings. And that makes a big difference, doesn't it?
Mr. Painter. It most certainty does, yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Now we are back to you, Dr.
Raymond. Go ahead. I want to make sure that we stay on target
here. I don't--you know, we just have one time to do this
hearing, so I want to make sure we get all the information out.
Dr. Raymond. Well, as I mentioned, there are a lot fewer
plants now than there were. So that takes a lot fewer
inspectors.
Mr. Cummings. But does it take a lot more of these
managers?
Mr. Kucinich. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Cummings. Yes. Of course.
Mr. Kucinich. I just want to point out something to my
colleague in light of the GAO report. The GAO report says that
the quantity of meat and poultry inspected and passed by USDA
has grown. So you might have less plants. People aren't eating
less meat and poultry unless they are vegans. Now, Mr.
Cummings, I just want to point that out, because that is quite
germane to your line of questioning there. You know, I don't
want to say that the gentleman is not forthcoming when he says
that. But, you know, you have to admit that this report by GAO
is correct when they are saying that the quantity is growing.
You might have fewer plants, but you have more quantity.
Dr. Raymond. Yes, sir. And the great majority----
Mr. Kucinich. I yield back to the gentleman. Thanks.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Go on, please. No, I want to hear this.
Dr. Raymond. Of our plants that we have, about 2,500, 2,500
are very small plants. These are plants of 10 or fewer
employees. Another 2,500 are small plants. And then we have a
small number, less than 1,000, that are large plants. But the
large plants are becoming larger and more popular and more
frequent.
The very small plants are visited by a roving inspector
once a day, once a shift; and they spend a lot of time on the
road driving from plant to plant. So if you have four small
plants that each are making 10,000 pounds of hamburger a day,
that's 40,000 pounds of hamburger that is inspected by that
inspector. If those four plants close and the big plant down
the road starts slaughtering those few cows, that is just a
little bit more ground beef out of the overall product that is
done in that plant. It is more efficiencies----
Mr. Kucinich. Will my friend yield one more time.
Mr. Cummings. Of course.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to share with my friend these numbers.
11981--181 inspectors for 7 billion pounds of meat, excuse me,
that's 1 billion. That's 1 billion--is that right, 1 billion?
181 inspectors, to 1 billion pounds of meat. In 2007, 88
inspectors to 1 billion pounds of meat. I just want to share
that with my friend.
Mr. Cummings. Why is that?
Mr. Raymond. If a plant is slaughtering 400 cows an hour.
And when you go to a public health veterinarian to observe
those cows in motion to declare them fit for consumption and he
does it 8 times a day observing those cattle in motion, that's
one public health veterinarian doing that work. If there is a
plant that slaughters 10 cows, and one plant that slaughters 20
cows in another town that probably has to get the both of those
to examine 30 cows for his day's work as compared to examining
4,000 cows in a large plant. It is efficiencies.
Mr. Cummings. And I--OK, I understand.
Mr. Raymond. The other thing I would like to mention, sir,
just to make sure it is on the record, that last year we did
request from Congress $27.4 million to hire 184 more front line
inspectors, primarily GS-7s and 5s. And that did increase our
work force. We acknowledged that we were short, we worked with
Mr. Painter. We acknowledged we were short, we came to
Congress, we got the money, and we have increased and I think
if you read the GAO report we are still below where we were in
1995, but we're as high as we have been in the past 10 years
for the number of personnel. At the time we hired those
inspectors--Stanley, let me finish--we did decrease by 200 FTEs
the number of employees within central office. We did not hire
more managers, we decreased the number of people in central
office, and in the last 10 years, we have also decreased the
number of districts, therefore, fewer district managers.
Mr. Cummings. And does that include Omaha?
Mr. Raymond. In what way?
Mr. Cummings. Well, he just said that you all moved----
Mr. Raymond. Well----
Mr. Cummings. You know what, I don't want us to get caught
up in semantics, and then you say one thing and it means
something else.
Mr. Raymond. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. He just said that when they said reduce
central office you all just moved these top heavy people to
Omaha, is that what you said Mr. Painter, a lot of them; is
that right?
Mr. Painter. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. What I'm asking you, is you just kindly, Dr.
Raymond, gave me a wonderful statement about how you all are
reducing folk. I want to make sure that doesn't mean that you
all put them on a plane and send them to Omaha.
Mr. Raymond. Mr. Cummings, let me give you the exact
numbers of who came from where that went to the technical
service center at Omaha, it was before my time, so I can't give
you the exact numbers but they didn't all come from D.C. they
came from some other offices that we are closing down
throughout the country. And it is fewer people in Omaha now
than it was 3 years ago when I took this job and I will get you
the numbers.
Mr. Cummings. Yes, do that for me. I know we have two more
panels.
Mr. Kucinich. Yes, we have two more panels.
Mr. Cummings. Let me say religiously in here, you know, one
of the reasons why I'm concerned about this culture of
mediocrity is because what it does, eventually the rubber has
to meet the road, and sadly when the rubber meets the road in
so many of our agencies, we discover there is no road. We saw
that in Katrina, and we are seeing it over and over and over
again and we are waiting--we have a catastrophe waiting to
happen.
And I guess what I'm saying to you is that I think we need
to probably do some evaluating, because I think Mr. Painter
makes a very good point. And I don't know whether you all do
analysis of exactly how to disburse your personnel, but I think
we need to have as many inspectors as we possibly can, because
what we are seeing over and over again throughout our agencies
is a failure on the part of government to do what government is
supposed to do. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you, you know,
we worry about the enemy outside of the United States, at this
rate we've got some enemy problems right here. And I'm not
saying I don't know exactly where all of them are, but--I'm
almost finished, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Kucinich. That was not intended.
Mr. Cummings. I'm sorry.
Mr. Kucinich. That was not intentional, go ahead.
Mr. Cummings. Oh, what I am saying is that if our people
cannot go to the supermarket and get food that's fit for
consumption, that's a major problem, that's major. And so all
I'm saying is that it is one thing to have the resources, it is
another thing to use the resources effectively and efficiently,
period. And it sounds like that might be, there might be a
problem. Now if there is a problem, I think it is better to err
on the side of at least doing an analysis to figure out
effectiveness and efficiency as opposed to not doing it. And so
it's nice to have people walking around managing, but if you
don't have the people there on the ground where the rubber is
supposed to be meeting the road, that's a major problem. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to thank my colleague for his
participation and the GAO report's instructive here because
they have put Federal food safety enforcement on their high
risk ratings for 2007, which has implications because that's
kind of a danger watch. And so this committee, with your help,
is going to--really is that a fair characterization to GAO?
Ms. Shames. It is certainly an area that we feel deserves a
lot of attention and a lot of oversight, yes. And we will be
reporting out periodically for each new Congress as far as the
progress that's made.
Mr. Kucinich. This subcommittee is going to maintain its
oversight responsibilities. Mr. Cummings, did you want to
comment?
Mr. Cummings. Yes, just one thing. So Ms. Shames, does that
mean that they are like--these warning signals out there, I
wanted to see red lights flashing, but is it like at least
yellow lights flashing saying, watch out, we may have a
problem. And if this problem is what it could be, a lot of
Americans could be harmed; is that a safe statement?
Ms. Shames. Yes, we place Federal oversight of food safety
on a high risk list based on over 30 years of our work that
found that ineffective coordination, inconsistent oversight,
inefficient use of resources led to problems in terms of
consumer confidence and food safety.
Mr. Cummings. Based upon what you just said and what the
chairman said, Dr. Raymond, it seems to me, it seems to me that
I would be working night and day, day and night trying to
figure out that thing that I talked about a moment ago,
effectiveness and efficiency. Because let me tell you, one
thing that's happening here and this hearing is evidence of it,
is that you cannot say you have not been warned. You cannot say
that it has not been placed out there in the universe and in
the Department's head that there are--that people are worried,
honorable people like the GAO and others and Members of
Congress are worried about what's happening.
I hope that--I pray, I pray that nothing happens, but I
don't want anybody coming back here saying that you weren't
warned. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to thank the gentleman. Before we
dismiss this panel, I want to say that our colleague,
Congresswoman Watson, raised some interesting points in the
questioning of Dr. Raymond. We cannot decouple humane handling
from food safety issues. I just want to make sure that Dr.
Raymond would agree with that observation.
Mr. Raymond. Yes, I do agree, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. I appreciate that. I want to thank the first
panel, you've been on deck here, you've been with us for almost
3 hours now. We--given the seriousness of this subject the
committee staff will submit other questions to you for followup
and we are going to maintain oversight on this matter. I'm
going to dismiss the first panel and with our appreciation for
your participation and call the second panel, thank you very
much.
[Recess.]
Mr. Kucinich. The committee will come to order.
I would like to introduce the second panel, we are
fortunate to have outstanding witnesses from the second panel.
I'll make some introduces and then we'll swear in the
witnesses. Mr. Bev Eggleston is the owner of Ecofriendly Foods
which is a slaughterhouse and meat processing facility in
Moneta, Virginia. Ecofriendly Foods offers custom USDA
inspected and organic meat processing to many restaurants and
to consumers through home buying clubs and farmers markets.
Joel Salatin; is that right?
Mr. Salatin. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. And his family operate Polyface Farms in
Virginia, Shenandoah Valley, they diversified a grass based
livestock farm. Polyface has been featured in National
Geographic, Smithsonian, New York Times, Washington Post,
countless video, radio and other print media, he has authored
six books, the latest being ``Everything I Want to Do is
Illegal, More Stories from the Local Food Front.''
Mr. Salatin. Thank you.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Patrick Boyle is the CEO and president of
the American Meat Institute. AMI is the industry's national
trade association, it conducts government and media relations
programs, scientific research and educational activities and
annual trade show events. They do this on behalf of the
Nation's $95 billion meat and poultry industry. Mr. Boyle
serves with the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Trade
Representative on the Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee.
He is a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100
and is a director of the American Institute of Wine and Food.
It is a good panel. I want to thank the gentlemen for being
here today.
It is the policy of the Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform to swear in all witnesses before they
testify. I would ask that you rise now and raise your right
hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Kucinich. Let the record reflect that the witnesses
have answered in the affirmative. As with panel one, I am going
to ask each witness to give an oral summary of your testimony
and keep your summary under 5 minutes in duration. I want you
to bear in mind that your complete written statement will be
included in the hearing record. Let's begin with Mr. Eggleston,
thank you very much for being here.
STATEMENTS OF BEV EGGLESTON, OWNER, ECOFRIENDLY FOODS, LLC;
JOEL SALATIN, OWNER, POLYFACE FARMS; AND PATRICK BOYLE, CEO,
AMERICAN MEAT INSTITUTE
STATEMENT OF BEV EGGLESTON
Mr. Eggleston. Thank you much, Mr. Chairman, and the
members of the subcommittee for including representatives of
Ecofriendly farming and owners and operators at today's
hearing.
I want to make just a few points in my oral statement. No.
1, the American Meat Institute does not represent the views of
small farmers, sustainable family owned farms and beef
producers. In our view, the Meat Institute is the voice of
corporate agribusiness and practices of giant corporations
involved in commercial feed lots and those who operate huge
packing facilities, many of which have illegal workers and
engage in cruel practices to animals.
The biggest meat packer in America is now a foreign-owned
company, and these corporate agribusiness interests are
responsible for most of the environmental and health
catastrophes that we will discuss today.
No. 2, let me be clear that factory farming is not
environmentally friendly or sustainable, but it is a method
that the meat--it is method of meat production that is favored
by USDA. We believe that the USDA is on the side of corporate
agriculture, not family producers who raise cattle--that raise
cattle in the way that nature intends anyway, which is
exclusively on grasses, with a grass finished diet, being able
to graze. Grazing is farm talk for having cattle walk or roam
around on cattle--on clean pastures on family owned farms.
It is my belief the special interests and their well-paid
corporate lobbyists in Washington have worked hard to ensure
that preferred system of allowing giant herds to graze on land
owned by taxpayers, in many cases, harming that land, which
belongs to us and then shipping those animals across very large
distances and having them stand for weeks in tiny spaces inside
huge concrete feed lots. The cattle are fed an unnatural diet
that may include table scraps, grain, factory waste, even
telephone books, in some cases ground up animals.
Point No. 4, feeding cows with an unnatural diet in factory
farms is how mad cow disease started in the United States. The
lobbyists for the corporate agriculture don't want to tell you
that, though. During the mad cow disease crisis, the Federal
Government deliberately withheld the inconvenient truth from
the American people in my belief. This truth was the fact that
mad cow disease was spread exclusively by feed. Mad cow can not
be transmitted from one cow to another by physical contact.
This meant that if you would slaughter a cow that had never
touched any kind of feed other than grass or grass fed, then
the meat would be 100 percent safe. But lobbyists from American
Cattlemen and the Meat Institute made certain that the Federal
Government would never tell the truth to the American people,
and the reason is because the lobbying, money and power in
Washington, not science, and certainly not truth.
Special interest in corporate farming now want to wipe out
the little guy through regulations that will suit factory farms
only. This is designed to solve a problem which exists only in
factory farms. If you like what big corporations and Harvard
Business School have done with the mortgage industry, we will
all love what big corporations want to do to small
environmentally family friendly and owned and operated farms.
I will quote an editorial by Eric Nelson of the Prairie
Star newspaper, ``It's a shame that the National Cattlemen Beef
Association and the American Meat Institute and the National
Meat Association were so successful over the years in
convincing those in cattle country and in Washington, DC. that
a concentrated packing industry that fixes prices, denies
market access and stuffs the market at key times with its own
supplies.''
All of this seems especially unfortunate as the government
not only has allowed monopolistic practices to continue in the
packing industry but also appear willing to allow the dominant
player to be foreign-owned while leaving U.S. companies at a
competitive disadvantage. Surely, our ancestors are rolling in
their graves at the short-sighted, cold hearted even
unpatriotic nature of these actions.
So here is my simple answer to Congress: If you like
polluted public lands, poison water that harms fish and water
supplies, horrible smells from enormous waste pools, mad cow
disease, illegal workers brought in to keep wages low and gas
to make something that isn't fresh seem like it is, lobbyists
sitting here behind me in the fancy suits representing the Meat
Institute and the American Cattlemen are your guys.
The only way to preserve environment, keep healthy food in
the diet for children and promote families thriving in rural
America is to have a food system that is run in a sustainable
way.
After the mess that the big corporations have created,
maybe it is time to listen to the other side, we are that other
side. We are the little guys, we are the family farms who
protect the environment and we work for ourselves. We just
don't have an expensive group of lobbyists in Washington.
Bigger isn't better, it is worse for sure, do no harm to the
family farm, better yet help American families compete against
the giant corporations and foreign-owned conglomerates.
No, we don't want the government--a government run system
or a corporate welfare. We want a market system and for the
government to stop favoring the special interests. Healthy food
a cleaner sustainable environment, a bright future in rural
America, if that's your agenda, please listen to our voice, not
the voice of corporate agribusiness.
Mr. Kucinich. I thank the gentleman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Eggleston follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.064
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Salatin.
STATEMENT OF JOEL SALATIN
Mr. Salatin. Mr. Chairman and honorable--Mr. Chairman and
honorable committee members, thank you for inviting me to
testify regarding exploring greater transparency in the meat
industry. I've submitted my written comments, which of course
go into much more detail than this 5-minute oral statement.
The only potential solution I've heard rumored concerns
videotaping in slaughterhouses. I have reason to believe that
the reason I am here is because some people thought maybe I
would be in favor of such a proposal. At the risk of
disappointing and at the risk of straying from a preconceived
solution agenda which has not been formally shared with me, I'm
going to treat this topic in a wholistic manner, it might be
odd in D.C. to look at something holistically.
Clearly, the hearing title assumes that the meat industry
is not transparent. An astute assessment with which I
wholeheartedly agree. If that is a bad thing, perhaps we need
to look at the root cause in broad context rather than in
typical linear reductionist disconnected segmented fragmented
fashion.
On our farm we raised salad bar beef, pigaearator pork,
Eggmobile eggs, pastured poultry, forage-based rabbits
marketing everything to some 2,000 families, 20 restaurants,
some in this city, and 10 retail stores. We process the poultry
under the PL 9492 producer grower 20,000-head Federal
inspection exemption. These chickens by the way have been
tested compared to supermarket birds and found to be 25 times
cleaner in colony forming bacteria.
Beef and pork go to both custom and inspected facilities
for different customers. In fact, we have just teamed with
another family to purchase a local Federal inspected facility.
Anyone is welcome to see our farm and our processing any time
for any reason to go anywhere and see anything.
About 8,000 visitors will enjoy our production and
processing areas this year. While some may consider this
reckless, our animals actually have a good immune system and we
don't worry about disease. As for safety, it is a lot harder to
drown in a compost than an industrial manure lagoon.
We do not ship and only deliver within 4 hours in order to
ensure that patrons can visit and return home in a day.
Industrial farms on the other hand post huge no trespassing
signs at their entrances. Our family Polyface has been featured
in countless media outlets and the journalists who visit always
complain about being denied access to industrial farms and
processing. Why is this? Because industrial farms and
processors are ugly and owners fear being seen.
The transparency currently lacking in the meat industry is
just a symptom of an industrial food paradigm that refuses to
ask, does it matter if a pig can express its pigness? Viewing
plants and animals as just so much inanimate protoplasmic
structure to be manipulated however cleverly the human mind can
conceive to manipulate it, disrespects and dishonors the
foundation of food life. A culture with this attitude will
inherently view its citizens in the same arrogant, egocentric,
manipulative manner and other cultures.
Over the years as industrial food became increasingly
aesthetically and aromatically repugnant, villagers ran the
butcher, baker and candlestick maker out of town. And when any
economic sector sets up shop on the outskirts of humanity, it
takes social, economic, environmental and nutritional
shortcuts. The only way to create transparency is to re-embed
the butcher, baker and candlestick maker in communities by
using an aesthetically and aromatically romantic model. If you
can't hire your neighbors, you don't have a transparent
business. Americans yearn for transparency, but for the most
part, the transferred models have been criminalized and
demonized by the USDA industrial food fraternity, and I'm sorry
they are not here to hear this.
Not until we unleash the transparent food system on our
culture will the non transparent sector feel pressure to
change. Those of us in the transparent food system are more
efficient, more productive more environmentally sound than
certainly more animal sensitive than our industrial
counterparts from production to processing.
Why don't more of us exist? There is one reason,
inappropriate food regulation. The abhorrent practices which
stimulated this hearing were performed in a federally inspected
facility, under the watchful eye of a government inspector who
signed all the appropriate paperwork. Dear committee members,
now down to one faithful, you need to understand the industrial
food systems and the regulators are in bed together to
annihilate the transparent competition. As long as no
alternative exists, the non transparent system can continue in
obscurity and abuse.
Quickly then, here are possible legislative remedies that
would unleash the transparent food system on America. No. 1,
establish empirical thresholds for contamination, adulteration
or pathogenicity without regard to infrastructure.
Infrastructure requirements have never been about safe food,
every state encourages its hunter citizens to go out on a 70-
degree day, gut shoot a deer that may have Creutzfeldt Jakob's
disease, drag it a mile through the squirrel dung, sticks and
rocks, display it prominently on the hood of the Blazer to
parade around town in stifling afternoon sun, then take it
home, cut it up and feed it to their children. That is
governmentally accepted as a wonderful thing. Infrastructure
requirements are not about food safety, they are about denying
market access to prototypical transparent operations.
No. 2, guarantee every American freedom of food choice for
internal community of 3 trillion critters who until very recent
years, never heard of feeding dead cows to cows, perhaps the
largest industrial food debacle in history.
No. 3, another option would be numerical exemptions from
over burdensome regulations patterned after other sectors of
the economy like day care and elder care.
And finally four, an option would be to enable local
prototypes. The problem with selling you on a transparent food
is that it really doesn't exist because it has been destroyed
by the USDA industrial food police. I can't show you where it
exists and prove to you that it would work, except in very
isolated cases. But if a village wants to have a transparent
food system, it should be allowed to try without fearing
Federal food police.
I do not think we need more regulations against industrial
slaughterhouses, even as much as I detest them. The answer is
more transparency through expanded market competition by
freeing up community based food systems to exist again. And
that transparent alternative would attract more customers which
would place positive pressure on those who enjoy hiding under
government inspection skirts. Thank you for inviting me to show
the perspective of the transparent food system with you. May
you by blessed with an understanding of freedom with a love for
truth and with a respect for life.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Salatin follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.071
Mr. Kucinich. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Boyle.
STATEMENT OF PATRICK BOYLE
Mr. Boyle. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm
honored to be here today and to share the witness list with
three other AMI members, Dr. Temple Grandin who testified
albeit briefly on the first panel and Dr. John McGlone and Adam
Aronson who will be participating on your third panel.
I have never been sworn in before a congressional panel
before, Mr. Chairman, but I never found myself seated next to a
gentleman who wrote a book, ``Everything I Want to Do is
Illegal,'' so I understand the additional rationale for the
process here today.
Mr. Kucinich. You're safe.
Mr. Boyle. Thank you very much. I need to talk a little bit
about what and who the American Meat Institute is and are,
based upon Mr. Eggleston's testimony a few moments ago. We are
the largest and we are oldest National trade association
representing the meat and poultry company, the meat and poultry
industry. We were established in 1906, a pivotal year in our
industry's history and one of the reasons we're here today.
That's when Congress passed the Federal Meat Inspection
Act. It passed in the wake of public outcry that ensued from
the publication of Upton Sinclair's best selling novel, The
Jungle. The meat packers, shortly after the turn of the
century, later in 1906, created the predecessor organization of
AMI to represent their interest or advocate, if you will, their
interest before the government.
Today, that is largely the role that we continue to play.
Mr. Chairman, I feel no reason to apologize for that. We do
represent large companies, we are grateful for those
memberships. Companies like Tyson and Smithfield and Oscar
Mayer do belong and participate in the American Institute, but
we represent 230 companies overall, more than 200 of which have
fewer than 100 employees. And with an SBA definition of a small
business at 500 employees and with the labor intensity of the
meat packing and poultry processing industry, businesses in
this sector of the agriculture economy with less than 100
employees are truly small businesses. Most--many of them are
family owned, many are multi generational businesses, companies
like Uncle Charlie's Sausage, Lindy's Processed Meats in
Pennsylvania, Parnell Sausage in Kentucky, all bearing the
names of original founders going back generations.
We represent companies in multiple niches of the industry,
including organic or natural niches such as Laura's Lean Beef,
or Coleman's Natural Beef. And our current chairman is the
third generation CEO of a business in Chicago, Ed Miniat, a
meat cooking business founded by his Lithuanian grandfather in
the early part of the 1900's about exactly the same time that
Upton Sinclair was writing about a Lithuanian immigrant in The
Jungle.
Much attention has been focused on the livestock and beef
industry since late January when an undercover video depicting
inhumane practices in a meat plant was released by HSUS. Our
members universally agree these images were shocking,
unacceptable, illegal and atypical. Proper and humane handling
of livestock is not just a priority for AMI member companies,
it is part of our culture. The meat industry knows that humane
animal handling is a regulatory requirement, an economic
necessity and a moral and ethical imperative.
In partnership with Dr. Grandin, we have long sought not
only to meet regulatory requirements but to exceed them. In
1991, at AMI's, request she authored the first ever industry-
specific animal welfare guidelines. In 1997, we embraced her
idea that animal welfare could be measured objectively and
asked her to write an audit program for us again another first
for animal agriculture.
Today self audits are part of routine plan operations and
third party audits are widely used by numerous restaurants and
grocery retail chains as a condition of doing business.
In addition to our best practices and third party audits,
it is important to recognize that the meat industry is
regulated more intensely than I think any other industry in the
United States. We process live animals into wholesome meat
products and do it over the continuous oversight of Federal
inspectors who are in our plants during every minute of
operation. And not one inspector per plant, or 1\1/2\ per--
inspector per slaughtering plant. The large high volume plants
have 12, 15, 18, 20 Federal inspectors. The number of
inspectors is determined by the volume of animals that are
processed in each of those plants and those determinations are
established under Federal regulations promulgated by FSIS.
While humane animal handling is primarily the
responsibility of the company and its employees these FSIS
inspectors are empowered to take action any time they identify
a deficiency or lack of compliance. And contrary to some
testimony from a previous witness, a reviews of FSIS records
will show that they actively use this authority.
I do believe that the undercover video from a Chino, CA
plant has left a lasting imprint on the minds of those who
viewed it. In the interest of showing people what is truly
typical today, we are making available a new video with footage
from plants at our industry with explanatory interviews from
Dr. Grandin and members of AMI's Animal Welfare Committee. The
video is available on YouTube and may be accessed from the home
page or dedicated Web site, animalhandling.org.
Mr. Chairman, while not in my prepared testimony submitted
for the record, given the nature of the exchange between the
committee on the first panel, I would like to talk briefly
about food safety. Particularly given the comments that were
raised by Congresswoman Watson and Congressman Cummings. I
think the concerns and impressions that they may have left
with.
Indeed, the testimony from Mr. Painter representing the
inspector's union would be a cause of concern, if it were true,
but in fact, I do not find it credible. And I won't refer to
anecdotes or personal history, I will just refer to the facts.
Facts can be stubborn things, and the facts show that the meat
and poultry supply is safe and increasingly getting safer. For
example, FSIS conducts food safety samples and tests for
microbiological levels on meat and poultry products. They look
for E. Coli in ground beef, they look for listeria monocytogene
on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products, they look for
Salmonella in a wide array of beef and pork and poultry.
Since the year 2000, the incidents reported by the FSIS
sampling program of E. Coli in ground beef has dropped 75
percent, the incidents of listeria monocytogene in ready-to-eat
produces has dropped 60 percent. More importantly however the
food borne illnesses commonly associated with those pathogenic
bacteria as evidenced by the data from the CDC, E. Coli related
illnesses have dropped 40 percent since the year 2000. Listeria
related illnesses are down 11 percent since 2000, 45 percent
since 1996.
It is the companies who are principally responsible for
ensuring the safety of the product, as Mr. Issa mentioned
during his comments, during the first panel's presentation,
FSIS plays an important secondary role. But it is a secondary
role, and the facts indicate that together plants principally
with FSIS's oversight are producing and providing the American
consumer with safer products. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Boyle follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.074
Mr. Kucinich. I thank you very much, Mr. Boyle, for your
testimony. Just let me ask you a question. The Westland
Hallmark, were they a member of the AMI?
Mr. Boyle. They were not, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Kucinich. I have some questions here that I'm going
direct to each of the members of this panel, and I'd like each
of you to respond briefly. There exists some large plants that
have multiple shifts. In some instances, they operate 24/7,
Westland Hallmark was one such plant that operated into the
night. According to their 2007 audit, when livestock was
delivered at night, the employees would check for downer cows,
I know, after-hour truck deliveries.
How do you recommend that such 24/7 operations be
monitored, is it possible to monitor such operations? And in
addition to inspectors on sight, what other tools can
adequately monitor these operations? I would like to start with
Mr. Boyle.
Mr. Boyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the extent a plant
is literally operating 24/7, it would be a highly mechanized
processing plant, which requires few personnel and relies
heavily on systems and equipment and technology. Slaughtering
plants do not operate 24/7. And in today's economic environment
for beef, many of them are operating less than 40 hours a week.
But to the extent that there are three shifts in a plant that
slaughters and fabricates meat, only two shifts would involve
slaughtering and fabrication. The third shift is always a
sanitation shift, a full 8 hours to clean the plant and prepare
it for processing animals and food the next day.
Mr. Kucinich. So you're saying that it shouldn't be any
difficulty in monitoring such operations?
Mr. Boyle. It would be true if a plant is beginning
operation at, lets say, 6 a.m. to have livestock trucks
arriving prior to that, unloading their animals into the pens
of the plant. An inspector would not normally be there before
the plant opens up, but under Federal regulations, the plant
cannot begin operating until the inspector or inspectors
depending on how many are assigned to the plant are onsite.
Mr. Kucinich. Obviously you are very fluent on these
issues. The question I would ask is does AMI as a matter of
course recommend to these highly mechanized operations ways in
which they can be in compliance with the law and also--and
provide for safe processing in these high volumes? That must be
part of the work of your industry, is it not?
Mr. Boyle. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman, we have animal
handling guidelines, audit tools for animal handling
procedures, in fact, our audit tool is used internationally.
Mr. Kucinich. Do you keep updating these ideas?
Mr. Boyle. We developed the first guidelines in 1991, we
updated them, I believe, in 1996 or 1997, we added the audit
tool in 1997. We updated them again a year or two ago.
Mr. Kucinich. So it is a culture that evolves, you're
saying, is that your----
Mr. Boyle. It's the process of what I would characterize as
continuous improvement.
Mr. Kucinich. OK.
Mr. Boyle. Within our membership, we view certain issues as
non competitive, food safety, environmental stewardship, animal
welfare.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to go to Mr. Salatin and ask him to
answer this question. I'm going to ask the question again. You
have these large plants of multiple shifts, some operates 24/7,
Westland Hallmark was one of those plants. In the 2007 audit,
the livestock was delivered at night and when the livestock was
delivered at night employees, would check for downer cows on
those after-hour truck deliveries. How would you recommend
these continuous operations be monitored? Is it possible to
monitor them effectively and what other tools could help
monitor them, Mr. Salatin? .
Mr. Salatin. That's a great question and please don't be
offended at my response because the question assumed that these
plants should exist. I'm going have the audacity here to honor
myself in our position that these plants should not exist. The
only reason they exist is because the butcher, the baker and
the candlestick maker, the neighborhood community friendly
plants have been run out of town by egregious, inappropriate
regulations that make it impossible for a small scale plant to
stay in business. We heard the prejudice and the worship of
economies of scale in the previous panel; this is the answer
for everything is this economies of scale. So there's clearly
with the poll between the money and the number of inspectors
and the number of eyes and the number of plants to get around.
Dr. Raymond was very clear to say that the basic, main
closures in facilities were where, in rural America, small
neighborhoods. There's a reason for that, because there is a
prejudice within the FSIS against going around and visiting all
these little nondescript community's facilities. So what
happens is in our experience, is that they pick, pick, pick,
pick, pick, and because there is not enough overhead, 4,000
head a day to spread the pick, pick, pick costs over, the small
plant goes out of business.
Mr. Kucinich. So your position then is our inherent defects
in the design of large processing organizations that work
intensively around the clock.
Mr. Salatin. Not just design in the facilities, there is an
inherent defect in the government oversight that discriminates
and prejudices against competitive facilities that are open to
the community that have an open door policy and allow people to
come in and aren't trying to shove cows that have already been
debilitated in the milking stream to lose their calcium in
their skeleton and can't stand, and now we ask them to stand 10
hours on a tractor-trailer and get up and walk, they have given
it all.
Mr. Kucinich. So the long distances you're saying
debilitate the animal to where to where food safety issues come
into play?
Mr. Salatin. Yes, and that comes from centralized economies
of scale facility that aren't located near where the cows are.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you. Mr. Eggleston, can you respond to
the question?
Mr. Eggleston. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree that 24
facilities are really based on economies of scale. In my
written testimony, I speak about the benefits of the consumer
perception when they are invited as opposed to excluded in the
little sun shine sanitizes and goes a long way. So I won't
belabor the situation, but I do--I do believe that if they were
going to operate 24 hours, if after Joel Salatin's assumption
that they are not a functional tool to represent transparency,
we need a different tool.
I believe that small is the answer and inviting is the
answer because perception is reality in the minds of the
consumer. So if the industry feels like they have nothing to
hide and the industry feels like it is totally accountable,
then what's the problem in showing. So i.e., you're going to
want to consumer advocates or some type of technological
surveillance on the off hours to make sure those animals are
being offloaded. From the farm gate to the antemortem pen is
where this surveillance is an issue. Just like Mr. Painter
tried to refer to, nobody in their right mind thinks video
surveillance is going to detect adulterated product or
condensation above a product or cross contamination of any
type.
The surveillance issue is completely, in my opinion, about
the handling of the animals from the trailers gate to the
antemortem pen or the knock box even. So my experience with
owning a facility, I can beg and plead and inspire laborers to
act the way I want them to act and my own ethics instruct me to
act. They do until some time they don't, you know. And so I'm
not saying I'm going promote technology of video surveillance,
I'd rather have a relationship with my employee that negotiates
that, but at the same time, the industry doesn't have
relationships with their employees, they don't know their
employees, they don't care about their employees. That employee
is as important to me as that cow, that cow is as important to
me as anything else I do. So as--as a--coming from a position
of a rural person working in rural agriculture, having come
from suburban environment, coming from a vegetarian background,
coming from a vegetarian in 10 years now owning a meat plant, I
think we come with unique perspective and desires and practices
and try and bring back the sacred to this gift. I believe that
our customers know that.
So if the industry wanted to reconstruct the perception
that is nothing there to be overlooked and everybody's welcome
to come look, then I think video cameras from the trailer to
the antemortem pen would serve.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to go back to Mr. Boyle. Mr. Salatin
and Mr. Eggleston have offered sharply divergent views from the
one that you've presented. I think in fairness we should give
you a chance to respond to that. Is there anything you'd like
to say in response?
Mr. Boyle. Well, the comment that the companies that we
represent at the American Meat Institute do not care about the
workers, for example, is so contrary to my experience as a CEO
of that organization for the last 19 years. In fact,
coincidentally yesterday, at this time, I was in New Orleans
presenting the annual worker safety awards to about 150
facilities that participate in that joint venture between the
American Meat Institute and the National Safety Council. We did
have a workplace safety problem 20 years ago. We may have been
the most dangerous workplace in America as we were still
referred to frequently today.
Again, I will go to the facts, workplace safety is a non
competitive issue within the American Meat Institute. We have
developed the first ergonomic guidelines of any industry in
1990. They were the first approved and endorsed by the
Department of Labor and the UFCW. We have been having an annual
safety award conference for about 10 years, and if you look at
the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, we are not
the most dangerous industry, we are not in the top 10, we're
not even in the top 50, there are 63 sectors of our industrial
economy that have more dangerous workplace sites than the meat
packing industry.
Mr. Kucinich. Let me ask you something, in listening as you
have closely to the testimony, just out of curiosity, do you
feel you could learn from anything that's been said in terms
of, in a sense, they are holding up a mirror to the meat
industry. And is there anything you can learn from what they
said at all or do you think there--is there an ideological
divide here, or do you think that there's something that as
your culture evolves, that is worth thinking about?
Mr. Boyle. I was not familiar with these two gentlemen
until today. But this morning, I went on their Web sites. They
have very unique, profitable, successful, I assume,
sustainable, because of their unique practices, businesses,
they are a unique, viable, credible niche in our industry. We
represent all segments of the industry as I mentioned earlier
in my comments, including those that produce----
Mr. Kucinich. I want to thank the gentleman. I want to go
on to the next question if I may and I thank you.
Mr. Steve Mendell the owner of Westland Hallmark, wrote a
letter to the subcommittee in which he explains that in 2007
his plant was subjected to 29 audits, that all reported
positive results.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.076
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.077
Mr. Kucinich. Now, in your opinion, how could all these
audits fail to catch what an undercover investigation showed
us? And in your opinion, are these problems more characteristic
to plants depending on their size, for example, a smaller plant
will exhibit more disparate findings between an audit and an
undercover investigation. Mr. Eggleston, let's start with you.
Mr. Eggleston. I can only come from my own experience in
working with my own crew. And in response to that question, I
think that when--even if the laborer really believes what we
are trying to tell them and teach them, if they have come from
the industry, they fight it.
Mr. Kucinich. Because?
Mr. Eggleston. Because they don't do it this way. Because
it takes too much time. Because for a variety of reasons.
I have basically found in my business that I have to bring
people outside the industry, similar to my own perspective of
farming. I made a decent farmer. I make a decent farmer because
I don't come with all the preconceived notions that my
grandfather or father told me we can or can't do on the farm.
So I think suburbanites make great farmers, and I think average
consumers who want to be advocates can make great laborers.
That is not very frequent.
But in order to bring our standards to real practical
aspects day in and day out, it is a never-ending--I have been
in business only 5 years. I have been through 140 laborers. And
that is because we try hard to find the right people to do the
right thing and to understand why we are asking them to do
that.
I still believe it all comes down to relationship,
intention, and in my--like I say, in my limited experience,
even the people who I spend a lot of time with and make sure
they do it the way I want to do it, because before they were
there I did it myself. It is a small plant. We forged all these
practices, my HACCP plan, all our HACCP plans, everything we
did with an individual, myself, forging it forward, forcing it
forward.
And the fact of the matter is that your staff has to
believe and buy into why you feel this way. I don't think that
people--I don't think laborers become inspired by regulation. I
don't think they get inspired by oversight. I think they get
inspired to do the right thing and get paid well and be
respected. That is how we build our business.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Eggleston.
Mr. Salatin, do you have the question? You want me to
repeat it?
Mr. Salatin. The question is fine.
Mr. Kucinich. Please proceed with your response. And after
you get through responding I am going to take it to Mr. Boyle,
and then we are going to go to Mr. Cummings for his questions.
So, Mr. Salatin.
Mr. Salatin. Thank you.
I have two responses. No. 1 is you can't legislate
integrity. Nobody can legislate integrity either into the FSIS
or to the industry. At the end of the day, integrity is a
personal thing.
And I couldn't agree with Mr. Cummings more in his
observations in the previous thing about Stephen Covey's book
about when trust is lost. You can't legislate trust. You can't
legislate integrity. I honestly don't know who to believe,
whether it was Dr. Raymond or Mr. Painter. But you can't
legislate integrity.
But the second response I would say--I would like to tell
you a very, very quick 30-second story. I had a visitor 1 day.
He was the Washington counsel for the largest hamburger fast
food corporation in America. And they were interested in
perhaps putting in a line of grass-fed burgers, grass-feed beef
as opposed to, you know, concentrated animal feeding
operations, cows that eat dead cows and chickens and chicken
manure. And so he came as a front man to find out, you know, if
I would be cordial and accept him and all this before the
executives came; and we were talking about these very issues.
And he said, you have to understand there is no overt
discriminatory or prejudicial treatment in, you know, against
small plants or in favor of large plants. It appears that way
only because--now he is a hired counsel by this corporation--he
said, when we have a problem in one of our plants with, say, an
aggressive inspector or some jot or tittle out of line, he said
they pick up the phone and call me, I call FSIS and say remove
that inspector, get rid of it, you know, let's get on with
moving product.
He said, when your little plant has that happen, you don't
have a legal counsel in D.C. on retainer to, you know, to make
that call. So you have to go back to the back room and fix it
and whatever needs to be done.
And so, to answer the question how could this happen and is
it more characteristic in a large plant, I would simply suggest
that as soon as the government is involved with something it
becomes a political animal. The corporations are political.
They wine and dine the, you know, the big wheels. And so there
is absolutely more propensity to move political pressure.
Mr. Kucinich. Let me ask you a followup with your
observation.
In 2007, FSIS issued 12 suspensions. All 12 were to those
plants who were categorized as small. Now, in your opinion,
what do think you this means? Large plants are performing
better or small plants are performing poorly or the size of the
plant has something to do with the ability of an inspector to
adequately oversee plant operations?
Mr. Salatin. I will answer that with another story, if I
may.
Mr. Kucinich. Could you first answer my question?
Mr. Salatin. Yes, the answer is yes, on the scale, yes.
Mr. Kucinich. On the scale.
Mr. Salatin. Yes. Because we have chickens processed at a
very small federally inspected facility in North Carolina.
Several years ago, the inspector said our chickens, even the
worst one, was better than anything he saw at one of the big
integrator plants, but the reason that some of ours were
condemned was because he actually had 30 seconds to look at
them. When they are in the large plant, he doesn't have enough
time to look at them.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Eggleston, scale?
Mr. Eggleston. Scale is a problem.
Mr. Kucinich. Let's go to Mr. Boyle for a response to the
question. And do you need me to repeat the question or do you
have it down?
Mr. Boyle. No, sir. I think the dichotomy, if you will, the
gross dichotomy between the audits that the plant had in Chino,
CA FSIS records in that plant and the gross practices captured
on the video are just inexplicable. I mean, I don't have any
rational explanation for the extreme disparity. It is clear
that there were multiple failures that occurred in that plant,
failures on the part of the farmer who wasn't culling these
animals at the appropriate time, failure on the part of plant
management supervision and the employee practices, and failure
on the part of FSIS, who appeared to be MIA during that period
of time when the taping occurred. That is why the Office of
Inspector General's investigation is going to be of interest to
all of us.
Mr. Kucinich. Does the AMI send out bulletins to your
members when you have an incident that is reported in the
industry and warns them and also raises the kind of issues that
you are raising in front of this committee?
Mr. Boyle. We provide routine updates on regulations,
directives, newsworthy developments, best practices.
Mr. Kucinich. After Westland/Hallmark, did you send any
note around the industry saying heads up?
Mr. Boyle. It wasn't so much a heads-up note as much as it
was a wake-up call note. I spent a lot of time in the last 2
months working with my counterparts who are presidents of
livestock-producing organizations. For our members, we have
guidelines and audits. We think we need guidelines at all
stages, from the farm through transport to our pens. We think
we need audits at all stages. We think there need be to third-
party audits, and we are working hard our counterparts to get
that done throughout the system.
Mr. Kucinich. OK. I appreciate that, Mr. Boyle.
Let's go to Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cummings, thank you for your
patience.
Mr. Cummings. I just have two questions, just two.
You know, Mr. Mendel said--I mean, he responded to a letter
I guess from the committee. He says, the only reason I would
assume some owners would resist installing video monitoring
would be the costs and accountability. If we assume for a
second that small plants would be exempt from this
consideration since they have inherent qualities that make them
transparent, then how would you respond to this? And do you
agree with Mr. Mendel that issues of costs and accountability
would make some owners resistant to installing video
surveillance or other means of enabling greater transparency?
Mr. Boyle. I think it would be more cost than
accountability, but I will defer to the economics of the issue
to a witness on the next panel, Mr. Aronson, who runs a company
that installs cameras in manufacturing facilities.
Many of our AMI-member companies have cameras in their
facilities. They have concluded from a management perspective
it gives them a greater level of supervisory oversight. It also
gives them a record when they find a dispute between themselves
and the FSIS inspectors. But there are other ways to assure
that best practices are being followed: intensive supervision
and extensive employee training, certification of those
employees, aggressive implants, self-audits, targeted
incentives, awards recognitions. But a video camera is a tool
that should be available; and many companies, as I say, have
used them. And in the wake of Hallmark/Westland many more of
them are looking at them.
But Mr. Aronson can give you more detailed information on
that, Congressman.
Mr. Cummings. OK. Well, one thing is self-audit is nice as
long as people are being honest. Am I right? And it seems to me
that--you know, Mr. Issa asked a question a little bit earlier
of the earlier panel. He said, would there be any incentive for
people to shortcut and do the wrong thing? And I assume that,
you know, people take these shortcuts, usually it has something
to do with profit. People who take shortcuts, they don't assume
they are going to get caught. As a matter of fact, if they
assume they were going to get caught, they probably wouldn't do
it.
So the problem then takes place where if you have--I mean,
you mentioned that is one of the ways you do it, the audit.
But, you know, we got to make sure that there is a level of
integrity. And I guess Ronald Reagan used to say, you know, you
have to verify. You can believe it, but you got to verify it,
too.
And I think in the process, in listening to the earlier
testimony, it seemed like there was some questions with this
particular farm, where there was a question of whether the
truth was coming out of the farm and then whether there were
folks to appropriately look at that information to verify it.
So I think that, you know, there are some problems that
seem to be systemic. It seems as if, you know, when you get to
a thing of dishonesty, it can just have just a phenomenal
effect. And I think that is part of the problem in everything
that I have heard, particularly with the earlier panel. And I
think this thing of trust is kind of getting out of hand, and I
think that we all need to work together to make sure that we
create as much transparency as possible.
But you said that it is more expense, as opposed to
accountability. Well, what about accountability? I mean, do you
see that as being significant at all?
Mr. Boyle. I think accountability is essential. And I agree
with Mr. Salatin, and your remarks as well, you cannot
legislate or regulate intensity.
Mr. Cummings. Right.
Mr. Boyle. You can't just go out and hire it off the street
and put it in your plants and make sure plants are going to
operate efficiently and correctly and safely.
Accountability is key. In order for a business to be
successful, they have to find a way to ensure from their
workers accountability to their standards. A video camera might
be one way of adding to that level of accountability, but it is
not the only tool. There are other ways that businesses achieve
that level of accountability amongst their employees.
Mr. Eggleston talked about finding the right person who
shares his company's vision, the passion for his objectives.
That instills the kind of values that translate to
accountability.
I do have to comment, however, on some of the observations
of Mr. Painter from the prior panel. I mean, I have heard these
allegations that our plants spend their time--our plant
employees spend their time looking out for FSIS inspectors. In
a big plant, which one of the 20 inspectors is going to round
the corner any moment? And let's get on a walkie-talkie and
warn the folks in the other part of the plant, who I guess are
also looking out for inspectors.
And who is performing the work? Who is maintaining the
process controls? Who is ensuring that the best practices are
being followed? No one has the time in our business or, I would
submit, businesses in general to be on the lookout for
inspectors or supervisors instead of focusing upon their job
responsibilities. I don't know of any business school in the
United States that teaches violating or circumventing Federal
regulations as a long-term business strategy.
Mr. Kucinich. If I may, I remember in my reading--if I may,
to my friend--that maybe it was a generation ago, but it is my
understanding that a certain Ivy League school taught a course
in strategic misrepresentation--to the gentleman, Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Boyle. I would be interested in learning more about it.
Mr. Kucinich. We will talk.
Mr. Boyle. I will look forward to that, Mr. Chairman. But I
am submitting it is not a long-term strategy for business
success.
Mr. Cummings. It is a poor strategy. And, I mean, if you
really think about it--I go back to what I said a little bit
earlier. It is not a question of whether it is taught or
whatever. It is that people find--some people just want to find
shortcuts, and they assume they are not going to get caught,
period.
I think--I am just wondering, but going back to Mr.
Painter, did it concern you that he said that every time
somebody comes forward to do some whistle-blowing they are
basically punished? Did that concern you?
Mr. Boyle. If true, that would concern me. I don't have any
evidence that it is true; and I believe that Dr. Raymond, who
runs the agency today, stated from his perspective it is not
true either.
Mr. Cummings. Well, you know, I will just end with this. I
think that one of the interesting things about whistle-blowers
is that if they are operating in a culture that has that kind
of--that does that, first of all, it takes a lot of guts to do
it. And if there is a culture in an agency that clamps down on
anybody who goes beyond the walls of that agency or goes to
higher ups or whatever, if that agency does that, I mean, that
is something that we need to take a look at.
I often cite the case of a hospital in my district where
they were giving HIV/AIDS tests and hepatitis B tests, and the
whistle-blower had evidence that the machinery that they were
doing the tests with was malfunctioning. And this went on--they
gave literally thousands of tests. And the company--I mean, the
hospital came down--not the hospital, but certain people, you
know, supervisors came down hard on these folks. And other
folks could have died.
And I just--you know, that is why I talk about this culture
of mediocrity, this culture of not worrying about our fellow
man and woman, this culture which has this almost anti-empathy
attitude. It just bothers me.
And I am not saying that the meat industry is like that. I
am just saying that all of us have to fight against this. And I
have said it before. This is the United States of America, and
we have gotten to where we have gotten to because of our moral
authority, and we are the great Nation that we are because we
do things right.
And I just think, you know, we can't legislate that, but
one thing that is for sure, that every single person, when they
are being paid with taxpayers' dollars, we would expect that
they would do the right thing and that they would not, when
they see something----
And I am going to tell you, that whistle-blower in
Baltimore to me is a hero--shero--it was a woman. And she sat
in my office for hours one Saturday, and I will never forget
it, I mean crying because she had gone through so much. But she
said, I would rather die, I would rather die than sit around
and watch other people die because they got the wrong results.
And I would think that when we put people in those
positions that is the attitude I want them to have, because
that is what it is all about. So, I mean, in most instances,
that may be one of the only ways you are going to find out.
So I just--Mr. Chairman, I say that--I know it may not
apply so much to this panel, but I am just concerned. Of all
the testimony that I have heard, I think that bothers me
probably more than most.
And with that I will yield back.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Cummings has once again put his finger on
something that has some general cultural concerns here, and
that is the level of trust that we take for granted, that it
takes, you know, just to eat the food that we eat and how each
of us, in the case of the panel, you are all mindful of that.
Trust is what holds your industry together, Mr. Boyle. Trust is
why people will come to buy your products, Mr. Eggleston, Mr.
Salatin.
And, you know, we trust a technician about tests. We trust
when we are starting our car we trust the tires. We trust when
we get on a plane. Trust really holds everything together.
There is no question about it.
When there is a violation of that trust, for whatever
reason, you know the Hallmark/Westland case, for example, they
had a stamp, as I understand it. It was a USDA stamp was on
those products, told people you could rely on that. When that
system breaks down, it is a problem for the whole country. And
so, you know, that is what this meeting is about today.
This has been a very good panel, and I appreciate your
participation. And this is a very long hearing already. We are
about to begin the fifth hour of our testimony. But I want to
say that each of you have brought something to this panel that
is very important, and I appreciate your presence here.
I am going to ask staff to get the third panel ready. We
may followup with some questions to you gentlemen. But I want
to express the gratitude of the committee for your presence
here.
And the second panel is dismissed. I would ask the third
panel to please come up.
The committee will resume. For those who may have joined us
mid-day, this is the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the
Oversight and Government Reform Committee; and the title of the
hearing today, ``After the Beef Recall: Exploring Greater
Transparency in the Meat Industry.''
We have heard from two panels already in a hearing that
started around 1 o'clock, and we are going to hear from a third
panel. I want to introduce that panel. We have outstanding
witnesses on this panel.
We are going to start with Mr. Wayne Pacelle. Mr. Pacelle
is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Humane
Society of the United States [HSUS]. The Humane Society of the
United States is the Nation's largest animal protection
organization. Mr. Pacelle has testified before Congress well
more than a dozen times on a wide range of subjects, including
agricultural policy.
In the 110th Congress, he appeared before the Senate
Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee to discuss the 6-week
undercover investigation conducted by the HSUS at the Hallmark/
Westland meat packing company in California in late 2007.
Mr. John J. McGlone is an animal and food sciences
professor at Texas Tech University. His field of study includes
the scientific basis of animal welfare. In his capacity as an
institutional official at Texas Tech University, he oversees
the animal care and use program on campus. He is also a fellow
with American Humane and is on the board of trustees of the
Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory
Animal Care International and serves as co-chair of the
Federal--what is the name of that?
Mr. McGlone. Federation.
Mr. Kucinich. It is Federation of Animal Science Societies
and is working on a revision of the Guide for the Care and Use
of Agricultural Animals in Teaching and Research. Is that
correct?
Mr. McGlone. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, finally, we have Mr. Adam Aronson. Mr.
Aronson is the CEO of Arrowsight, and he founded ParentWatch in
1998.
I want to thank each of these witnesses. It is the policy
of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to swear in
all witnesses before they testify. I would ask that you would
rise and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Kucinich. Let the record show that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Now, as with previous panels, I am going to ask that you
give an oral summary of your testimony, to keep the summary
under 5 minutes in duration; and your entire statement will be
included in the hearing record.
And as of this time I am going to ask unanimous consent to
put in the record certain correspondence that this committee
received. That will be done.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.078
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.079
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.081
Mr. Kucinich. Let's start this third panel with testimony
from Mr. Pacelle from the Humane Society of the United States.
Thank you very much for being here.
STATEMENTS OF WAYNE PACELLE, CEO, HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED
STATES; JOHN J. McGLONE, FELLOW, AMERICAN HUMANE, AND
PROFESSOR, TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY; AND ADAM ARONSON, CEO,
ARROWSIGHT
STATEMENT OF WAYNE PACELLE
Mr. Pacelle. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thanks for your
typical great endurance on these many issues that you worked
on.
A lot of ground has been covered by the two previous panels
in the questioning sessions. I want to make three major points
and then address some of the policy solutions that we would
like to see the Congress grapple with.
One which hasn't come up much today has to do with the
downer policy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In
December 2003, the United States had its first BSE-positive
animal found by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and, in
response, the USDA passed essentially an emergency rule to ban
any downer cattle in the food supply.
Yet on the very same day that occurred and USDA's
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman issued an emphatic decree
saying no downer animals will get into the food supply, USDA
issued notice 5-04 behind the scenes instructing inspecting
veterinarians how to carry out the regulations. And in contrast
to both the public claims by USDA and the very clear wording of
the internal rule itself, the agency instructed inspectors to
allow downed cattle to be slaughtered for human consumption if
they initially appeared otherwise healthy but went down within
the slaughter plant itself due to an acute injury. So the USDA
was telling the public no downers, yet behind the scenes they
told the inspectors to allow downers into the food supply.
We continue this very day to allow downers in the American
food supply. We need a bright-line policy to stop this not just
as a matter of humane handling but because of the food safety
threats that downers pose in this country. I think this is
outrageous, Mr. Chairman, that USDA is still allowing downers
in the food supply.
With all this rhetoric, we have had now the largest meat
recall in the country. After the mad cow case, which involved a
downer, of course, in Washington State, we had more than 50
nations close their markets to U.S.-produced beef.
Second is the issue of whether the compliance systems are
adequate. Now we have heard a lot of comment on that today, and
during some of the previous hearings that have occurred on this
issue we have also heard from the president of Hallmark. And I
think it is important to point out that he testified last month
that his company, ``passed 17 outside audits and 12 additional
internal audits.'' That is 29 audits.
Even on February 1, 2008, just a day or two after our
investigation became public, an audit conducted by someone who,
``retired from supervisory positions'' in USDA's FSIS in 1997,
after working there for 26 years, concluded, ``I have reviewed
the records and programs you have at your plant, and these are
the best I have ever seen in any plant. You have excellent
records of all your training programs and ongoing training of
all employees. Your plant has passed numerous audits on humane
handling of animals in this plant in the year 2007 and has no
failures, which you should be very proud of.''
So we have a circumstance where USDA gave this plant
consistent positives, third-party audits, internal audits, yet
we saw some of the most revolting cruelty that this Nation has
ever seen on these issues.
Something is amiss here, Mr. Chairman. These systems are
obviously inadequate. It is not just one audit. We are talking
29 audits by third parties and internal, plus USDA's continuing
daily presence with its full cast of inspectors of five people.
I think this really--this is the third major point. The
first point is the failure of the downer policy and the
inconsistency of the policy. Second is the incredible disparity
between these findings and the reality. The final point is the
history of slaughter plant abuse.
We heard from the AMI lobbyist president that, you know,
this is isolated. We have seen it in many cases. We have heard
from USDA it is isolated.
Let me point out that every time an undercover
investigation has exposed horrific treatment of animals at a
slaughter plant, there are industry apologists who attempt to
excuse it. If we look at the limited number of nonprofit
efforts to investigate these plants, we see every time somebody
has taken a close look there is a problem, not just Hallmark.
A 2007 Mercy For Animals investigation documented House of
Raeford workers in North Carolina mutilating, hitting, and
kicking live turkeys at a slaughter plant there.
In 2004, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
documented Pilgrim's Pride employees at a West Virginia
slaughter plant stomping on live chickens, ripping their heads
off, slamming them into walls, and kicking them like footballs.
In the same year, Compassion Over Killing revealed Perdue
workers at a Maryland slaughter plant throwing live chickens
and leaving dying birds to languish while they took their lunch
breaks.
In another 2004 case, a USDA inquiry found that inspectors
at an AgroProcessors cattle slaughter plant in Iowa were
sleeping and playing computer games on the job while cows were
being abused in horrific ways.
A 2001 Humane Farming Association investigation documented
workers chained fully conscious, struggling cows upside down on
an IBP slaughter line in Washington State as well as shocking
cows who were confined in a chute.
Every time we look, Mr. Chairman, there are problems. If
the AMI and the USDA think everything is fine, they are living
in an alternative reality.
I know time is short. My testimony speaks to some of the
policy reforms. We need to close the downer loophole. We need
to strengthen enforcement. We need criminal penalties, criminal
penalties for abusive acts toward the animals at the slaughter
plants.
We have a situation now where USDA--this is really a farce
to say that this enforcement regime, they shut down a plant for
an hour or two 12 times for humane handling. When we have 626
cattle plants and 619 pig processing plants in the country
operating most days of the year, 12 times for humane handling?
That is a farce.
I want to say that we need strong penalties for these
criminal activities. Poultry, which represents 95 percent of
all animals slaughtered in this country, more than 9 billion,
are not even covered under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
There is legislation pending in Congress to address that issue.
And there is a bill before this committee, assigned to this
committee called the Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act
that is a government procurement program that sets up basic
standards for humane care for government purchases of animal
products.
Those are just a small number of the policy reforms.
Again, we appreciate the opportunity to testify.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pacelle follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.082
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.083
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.084
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.085
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.086
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.087
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.088
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.089
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.090
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.091
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.092
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.093
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.094
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.095
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.096
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.097
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.098
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.099
Mr. Kucinich. Dr. McGlone.
STATEMENT OF JOHN J. McGLONE
Mr. McGlone. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to
provide testimony in this important matter today.
There is quite a lot of interesting discussion today. I
would like to try and focus the summary of my testimony on
science-based solutions to the problems, rather than
identifying the problems. I think we know that they exist.
People are uniformly concerned about bad actors that have
damaged the industry and damaged animals. We know that this
incident is of national importance. I have noticed considerable
improvement in animal handling in recent years, which I agree
with Temple Grandin on that point. But we are dealing with a
biological process here, and a biological process is imperfect,
and the question is to what degree of acceptable imperfection
is allowable. And we can reach a few conclusions about the
current situation.
The first is that the current system of oversight is not
sufficient to prevent rare events from happening. So even if
less than 1 percent of the animals, less than 0.1 percent of
the animals have a problem, whatever that is, noncompliance,
that is not acceptable. And the current level of oversight
doesn't prevent that. It is not intense enough.
Given even if we had 100 percent oversight by human--a
human being at a single observation point, that human would
still experience observer fatigue, would develop a callousness
over time, and there wouldn't be any checks and balances in
place. So even 100 percent oversight wouldn't solve the
problem.
I think we all agree that persons found guilty of cruelty
should be brought to justice. I think that is happening. I
think people who observe acts of cruelty and don't report them
in a timely manner should also be brought to justice and that
we need to restore confidence in the food supply and the
humaneness and safety of our food supply.
I want to discuss one parallel enterprise that is going on
in the United States, that is, oversight of research animal
care, which is a different matter, but for which this same
problem happens. At research institutions, at universities and
companies, there is a lot of activity that happens with
animals, animal research; and because the types of activities
are diverse and complicated, there is no effective way of
providing outside audits of that process.
So what has developed is a process of intense internal
audit that we call an Animal Care and Use Committee. And to
make sure that the Animal Care and Use Committee is doing its
job appropriately there is a third-party, a nongovernmental
agency called AAALAC International, that will accredit the
university. And what that accreditation does by a third party
is assure that the internal processes are being taken care of.
At the same time, USDA provides oversight, but they only go to
research laboratories in some cases once a year to do the same
thing that the accreditation body is doing.
So it is a three-pronged approach: intensive internal
audits, third-party oversight, and some government interaction.
So whatever a successful outcome might be, it should develop a
practical working relationship among the partners. It should be
science-based. It should include a philosophy that includes
acceptance of animal production consumption. It should agree to
trust but verification of these behaviors; agreement that the
goal is to prevent problems, not to be punitive, although
punitive measures are necessary; agreement that when problems
arise that they be brought to rapid resolution, not to where it
takes weeks to discover that the problem actually took place.
There has to be confidentiality of business practices, secure
control of electronic data.
And I think what would really drive this process would be
an agreement that plant operations would not stop as long as
these issues are resolved in a matter of minutes, rather than
hours or weeks or, in some cases, even longer.
I was also asked what the industry perspective was. Because
I can ask questions, being an independent source of
information. And I gathered the following observations.
One is, the industry expressed uniform repulsion at the
idea--at the events in California. People readily admit within
the industry that the system in place now does not work very
well because we have a very low error rate, way less than 1
percent, and it is difficult to detect that error rate under
the system that we have.
USDA plants often develop an adversarial rather than a
collaborative approach with humane oversight, and that is a
problem. A punishment does not foster collaboration. I think it
is necessary, but it really doesn't help the groups to
collaborate. Laws do not protect plants from infiltrators who
directly cause welfare problems in order to gain donations or
public attention to their cause. Video surveillance
specifically was first viewed negatively, but now we know that
several meat companies are using them internally.
I heard a strong sense from the industry, and I believe it
works in other aspects of our society, that if the industry
would take an extremely strong stance in policing itself, less
outside oversight would be necessary.
There is also a sense that the industry does not want the
routine practices in the slaughter plant made available to the
general public for, I think, obvious reasons. But yet they want
to be held accountable themselves, and they want the government
to be held accountable also for their actions and activities.
Some industry groups have already installed video, and they
did that to perform more effective internal audits, to provide
proof of humane handling, and to keep the government out of
their business, because they think they can do a better job
themselves, and to provide an instant replay when there are
questions that may arise.
Hallmark's early response to its humane issue was to
install animal handling cameras, which I think speaks to the
resolution of the issue or a resolution.
And I think that we really need a third-party partner that
is an NGO, a nongovernmental agency that is respected and that
shares the goals of the industry. And American Humane might be
that organization. We would like to have professionally trained
auditors using science-based approaches, intensive audits that
have a zero tolerance for abuse and a rapid resolution of
problems.
With that, I thank you for being here.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Dr. McGlone.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McGlone follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.100
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.101
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.102
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.103
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.104
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Aronson, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF ADAM ARONSON
Mr. Aronson. All right. We are going to put an overhead
projector on.
Mr. Kucinich. Staff prepared with that? OK.
Mr. Aronson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, it is an honor and privilege to appear before
you today.
I am Adam Aronson, founder and chief executive officer of
Arrowsight. Arrowsight has been providing remote video auditing
services for the past 10 years to many industries, including
food manufacturing, healthcare, and quick service restaurants.
Remote video auditing of employee practices, combined with
continuous performance feedback, can drive rapid and sustained
improvements to business operations.
To foster a healthy staff culture, we work with clients to
promote positive reinforcement techniques that are centered
around catching employees doing the right things instead of
catching them doing the wrong things. Used proactively by
customers, video auditing services can emulate having the best
front-line manager present at all times throughout a facility.
For companies not willing to thoroughly embrace a video
services program, an alternative but less optimal solution
would be to increase the number of front-line managers in high-
risk areas such as animal handle pens.
In the case of the meat industry, we have successfully
provided animal handling services for FPL Foods LLC, a cattle
processing company located in Augusta, Georgia.
I will be using a visual demonstration to describe
Arrowsight's video auditing services. At the top of the work
flow diagram on the screen are two 24-7 network operation
centers that are staffed by trained Arrowsight video auditors.
Through a secure Internet connection, our auditors randomly
sample events throughout the day that are each 1 to 2 minutes
in duration. As Arrowsight auditors classify process compliance
either numerically or qualitatively, the data is automatically
stored in Arrowsight's central data base. We provide continuous
performance feedback in two ways, which is shown on the right-
hand side of the diagram.
If a customer-defined noncompliance event is observed, we
are instructed to call plant supervisors and to send e-mail
alerts that also include hyperlinks to the examined video.
Additionally, we deliver customizable daily and weekly
performance reports that include hyperlinks to all examined
video events.
Please change the slide.
We use the American Meat Institute's recommended animal
handling guidelines as a model. We audit for proper live
handling from the truck unloading area all the way through to
the work stations inside the plant where the cattle are
slaughtered.
On the left-hand side of this image are the operational
classifications for the truck unloading area, which define the
various categories of staff noncompliance. As a standard
operating procedure, we alert plant supervisors anytime a
handling infraction is observed.
Please change the slide.
After the recent recall, we received many inquiries about
our animal handling services. In response to these requests, we
have recently implemented video auditing features with the
ability to comprehensively identify high-risk nonambulatory
animals. By sampling still pictures every 30 minutes on a 24-7
basis, we are able to cost-effectively identify most
nonambulatory animals and immediately notify plant supervisors.
This new service is especially beneficial on third shifts
inside plants that have overnight livestock delivery, which are
typically overseen by a small group of employees with little or
no managerial oversight.
Please change the slide.
Daily and weekly electronic scorecard reports are generated
and e-mailed to clients, which segregate performance scores
into several categories. The top two sections of the report
summarize a score by plant and by area. The lower two sections
show the specific work station scores and provide hyperlinks to
all the examined video.
Please change the slide.
Given the low profit margins in the meat industry,
Arrowsight focuses much of its effort on providing financially
beneficial services to its clients. Utilizing Pan-Tilt-Zoom
cameras with up to 64 preset positions, we have been able to
drive significant savings to a large turkey processing company.
As seen on this screen in the lower-left-hand image, the
worker is supposed to carefully trim the edges of the turkey
breast but instead has cut too deeply into the piece of meat.
In this case, the trimmed portion of the meat will become
ground turkey, which is worth only 35 to 45 percent of the
value of the breast meat. Through the proactive use of our
services, this customer has achieved roughly $1.25 million in
savings from this one application.
In closing, remote video auditing services benefit
progressive meat companies by being able to combine safety,
security, and welfare programs with a suite of process
optimization services.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I will
be pleased to answer any of your questions.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Aronson, for your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Aronson follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.105
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.106
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.107
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.108
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.109
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.110
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.111
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.112
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.113
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.114
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.115
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.116
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.117
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.118
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1700.119
Mr. Kucinich. We are going to go to questions of the
witnesses. I would like to start with Mr. McGlone--Dr. McGlone.
Dr. McGlone, you mentioned that some companies have already
installed video monitoring systems. I understand one of these
companies is Springer Mountain Farms.
Mr. McGlone. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. And they are considered a large harvesting
plant?
Mr. McGlone. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. Can you tell us more about Springer Mountain
Farms and speak to the effects they have experienced because of
this increased transparency?
Mr. McGlone. Yes. They are a company that sells a
certified--American Humane-certified product. It is an
alternative to conventional chicken. It is chicken that has a
higher standard of animal welfare based on science-based
standards, more space, for example; and at the processing plant
they conduct an animal welfare audit.
Now I will point out that poultry are excluded from, as was
mentioned, from the Humane Slaughter Act. But they were feeling
like--this is some time ago--that they weren't getting reliable
data by having audits infrequently. Some plants audit for
welfare once a day. Some do it once a week. But if you
institute tight controls you may audit more often than that,
perhaps continuously, or once an hour, continuously in the case
of this new technology.
So what it allowed them to do, and they did it purely for
their own internal quality control, not because of outside
groups that wanted it, they wanted to achieve a high standard
of humane care, and they did that by policing themselves. I
think that is a nice model, that once it is examined by outside
parties they have some degree of comfort that----
Mr. Kucinich. What about your customers' experience and
response to the video surveillance service that you have been
involved with?
Mr. McGlone. Well, they are very positive about it. Is that
what you mean?
Mr. Kucinich. Yeah.
Mr. McGlone. Sure. Yeah. They think it is--in the case of
Springer Mountain, of course, they are pleased with it. But not
just them. I need to point out--and not just beef but in pork
plants, too, people have installed video monitoring, video
surveillance of their activities for reasons that I give in my
testimony. And they found that--as I said, they were resistant
to it in the beginning. But once they started, they find it a
useful tool to achieve a high standard of humane care.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to ask a question about the
technology. I understand there is the potential application of
so-called fuzzy logic technology within the industry to improve
humane animal handling and food safety. Can you tell us a
little bit about how that technology works and if it addresses
numerous concerns about the shortcomings of video surveillance?
Mr. McGlone. Yeah. It doesn't solve all of the concerns.
Now it works--it is easily described in this way. If a person
is supposed to do a certain behavior, A, and they consistently
do that behavior, then there is no noncompliance that arise in
the software. But as soon as they do something different, then
the software is alerted, the management is alerted, and it can
be resolved quickly.
But there are some things that happen that are
unpredictable, because we are talking about humans and animals,
and they are unpredictable. So, in addition to that, you need
some kind of human oversight to account for unpredictable
events. Over time, the software gets better. As more
noncompliant events happen, the software can be refined to
improve detection of noncompliance. But all along the way you
still need a human element in there.
Mr. Kucinich. Let me--I want to go over something that you
said a moment ago--at least I think you said--that there are no
laws that would prevent the infiltration of plants by people
with ulterior motives----
Mr. McGlone. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich [continuing]. Such as raising donations,
raising money.
Mr. McGlone. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. Did I hear you say that?
Mr. McGlone. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. Do you have a comment on that, Mr. Pacelle?
Mr. Pacelle. I don't really know what Dr. McGlone is
referring to, to be quite honest. Is there a circumstance that
you are referring to?
Mr. McGlone. Well, you know, in discussions with industry,
they--well, I will take the Hallmark case specifically. And
maybe----
Mr. Kucinich. Are you saying people were just doing that to
raise money for their cause?
Mr. McGlone. Right. To put--well, in some cases--let's just
take the Hallmark case. Why did it take so long to report the
incident? How would a person be able to collect hours of video
showing negative behavior when the very first occurrence should
have brought down the government and the plant manager and
everybody should have--you know, the situation should have been
resolved the first day, not after several weeks.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Pacelle, would you like to respond to
that?
Mr. Pacelle. Well, first, let me just say I am astonished
by the comment to begin with. And, second, I think it reflects
a lack of understanding about how investigations work. You have
an investigator embedded in a plant with a highly
sophisticated, very small camera, and he is not able to monitor
it every day and review all of it. That is really not the job
of the investigator, to make a determination about when you
have crossed the threshold in terms of the aggregation of
evidence.
Mr. Kucinich. Why was an investigator sent in there? Was
this a fund-raising technique for the Humane Society or did you
have some other reason?
Mr. Pacelle. Well, we have a mission of protecting animals;
and we are concerned about the well-being of all animals,
including those raised for food. And we really insist that
animals raised for food be treated humanely during production,
transport and slaughter. So we are just focusing our gaze--this
plant was selected at random, and it turned up terrible things.
I think it has done an incredible service to the Nation.
Even the AMI president said that it has put the industry on
notice, and it has modified behavior. I think our investigative
unit at HSUS, unlike most other organizations, penetrates
dogfights and cockfights and inhumane slaughter practices and
puppy mills, and it has an extraordinary record of
extraordinary service to the country. And we shouldn't have to
do it. We should have government agencies really doing that
work.
Mr. Kucinich. If I may, is that your position, Dr. McGlone,
that the government agencies ought to be doing that work?
Mr. McGlone. It is my position that the government agency
needs--government should be doing it, the industry should be
doing it, and there should be some NGO involved to provide the
trust factor. Because I don't trust the government, either. I
think that is clear. And I don't always trust the industry,
even though I work with them. I prefer to work from within to
get positive change, rather than from the outside. But I think
you need that triad of oversight, internal audits, government,
and an NGO to make it fair and reasonable and trustworthy.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Pacelle.
Mr. Pacelle. You know----
Mr. Kucinich. Let me just followup with a question, and you
can include your answer.
On the first panel, Dr. Raymond said that Hallmark
represented an aberration in the industry. Now, in your
opinion, are the animal handling abuses and food safety issues
that were uncovered by your investigation a systemic problem in
the slaughterhouse industry or an isolated incident, as the
USDA has suggested?
Mr. Pacelle. I think it is really impossible to know how
frequent it is, because the third-party auditing system has
demonstrated, certainly in this case, not to have picked up on
this.
We also--presumably, if USDA had known about these abuses,
if the industry had known about these abuses, it would have
stopped these abuses. But they didn't. And it took an HSUS
undercover investigator to do it.
I did mention in my oral comments that every time an animal
protection group has looked into slaughterhouse practices in an
undercover way they found terrible abuses. So the Charlotte
Observer just had a major series about House of Raeford and a
poultry processing plant that not only revealed inhumane
treatment of animals but worker abuse and a variety of other
things.
I want to address Dr. McGlone's comment about working with
the industry. We work with the industry a great deal. We don't
get so close to the industry that we lose sight of what our
mission is. An inside-outside approach can be----
Mr. Kucinich. Your mission being?
Mr. Pacelle. Mission to protect animals from needless
cruelty.
We work with the industry a great deal. But then sometimes
we engage in undercover work to really test and see what goes
on. In fact, I think the government should have a SWAT team or
a strike force that travels around and occasionally does
undercover work at some of the plants to really see what is
going on.
Because simply showing up with your USDA, you know,
physical presence, they do know what is going on. And we saw at
Hallmark, our investigator has said--and I don't think anyone
has disputed it--that they were on their best behavior when the
USDA was there. The USDA was there for just a couple of hours a
day, and they were abusing the downers before he got there, and
they were abusing them after he left, and there was not a
continuous presence in the holding pens.
And until we have greater transparency, which I think is
really an important function of your hearing, and I am glad
that the Arrowsight information has been advanced, that is
really going to be the only way that we can have, you know,
full-time forensic capabilities in this case.
Mr. Kucinich. I would like to ask you a followup and then
let Mr. McGlone respond, and then we are going to go to Mr.
Cummings for some questions.
When this video was released, what was the public's
response and--as communicated to the Humane Society? Obviously,
you had to have a response from the general public. Do you want
to describe it for this committee?
Mr. Pacelle. It certainly was overwhelming, and it has been
nearly unanimous. We did hear the comment that folks who are
watchdogs or whistle-blowers, we heard on a previous panel that
there is retribution or there are attempts to discredit that
effort. And we have heard a couple of industry voices criticize
us. But the mass, the 98 percent of the public was very
supportive.
I don't think I saw any editorials from any major
newspapers critical of our work. One hundred and twenty
newspapers did editorials addressing this issue and commending
the Humane Society and raising questions about the adequacy of
current government programs.
Now then, as the Congress has continued to look at it, as
the press has continued to look at it, we have seen not only
was there a problem with the government system but the third-
party auditing process. Again, I emphasize there were 12 third-
party audits at this plant, giving it the highest marks in the
industry. Something is amiss.
Mr. Kucinich. Dr. McGlone, you wanted to respond and I'm
going to afford you that opportunity.
Mr. McGlone. I was just going to add that myself and my
students have been asked from time to time to do--I wouldn't
call it undercover work--but to examine the welfare of animals
at processing plants. And we've been in dozens, maybe hundreds
of plants doing that. And we operationally find problems. But
most of the time we don't find problems. So I just wanted to
get it on record that, you know, we--to say that every time we
look we find a problem, we don't find that. And I have looked
at literally millions of animals in slaughter plants, and I do
find problems. But it is not anything like every time. It is a
rare event. And in any kind of process, particularly those that
involve biological processes, it is a challenge to find the
rare events.
Mr. Pacelle. I think it is a systemic issue. It is not just
that there is a malice and breaking of the law. We are talking
about line speeds moving so rapidly that the animals are
treated like a commodity. We are talking about animals thought
of as objects and things and not living beings. You know, we
heard from a couple----
Mr. Kucinich. Would you--Dr. McGlone, would you agree with
that?
Mr. McGlone. They are a commodity. I mean, beef, pork and
poultry are commodities. That's--by definition that's what they
are.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Pacelle.
Mr. Pacelle. They are commodities after they are killed.
They are not commodities while they are alive. I think that is
the basic difference between----
Mr. Kucinich. What about what Mr. Pacelle just said, they
are commodities after they are killed, not when----
Mr. McGlone. I think maybe we're discussing different
definitions of commodities. You can buy live hogs, live cattle
on the commodity futures market and they are commodities. And
at the same time, they are a living being that deserves
respect.
Mr. Kucinich. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. The Chair recognizes Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Is it Pacelle?
Mr. Pacelle. Pacelle, yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. I was listening to your testimony in the back
and, you know, I think I found very alarming, what you said
about--what you first started off saying about the FDA--I
mean----
Mr. Pacelle. The USDA.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah. The Agriculture Department was saying
one thing and doing another. Does--did that surprise you?
Mr. Pacelle. We have been--we have been fighting this issue
of the abuse of downer cows for quite a while, Congressman
Cummings, and in fact the House in I think it was June or July
2003 had a vote to stop slaughtering downer cows for human
consumption, the concern being once--if they can't walk they
are dragged or they are otherwise abused to get them into the
kill box. But also they have a higher incidence of mad cow
disease. And because they are wallowing in manure, they--and
they are sometimes immunologically compromised, they have
higher rates of E. Coli and salmonella.
So it is a food safety issue and a humane handling issue.
The Congress defeated--the House--the Senate passed it. The
House defeated it 199 to 202. You were with us on the vote and
the chairman was with us on the vote. But there were Members of
Congress from the livestock industry who said a sick animal can
never get into the food supply, can never get into the food
supply. We don't need this downer policy because we have a
screen, trust the industry. It was 6 months later that we had a
BSE positive, a mad cow positive animal get into the food
supply and trigger a worldwide scare that closed more than 50
nations' markets to U.S. produced beef.
So when USDA finally got with the program and said that
they were banning downers, but then to subvert it with a--with
a notice to the inspectors to allow some downers to get into
the food supply, I consider it a dishonest move.
Mr. Cummings. So----
Mr. Pacelle. Thoroughly dishonest.
Mr. Cummings. So that would be--that second--what do you
call it, like a directive?
Mr. Pacelle. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. That second directive I would take it because
of all the things you just said, that is that it was a major
concern of the Congress of whether to vote--clearly a lot of
Congress was concerned about it, folks were concerned that we
might have a situation where the industry would be seriously
affected. I would take it would be reasonable to think that
quite a few people up and down the Department of Agriculture
knew about this. I mean, if you were to guess--I mean, make a
reasonable guess.
Mr. Pacelle. Someone produced it. I mean, you know, USDA is
a very, very in my view bureaucratic operation. People don't
just go off and start writing notices without having superiors
take a look at it. You know, I don't know if Secretary Ann
Veneman knew about it, but somebody knew about it. And it
clearly was at odds with the plain language of the Federal
Register interim final rule that was one of the core reforms
that USDA announced to address the enormous food safety scare
that erupted after the first mad cow disease. You have to
remember, contextually here we had seen a lot of people die in
the United Kingdom and there were pyres, you know, there were
cows that were killed and burned and enormous pyres. There was
a major food scare, yet we have a subversion of their explicit
rule. It really has come to light in the last few months after
we did our investigation, another positive outcome of the
investigation that we've forensically seen how USDA has handled
this issue.
Mr. Cummings. Is there a concern that maybe the government
is too close to the industry? I mean, I heard what you said
about you all--the Humane Society working with the industry,
but at the same time doing your little investigations, and I
also would like to know how you get access by the way. How does
that work?
Mr. Pacelle. That was an employee based investigation. Our
investigators sometimes seek employment and they work in the
plant and they document what goes on. It is not known to
management. It is an undercover investigation.
Mr. Cummings. They take pictures and everything?
Mr. Pacelle. Yeah. There is a tiny little camera where the
size of the lens is the size of the button on your shirt and he
has a little trigger in the pocket and you can take footage. We
make the cameras on our own and we want folks within industry
to think that, well, there may be a Humane Society
investigator, you better behave well and stop harming animals.
Mr. Cummings. So you all--and you all--and they know--and
they know that you all be doing these kinds of things; is that
right?
Mr. Pacelle. They certainly know now. They certainly know
now, yes, yes.
Mr. Cummings. So we can have full disclosure here, you all
plan to continue to do those things? I want everybody to hear
whether you are or not. I want that out there.
Mr. Pacelle. Yeah, not just factory farm, but also abusive
puppy mills, cockfighting arenas, other areas where there is
systemic abuse of animals occurring or maybe not. You know,
maybe a slaughter plant is complying and is--and, you know,
there is lots of legal activity. And if they are adhering to
the law, then they have nothing to fear from an assessment of
what is happening.
Mr. Cummings. You know, when you think about--you were just
mentioning a moment ago the idea of in Britain, in Great
Britain of them having to burn--is that what you said----
Mr. Pacelle. Yeah.
Mr. Cummings. All the cattle. I'm just wondering, do you
think--when we think about the Agriculture Department putting
out one set of rules and then come back and saying, no, this is
exactly how you get around our rule, which is incredible to me,
by the way, do you think that is driven--see, I'm trying to
figure out what would be the--what would be the motivation for
that? Because I think that is a critical question. You may have
said it while I was out of the room.
Mr. Pacelle. No, we didn't get into this, Congressman. And
I think it is an important point. I mean, we are not the first
at the Humane Society of the United States to say that USDA and
industry have too cozy an alignment. It is well discussed, many
of the editorial writers who praised our investigation
commented on the collusion between USDA and industry. Rosa
DeLauro, who is Chair of Agriculture Appropriations, has a bill
to put food safety functions outside of USDA, to have a more
independent agency that doesn't have as its core mission the
promotion of U.S.-produced agriculture commodities. I mean,
USDA for years has pushed U.S. commodity purchases. I actually
wrote my senior thesis in college about this issue of USDA
really kind of constructing what the ideal diet was as a means
of marketing the commodities that are being produced by the
industry. And I think we have seen time and time again they
have a food safety function, they have an animal welfare
function, they have a commodity promotion production and
commodity promotion has trumped these other concerns. And
Senator Durbin has legislation to deal with this issue of
protecting food safety. We would really like to see many of the
animal welfare enforcement programs moved out of the USDA to a
more neutral agency, like the Department of Justice or some
agency that doesn't have a built in conflict because it is so
close to the industry.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah. So they have to promote. And so
therefore with promotion logically comes protection. You have
to protect what you are promoting.
Mr. Pacelle. I think, you know, many of the people who work
in the agency come from the industry. It is their orientation,
it is their world view. It may not always be a devious, you
know, sort of scheme. It is just the orientation of the agency
and the industry. It is just the historical pattern. It is
inertia. And, you know, the folks who are part of that believe
in what they are doing and animal welfare, food safety has not
been their background for the most part.
Mr. Cummings. This is my last question. I wonder if there
is a--can you just explain to us a moment ago why it is that
you don't want to have downer animals in your food chain? Is
there a counter argument to that? Otherwise, I'm going back to
what you just said. That you have people who may have been a
part of the industry, then moves--I mean, may have been a part
of the industry and then--the industry that moves the
government--that moves the government. I mean, I'm just
wondering if--and they see these things going on, they become a
part of the system. And I'm trying in my head to say, OK, is--
are they saying that the government is crazy, the government is
just too strict, the government should not--I mean, this is as
an employee. The government--I mean, we are going to have all
of this beef destroyed or whatever and this is good meat. Are
there counter arguments to that?
Mr. Pacelle. Well, the argument of the folks who want to
slaughter downers is that they say that vets onsite can
distinguish between an animal who is ill, whose illness may
then be transmitted to human consumer, versus animals that have
an acute injury, say they have broken a leg, they got their leg
caught in the grate in the truck. And they claim that they can
make that distinction and why sacrifice that animal and the
profit of the farmer because you can make $600 or $1,000 on the
animal if you process the animal versus condemning the animal.
That is their argument. Our argument in response is that a
veterinarian--we heard today there is one veterinarian in the
pen areas if we're lucky in some of these areas and some of the
sizes--some of the volume of the animals we are talking are
thousands a day. How is the veterinarian going to make a
medical judgment about the animal's condition? What's more, if
an animal does have a neurological problem like BSE, or mad cow
disease, that may cause the animal to stumble and break a leg
which isn't an acute physical injury. So how can you separate
the physical injury from the neurological condition? It is too
much to ask of these veterinarians to make this distinction.
Downers are a small piece of the industry. Temple Grandin
here earlier today has said you can solve 90 percent of downer
issues with humane handling practices. What happened at
Hallmark/Westland was that we've genetically manipulated these
cows to produce enormous volumes of milk. I mean, they are
spent. These were spent dairy cows. They were Holsteins, these
black and white cows. They were so spent that they could not
walk very well. And those were the ones that were so battered
and beleaguered, they were the ones they were trying to squeeze
every last dime out of these animals. So they have given their
life to produce milk and now we want to squeeze them a little
bit more and make $500 to slaughter them.
Mr. Cummings. Doctor----
Mr. McGlone. I just want to added one bit of clarification.
I don't necessarily disagree with what has been said, but there
is more than one reason why an animal is a downer. And one of
the major reasons is because they are tired, because they--they
were an old animal or an animal that is finished with its
productive life and it goes on a truck for a couple of hours
ride. It gets to the plant, it has water but no food and it has
to walk from here to there and it gets tired. And so it just
stops. It lays down. So the position of people that look at
that, the veterinarians and scientists, is that, well, if it
doesn't have a bacterial or viral infection, if it doesn't have
BSE and it is just tired, then why can't we just humanely
slaughter it and put it in the food supply.
Mr. Cummings. Well, you know, I'm not--I don't know a lot
about farms because I have lived in the city all my life. But I
assume that--and correct me if I'm wrong--if you have--I mean,
do they let these animals get old? I mean--in other words, I
thought--I just assumed----
Mr. Pacelle. You're so right, Congressman. I mean, No. 1,
the definition of a downer--to take issue with Dr. McGlone--is
an animal who cannot rise from a recumbent position. If they
are tired and then they get up, then they are not a downer
anymore. But your point is correct. I mean, the beef cattle are
slaughtered at a relatively young age. The dairy cows are not
particularly old in the sense of aged. But they are just spent
because they have been milked so much and they have been--they
have been genetically manipulated to produce enormous volumes
of milk. And their body just breaks down to some degree.
Mr. McGlone. Congressman, I would be delighted to take you
on a tour if you'd like to see modern agriculture, if you'd
like to know more about where your food comes from. The problem
is if they are spent--and it is kind of an old term. But there
is nothing particularly wrong with the meat, though. And right
now we have a situation in this country where the price of feed
stuffs are very high, as I'm sure you know. The price of corn
and so on and the price of meat and milk is going up
dramatically. And if you take this food off the market, the
price of food will go up even more and the only people that
hurts is the poor people.
Mr. Pacelle. You know, this is such----
Mr. Kucinich. Excuse me. Maybe my colleague wants to
respond to that comment and then I want to respond to it.
Mr. Cummings. I was kind of--I tell you, I'm surprised you
said that.
Mr. McGlone. Really?
Mr. Cummings. So what you are saying--you know, when I was
a little boy, I remember, Doctor, going to the store--we used
to have these little neighborhood stores. This is the inner,
inner, inner, inner, inner city of Baltimore. You know what
they used to do, Doc? I remember this like it was happening
today. I was like 8 or 9 years old.
Mr. McGlone. I'd like to know.
Mr. Cummings. What they'd do is they would have meat in the
corner--these little corner stores--have meat in the corner and
they'd shine a red light on the meat to make it look fresh. And
these were poor neighborhoods. So I guess what you are saying
to me is that the only people that are getting--might be
getting this downer meat is poor people? Is that what you're
saying? That's not what you are saying, is it?
Mr. McGlone. I didn't actually say that.
Mr. Cummings. I know. I didn't say you did. I asked you if
you did.
Mr. McGlone. Well, I did not say that. But let's examine
that for a second. Where do you think, you know, old dairy cows
go?
Mr. Cummings. I don't know. Tell me.
Mr. McGlone. They go to hamburger.
Mr. Pacelle. They go to the school lunch program is where
they go. They give the lowest grade product to the schools and
they give it to kids who would not be able to withstand the
effects of salmonella and E. Coli as much. This was the No. 2
supplier to the National School Lunch Program, Hallmark/
Westland, that we investigated.
No. 2, 55 million pounds of ground beef went to the school
lunch program. That's where it goes.
Mr. McGlone. These downer animals are not the steak you eat
in a fancy steak place.
Mr. Kucinich. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Cummings. I yield.
Mr. Kucinich. The witness who speaks to the fact that this
meat that was a result of--that we learned about through this
undercover investigation was going to the School Lunch Program
is not a small matter. The gentleman raised a question that if
they start sorting out as all downer, everything identified as
a downer, that could have an effect on increasing the price of
meat, is that what you're saying?
Mr. McGlone. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. Would the gentleman agree that poor people
are entitled to the highest quality product?
Mr. McGlone. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. I just wanted to make sure we establish that.
Mr. McGlone. Yes. I agree.
Mr. Pacelle. I dispute the notion on your economics, to be
quite honest, that when USDA did restrict downers in 2004, not
to the extent that it claimed it was, is they still are
allowing downers into the food supply. No economist that I'm
aware of said that we would have higher meat prices in the
store as a consequence of the downer ban.
Mr. Kucinich. I want to ask Dr. McGlone, under any
circumstance, would you hesitate to yourself personally eat
meat that came from a downer; under all circumstance, you
wouldn't have any hesitation to eat meat that came from a
downer?
Mr. McGlone. I couldn't say under all circumstances.
Mr. Kucinich. So some downers are different?
Mr. McGlone. The ones that have BSE are different or the
ones that might have salmonella or the ones that----
Mr. Kucinich. But the point is that sorting these downers
out isn't always an easy thing to do; isn't that correct?
Mr. McGlone. No. It is a good thing to do.
Mr. Kucinich. What does the precautionary principle say
here?
Mr. McGlone. Yeah. It's a good thing to sort them out.
Mr. Kucinich. But let's talk about what would the prudent
person do.
Mr. McGlone. If you're not sure, you should segregate it,
which is what happens now.
Mr. Pacelle. Isn't that what Mr. Pacelle is advocating?
Mr. McGlone. He is advocating, if I understand it right,
not only segregating it, but not including it in the food
supply. And what I am suggesting is that if you segregate it
and then evaluate it for the safety of the product, that is--
that is an acceptable----
Mr. Pacelle. And how do you evaluate BSE in a pen area
and----
Mr. McGlone. Well, you can't until the animal is dead and
you have----
Mr. Kucinich. I want to go back to Mr. Cummings here. But
there are some things that are problematic clinically in terms
of how something presents because--are they not? I just want to
make sure that the perspective that is being offered here is
one that to you, Dr. McGlone, based on your experience is
plausible.
Mr. McGlone. Which part is plausible?
Mr. Kucinich. Plausible that Mr. Pacelle's perspective
about downers with respect to food safety issues----
Mr. McGlone. Yes. When the animal goes down and--before it
can be consumed, there must be other things that happen. It
must be observed live and it must be observed in carcass form.
And in the case of the recent issue, that didn't happen. There
wasn't a second inspection before the animal went into the food
supply.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Cummings. Go ahead, Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Pacelle. American Humane doesn't support a no downer
policy.
Mr. McGlone. Actually I'm not sure what their policy is on
downers.
Mr. Pacelle. It would be the only humane organization that
departs from that policy.
Mr. Kucinich. Which is? Excuse me, Dr. McGlone. Do you want
to state your policy? Yes.
Mr. Pacelle. We have an unambiguous policy that animals who
cannot get up, cows and pigs who cannot get up from a recumbent
position for humane handling purposes as well as food safety
should not be funneled into the food supply for the very
reasons that we documented at the Hallmark plant that animals
were kicked, they were--they had electricity put on their eyes
and their anus, they were rammed with a forklift, they had high
pressure water put in their nostrils and mouth to simulate a
drowning effect. And the USDA inspector was there for 2 or 3
hours a day; 2 or 3 hours a day.
Mr. Kucinich. It was USDA approved?
Mr. Pacelle. They weren't present to make judgments. And
they were approving 35 or 40 animals--you know, the animals
were that far away to the wall and they were making a visual
inspection of 35 or 40 animals in a spot. The USDA inspector
would approve the animals if they could stand.
Mr. Kucinich. But the animals that you just described and
the conditions that they were in, they were ultimately approved
by the USDA. They had that----
Mr. Pacelle. If the animal could stand, they were all
approved.
Mr. Kucinich. OK.
Mr. Pacelle. This notion that somehow there was some
medical evaluation of the animals is entirely false.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. The only thing--I just leave with this, that
I--you know, I just think--when I think about health and
safety, it is just so many ways that you can--that we can bring
harm to people in this country and anybody who might consume.
And we see it in all kinds of stuff. Right now, we are working
on an issue with toys and lead. It just seems to me--I just
want to encourage the Humane Society to continue to do what you
do. Sometimes I think we have to have--and I'm not--I mean, if
there are other societies that do the same thing, God bless
them. Because we have to have--when government fails we have to
have these types of organizations to put a light in some of
these dark corners. Because if we don't have them, we are in
trouble. We are like--it is like a train going down the track
about to run into another train, period. And I think that if
the American people knew that our--and see, this is a piece
that a lot of people miss. People are paying taxes for certain
protections. That is what they pay taxes for. I mean, that is
why--I mean, when people talk about--you know, I always hear
people say things like why do we need government? You know,
what are my taxes being used for? Well, I don't need
government. This is why you need government, right here. This
is a perfect example. But when you are paying for something and
you're not getting it, that is a problem, particularly when it
comes to stuff that you're putting in your body. I mean, that
is incredible.
And so I just--I don't--I think, Mr. Chairman, I don't know
all the answers but one thing I do know is that I think this
hearing has certainly opened up my eyes to a lot of things I
didn't know about this whole industry and what is going on
here. And it is so easy for people to say that things don't
matter. And as soon as something happens, then suddenly it
matters. And it is easier for people to say things don't matter
as long as it is affecting negatively somebody else. But as
soon as it affects you, then suddenly it matters, you're on the
morning shows and you have folk interviewing you.
So I just hope that some kind of way this hearing and
things like this will cause folk begin to do their jobs. Did
you have something to say, Mr.----
Mr. Pacelle. Thank you for the comments. You know, I do
think you said it before. I mean, there are people who will
take a shortcut. For whatever reason, they want to--they want a
shortcut and that is why there needs to be some oversight in
this area, precisely for the reason that you said. And here
with food, we are dealing with food safety issues that affect
every one of us, children, elderly and everyone in between, and
we are also affecting the lives of these animals. These animals
have the same spark of life that we have. They want to live
just as much as we want to live. They don't want to suffer. But
there are people who just think of them as things, and they
will do whatever they wish to them because they have the power
to do so.
So someone has to come in, whether it is the Congress or
others, and say, hey, we need some limits in society. We need
some restraints, because an unfettered market where animals are
just treated as commodities is not acceptable.
Mr. Kucinich. I think this is a good point for us to give
our third panelists an opportunity to enter into this
discussion and ask if it is possible that the technology that
you presented to this committee can capture what is happening
in the area of a slaughterhouse or a meat packing plant?
Mr. Aronson. Thank you for the question. You know, I'll
point back to the experiences that we have had with FPL Food,
which is a cattle slaughter plant down in Augusta, Georgia, and
does about 1,200 cattle a day. So it is categorically a medium
to large company in terms of volumes. And the methodology that
we have employed, which I outline in the written testimony and
talk a little bit about in the oral testimony, is a combination
of random sampling with remote video auditing and continuous
employee feedback. That is really the most important thing I
would tell anybody about video. If you just put cameras in and
you expect them to affect employee behavior, they are really
not going to do much of anything. If you do employ a very
progressive and regular, continuous feedback stream to the
plant, focusing mainly on the supervisors that run these areas,
we found not just in this industry, but in many industries that
you can have a very quick and sustained impact on outcomes and
employee behavior.
Mr. Kucinich. Is the video only in realtime or is it
possible to go back in time to review previous days, weeks,
months?
Mr. Aronson. It is both.
Mr. Kucinich. So it is an archive?
Mr. Aronson. Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of the
discussion on this panel and in previous panels is around the
issues of downers and identifying them. And first of all, they
don't happen very often. So they are hard to find in general
and we use in a lot of our industry still picture technology,
where we can go back in time and look at, say, a 30-minute
window of time across 16 pictures which would each be 2 minutes
apart. And the theory being is that if there is a 1,000-pound
cow that can't move, it is not going anywhere in 2 minutes. So
we are able to very quickly identify within a 30-minute window
if there has been a downer animal. And what we do with that
PL--and there is some other companies that are coming on board
now with this program due to the work done by the Humane
Society whereby on a 24/7 basis we are every 30 minutes looking
at the video. And if we see any downers we notify the plant
immediately and send them an e-mail with a link to the video so
that they can do their own examination. Because it really is a
needle in the haystack and what was interesting to us--and I
didn't know this at the time. I wasn't aware of the volume of
overnight delivery of cattle and most of our pre-existing
services were random live sampling during the day, during the
operations hours. And when we were able to look at the still
imagery on the overnight shifts, it was very clear that there
would be a lot of value there. So that is why we--you know, we
moved away from just a live sampling model to a retroactive
model.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much. I wanted to thank each
of the panelists for your participation. This has been a very
important discussion. I think, you know, with Mr. Aronson'
participation it was important from the standpoint of providing
a perspective of a possible technological solution.
The exchange between Mr. Pacelle and Dr. McGlone has been
important because, you know, this committee is trying to
provide opportunities for give and take on these issues so that
we can come to an understanding of the approach that we'll take
in recommending some legislative improvements or some policy
directions that will be important to USDA or any other relevant
agency.
So this has been a hearing of the Domestic Policy
Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The title of this hearing has been ``After the Beef Recall:
Exploring Greater Transparency in the Meat Industry.''
We have had three panels and we began at 1. It is now 6.
The witnesses who are here were here at the beginning. I want
to thank you for your patience and your participation. I want
to thank Mr. Cummings for staying with us throughout this
hearing and also for the staff that supported our efforts here,
and for Mr. Issa's participation.
We do work in a bipartisan way. We are going to maintain an
active oversight on this area, with the mind to not simply
looking at the industry as it may have its difficulties and
trying to expose them if necessary, but also looking at some
solutions that could provide for more humane practices. So--and
for more, you know, food safety.
So thank you, all of you, and there being no further
business before this committee, we stand adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 6 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]