AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD 

AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED 

AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND 

DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES 

JACK KINGSTON, Georgia, Chairman 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi 

TOM GRAVES, Georgia 

SAM FARR, California 

ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Dicks, as Ranking 

Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees. 

MARTIN DELGADO, TOM O’BRIEN, BETSY BINA, and ANDREW COOPER, 

Staff Assistants 

PART 5 

FOOD SAFETY INSPECTION SERVICE 

( 

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

66–792 WASHINGTON : 2011 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman 

C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 1

JERRY LEWIS, California 1

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JACK KINGSTON, Georgia 

RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida 

DENNY REHBERG, Montana 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana 

KEN CALVERT, California 

JO BONNER, Alabama 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

STEVE AUSTRIA, Ohio 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

TOM GRAVES, Georgia 

KEVIN YODER, Kansas 

STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas 

ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi 

————— 

1 Chairman Emeritus 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

JOSE ́ E. SERRANO, New York 

ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California 

SAM FARR, California 

JESSE L. JACKSON, JR., Illinois 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

BARBARA LEE, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

WILLIAM B. INGLEE, Clerk and Staff Director 

(II)

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

(1) 

AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD 

AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 

2012 

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2011. 

FOOD SAFETY INSPECTION SERVICE 

WITNESSES 

ELISABETH HAGEN, UNDER SECRETARY FOR FOOD SAFETY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

ALFRED ALMANZA, ADMINISTRATOR, FOOD SAFETY AND INSPECTION 

SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

MICHAEL YOUNG, BUDGET OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

OPENING REMARKS

Mr. KINGSTON. The committee will come to order. 

First of all, let me welcome you and your panel. And, Dr. Hagan 

I will let you introduce your folks formally. 

I really don’t have much of an opening statement, but I wanted 

to say—hello, Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Good morning. 

Mr. KINGSTON. We heard your footsteps, and decided to go ahead 

and tap the gavel. 

So anyway, your budget has a net decrease of $7 million. We are 

pleased to see that. I know that you’ve got mathematically some increases and some decreases to offset that. 

We are very concerned about spending. I have said over and over 

again, neither party has the franchise on innocence in terms of our 

budget woes. But we’ve got to do something about it. 

And so we’re looking to make the government leaner and smarter 

and do everything that we can. And with that, I will yield to Mr. 

Farr. 

Mr. FARR. I have no opening statement. Let’s get into the testimony and questions. Maybe Ms. DeLauro might. She has another 

hearing that she’s got to chair. Do you want to take that—— 

Ms. DELAURO. No. I have no opening statement. I just want to 

welcome Dr. Hagen to the committee. We’re delighted that you’re 

at FSIS, and I’m sure we all look forward to working with you, as 

you try to move to deal with implementing food safety. Thank you. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Dr. Hagen, go ahead. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

2 

And let me say for the record, also your full testimony has been 

submitted, and we have read it. So if you want to just highlight 

it, you are welcome to. 

DR. HAGAN’S TESTIMONY

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you. I’ll do that. 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Farr, and members of the subcommittee. 

I am Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, Under Secretary for Food Safety. I appreciate the invitation to appear before you this morning about the 

status of the Food Safety and Inspection Services programs, and in 

support of the President’s fiscal year 2012 budget request. 

The Food Safety and Inspection Service, FSIS, is the public 

health regulatory agency at the USDA. And we are responsible for 

ensuring that the domestic and imported commercial supply of 

meat, poultry, and processed egg products is safe. 

Preventing foodborne illness is our guiding principle. The work 

that we do affects every American who puts meat and poultry on 

the table. 

Americans rely on the USDA mark of inspection to know that 

their food is safe to eat. And we take that trust very seriously. 

Thanks to the resources that the committee has provided, we have 

been able to significantly improve the safety of the products that 

we regulate. 

We all know and understand the far-reaching benefits of food 

safety. A safe food supply saves lives, but it also supports local 

business and rural development, and has an impact on trade and 

on our overall economy. 

The list goes on and on. 

The meat and poultry industry cannot operate unless FSIS inspection activities are performed. Because of our Congressional 

mandate, we directly impact our nation’s economy. 

But the most important role that we have is to protect public 

health. The loss of a loved one can never be quantified or evaluated 

monetarily. 

FSIS’ legal authority derives from the Federal Meat Inspection 

Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and the regulations that are put forth under these laws. 

These regulations are the foundational tools that we use to ensure the safety of the products under our authority, and enforce the 

labeling of meat and poultry products. 

But in 2011, we know more about food safety than we did in the 

past. Science has given us new tools that we need to prevent 

foodborne illness, and it is our investment in science that has enabled us to make such progress at the Agency. 

According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention—CDC—FoodNet, the incidence of 

foodborne illness from key pathogens has declined markedly since 

the surveillance baseline in 1996 to 1998. 

Human illness cases from E. coli O157: H7 have decreased by 41 

percent, Campylobacter by 30 percent, Listeria by 26 percent, and 

Salmonella by ten percent. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

3 

Even so, far too many people still get sick and even die from the 

food that they eat, and we must continue the ongoing effort to 

strengthen and support prevention methods within our current 

legal framework. 

We are also working to re-tool the future of food safety. We are 

very excited about launching the Public Health Information System, PHIS, which will allow FSIS to collect, consolidate, and analyze all of our data to better target inspection activities, make more 

informed decisions, and strengthen our capacity to protect American consumers. 

By combining separate systems into one comprehensive, webbased system, FSIS will have a rigorous public health decisionmaker tool to better predict problems before they occur, and respond more quickly to the ones that do happen. 

Building on PHIS, we will realign and make our sampling programs more efficient through a laboratory information management system, and allow for the achievement of cost efficiencies 

with sampling programs and laboratory testing. We expect to save 

a million dollars through this effort. 

We continue to seek additional scientific data, and this is why 

our fiscal year 2012 budget proposes a $5.5 million increase to expand regulatory sampling for key pathogens and conduct an additional baseline study. 

This increase will allow for FSIS to improve surveillance of 

foodborne pathogens of human health concern in regulated products, develop more timely estimates of pathogen prevalence, and ultimately focus resources more efficiently and effectively. 

Investing in food safety can save lives, as well as money. Estimates of the cost of foodborne illness vary widely; but it is clear 

that they are substantial and amount to billions of dollars annually. 

As a medical doctor, I also know that the financial cost of medical care for people can be devastating as a burden on these families, and that the emotional costs of these tragedies can never be 

quantified. 

FSIS inspection program personnel form the backbone of our 

public health infrastructure in domestic processing and slaughter 

establishments, laboratories, and import houses throughout the nation. 

More than 8,000 FSIS inspection program personnel are on hand 

at approximately 6,200 domestic processing and slaughter establishments, where they conduct pre- and post-slaughter inspection of 

livestock and poultry, and processed meat, poultry, and egg products. 

These program personnel conducted eight million food safety and 

food defense procedures to verify that the systems at all federal establishments met the appropriate requirements in fiscal year 2010. 

We are working to ensure that our preventive measures reduce 

risk as much as possible, before it ever reaches consumers. But we 

are also using social media and traditional outreach methods to inform consumers and spread the word about safe food handling. 

In fact, FSIS has partnered with the Ad Council to produce a 

multi-media public service advertising campaign to raise awareness 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

4 

of foodborne illness and to actually effect change in food-handling 

behaviors at home. 

This campaign will be unveiled this summer. 

We have also increased our outreach to clinicians and public 

health professionals on actions to reduce the risk of foodborne illness. 

I personally am keenly aware that clinicians and public health 

professionals are uniquely positioned to have a positive impact on 

foodborne illness prevention. I am working with these professionals 

to build bridges on this important preventive health opportunity, 

and I will continue to do so in the future. 

So in conclusion, I will say that my job and the mission of the 

nearly 10,000 employees in FSIS is to protect public health through 

food safety. 

That is a commitment and a promise that we make to the American public and to consumers worldwide. 

FSIS has made a noticeable impact and has become an indispensable guardian of public safety, and we will continue to do so. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, the Ranking Member, and the committee, for this chance to appear before you. 

[The information follows:] 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

5 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 9 here 66792A.001
6 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 10 here 66792A.002
7 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 11 here 66792A.003
8 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 12 here 66792A.004
9 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 13 here 66792A.005
10 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 14 here 66792A.006
11 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 15 here 66792A.007
12 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 16 here 66792A.008
13 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 17 here 66792A.009
14 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 18 here 66792A.010
15 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 19 here 66792A.011
16 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 20 here 66792A.012
17 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 21 here 66792A.013
18 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 22 here 66792A.014
19 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 23 here 66792A.015
20 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 24 here 66792A.016
21 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 25 here 66792A.017
22 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 26 here 66792A.018
23 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 27 here 66792A.019
24 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 28 here 66792A.020
25 

Mr. KINGSTON. Thank you, Dr. Hagen. 

And what I might do, if it’s okay with you, Mr. Farr, is yield to 

Ms. DeLauro, if she wants to go ahead and knowing your passion 

on this subject and knowing your schedule, if that works for you. 

Ms. DELAURO. Thank you very much. I really want to say a 

thank-you to both my colleagues, to Mr. Kingston, the Chair, and 

Mr. Farr, the Ranking Member, for this courtesy. I really appreciate it. 

I’ll try to move quickly, if I can get to a couple or three questions. 

And then I have to go over to the Labor HHS Subcommittee this 

morning. 

Again, welcome to you. 

IMPACT OF H.R. 1 CUTS

Last year, USDA increased an $18 million increase above 2010 

levels for food safety and inspection service. This was to support 

the initiative to improve the public health infrastructure, speed up 

investigations, response to outbreaks, conduct a baseline study on 

the prevalence of pathogens, expand sampling. It now appears that you may see another $88 million cut over 

the remainder of the year, if the current appropriations bill becomes law. 

I have three questions here: 

What would the specific impact of FSIS’ food safety activities, if 

the Agency’s budget was cut significantly, as specified in H.R. 1? 

How would FSIS implement this reduction in funds? How would 

it impact food safety? How many inspectors would have to be furloughed, since meat and poultry plants cannot operate by law, 

without an inspector present? What would that mean for meat and 

poultry plants across the country? 

How many chickens and beef carcasses would be destroyed, because the would go uninspected? How many fewer tests for 

foodborne pathogens would be conducted? 

What other food safety activities at FSIS would be negatively impacted? 

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you for your question, Congresswoman. 

You know, FSIS and the entire Department of Agriculture are 

just as committed to reducing spending and to spending American 

taxpayer dollars more wisely and more efficiently than ever before. 

But when you look at an Agency like ours, which, you know, has 

a budget that is largely personnel-dependent—and when I say 

largely, I mean between 80 and 85 percent of our budgetary dollars 

go towards paying salaries and benefits for our personnel—and 

then you look at what proportion of that amount actually goes to 

our frontline personnel, and that’s about 82 percent of that 

amount, there is not a lot of room to maneuver, when you’re talking about cuts that are this substantial at this point in a fiscal 

year. 

There is no question that this magnitude of a cut would impact 

our workforce. 

And I think everybody in the room knows about our statutorily 

mandated presence to be in plants. As I said in my opening statement, the industry cannot operate without our inspection personnel 

there, by law. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

26 

So if we’re talking about that substantial of a cut that would impact our personnel, and we might need to look at furloughs, obviously that would be a major impact to the industry. 

I don’t have the specifics for you of exactly what the impact 

would be. We’ve certainly looked at a number of scenarios. But just 

to remind the committee that, you know, in fiscal year 2010, we 

looked at 147 million head of livestock, we looked at nine billion 

birds. And so an inability to do that, because we’re not in the 

plants, would be a major impact for the industry, and we would be 

looking at billions of dollars of impact there. 

Ms. DELAURO. Mm-hmm. What I would like to do is get from 

you, the specific numbers. So we’ll get to you the list of those questions. 

Dr. HAGEN. Okay. 

Ms. DELAURO. Because I think it’s important to quantify what 

you have said and what, in fact, that means. 

N–60 SAMPLING PROGRAM

Let me ask you about the N–60 sampling program. You know 

what the findings are of the inspector general. A sampling program 

to detect E. coli O157:H7 in beef trim at the FSIS is not statistically valid. 

And I had requested that OIG report in November 2009, and it 

highlighted the concerns about the efficacy of the testing program. 

Now OIG agreed that no method of statistical sampling and testing can guarantee that a particular lot of beef trim is free from E. 

coli contamination. The report found that the N–60 sampling method is not designed to yield the statistical precision that is reasonable for food safety. 

You know the letter that I sent to the Secretary last week, that 

asks a series of follow-up questions on the OIG report. I want to 

ask you the same set of questions: 

Do you agree with the OIG’s findings that FSIS should construct 

a revised, statistically valid sampling program? During a hearing 

two weeks ago, the OIG indicated that FSIS needs to consider implementing a risk-based sampling scheme. 

However, if FSIS does not possess a statistically valid sampling 

program, how does it intend to devise a risk-based sampling 

scheme? 

Given the findings in the OIG report, how confident are you, 

with the quality of the data that has been submitted into the system, that will serve as a foundation for the implementation of the 

Public Health Information System, directly tied in to PHIS? 

What would be the cost estimate of developing a revised statistically valid sampling program? Will the recent proposed budget 

cuts in HR 1 prevent FSIS from accomplishing this? 

I have an add-on. But let me just—I see the time is up, but let 

me just see what we can do here. 

REGULATORY SAMPLING PROGRAMS

Dr. HAGEN. Okay. And I’ll try to tackle each part of that question, Congresswoman. 

So I wanted to say first that I know how important this issue is 

to you, and I know how important it is to consumers to be able to 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

27 

have confidence in the steps that we take to protect them from 

foodborne illness. 

And we take the report from OIG very, very seriously. I think 

that to some extent, there is a hidden success here. I mean, E. coli 

O157:H7 is an intrinsically difficult pathogen to detect. It’s at low 

levels in beef and beef products. 

And in fact, illnesses from O157:H7 have decreased markedly 

through the years. We think that our policies, and we think that 

the efforts of the industry have made for a safer beef supply. 

So we find ourselves in this place, sort of a new chapter, where 

we have to look at what we’ve done before. We’ve had the success 

that we’ve had, but we still have a commitment and obligation to 

keep things safe. 

So what’s the best program we could design—— 

Ms. DELAURO. But should you construct a revised statistically 

valid sampling program, as has been the portion their findings? 

Dr. HAGEN. I think that sampling is one of the things that we’re 

looking at. We’re looking at overall our entire approach to beef 

safety, so not just: Is our sampling program what it needs to be? 

But also, what are the things that we can do to get better prevention up front, the entire way through slaughter and processing? 

So—— 

Ms. DELAURO. Will you be revising a sampling method? 

Dr. HAGEN. We are certainly looking at that right now, and we 

will be moving toward an improved sampling method. 

Ms. DELAURO. Mm-hmm. How does this work if you don’t a sampling system that’s valid sampling? How do we move to risk-based? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, I think that’s an important question, and that 

is one of the recommendations of the OIG. And we still have some 

things that we need to come to consensus with OIG on about how 

we address the findings that they presented in the report. 

And I think that will be one piece of it, once we come to some 

consensus about those recommendations and how we move forward. I think that’s going to better inform our approach on the 

next step. 

So it’s something that we’ll look forward to updating you about 

as we come up with good answers on that. 

Ms. DELAURO. But the question here is: With your PHIS system. 

Dr. HAGEN. Mm-hmm. 

PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM

Ms. DELAURO. And I won’t put it this way, because it isn’t, but 

the best way I can say it—and it’s a bit crass, Dr. Hagen, is that 

garbage in, garbage out. And I don’t mean that literally. 

But if your information going in is statistically flawed, it’s not 

good, et cetera, your system then, in dealing with risk-based, is not 

going to be what it needs to be. 

And I think what we need to know on this committee is whether 

or not you’re going to take the advice of the IG, and take this information, and turn this around, so that: 

One, we don’t proceed down a road with a risk-based system and 

a PHIS system that has inherently data that is not the appropriate 

data, or it’s not statistically viable, as data in the system. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

28 

It would just seem to me that you’ve got to make some immediate decisions, because you got folks out there on the PHIS—and 

I’ll put those questions in for the record on PHIS—but that are 

studying this, looking at it, trying to get people trained in order to 

deal with it. 

But if the methodology in the sampling is not right, then we are 

once again not going down the right road, in order to accomplish 

what we all would like to accomplish. And that is risk-based systems here. 

But without the data, you can’t get there. 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, as far as how PHIS was built, I think it’s important to remember that first of all, N–60 is not the only sampling 

program that we have. It’s not the only sampling that we do to protect public health. 

And the PHIS was really built on a wide variety of data sources. 

And in fact, we laid out this past fall a strategic data analysis plan, 

as well as our public health decision criteria. And both of those documents and those strategies were built largely on feedback that we 

received from the National Academy of Sciences about our approach. 

Ms. DELAURO. Mm-hmm. 

Dr. HAGEN. So while N–60 and the concerns expressed in the 

OIG report are certainly an important component of what we’re 

looking at and what we’re doing here, they’re not the sole source 

of data, or the sole basis upon which we built PHIS. 

But again, we take the recommendations very seriously, and 

there are some very important findings in that report that we we’ll 

be moving forward to implement. 

Ms. DELAURO. Final question. When do you anticipate making a 

decision as to whether or not you are going to take their advice and 

change the sampling system? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, we’re already working on recommendations 

from the report. I mean, one we’ve come to consensus with them 

on, and we’re looking right now at what those changes in a sampling program might be. 

So I can’t give you an exact time line, but I know that this is 

going to be something that’s important to follow up with you on, 

and I commit to you that we’ll do that. 

Ms. DELAURO. Mm-hmm. Please. We would like to be notified 

about the recommendations that have been made, and what has 

been done to change the system. 

Dr. HAGEN. Absolutely. And that would be our pleasure. 

Ms. DELAURO. Thank you, Dr. Hagen. Thank you. Thank you 

very much for your indulgence. 

RISK-BASED INSPECTIONS

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, thank you. And as you know, we’re all interested in risk-based inspection from one angle or the other. 

You know, one of the questions that I have as I listened to that 

is: I recall—and I know Ms. DeLauro does—that the testimony of 

Dr. Raymond about risk-based inspection, and how I think it was 

in 2007, they were very gung-ho it, and in 2008 kind of backed off 

it a little bit—— 

Ms. DELAURO. They didn’t have enough information. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

29 

Mr. KINGSTON. Yes. And so what I’m concerned about is is this 

time frame, is this government bureaucracy moving slowly? Or is 

this smart science moving cautiously? 

Dr. HAGEN. If I could just clarify your question, Mr. Chairman, 

are you asking whether we’re still moving forward with the prior 

risk-based inspection proposal, and whether there’s been a delay 

there? 

Mr. KINGSTON. No. No. Are we moving slowly because of bureaucracy being indecisive? Or are we being cautious because of the 

science? 

And I know both of you have a strong prejudice, and a good prejudice for science-based inspection. And you chair the Codex—— 

Dr. HAGEN. That’s right, sir—— 

Mr. KINGSTON. And, Mr. Almanza, you’ve been out on the line in 

Texas, doing this stuff for a long time. So you have a good background, solid stuff that could really contribute to this. 

But where are we? Are we going too slow? Or is this the right 

speed? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, I—that in terms of the Public Health Information System, this is not really just a data system, this is really an 

infrastructural change in the way that we approach the work that 

we do. 

This is one of the most significant things that we’ve done in some 

time. And I think that in this case it is more important to get it 

right than to get it done quickly. So it is my opinion that we’re 

moving at the correct speed. 

We have had some really very, very valuable input from the National Academy of Sciences; we’ve taken a lot of input from the 

public; we have worked closely with our frontline inspection personnel, in terms of testing this system, getting feedback from them 

on what’s working and what doesn’t. 

So I think that we are moving at the right speed here. I do think 

it’s more important to get this right than to push it through too 

quickly. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Now Dr. Hamburg with FDA said, I believe, to 

Mr. Farr and Ms. DeLauro the other day, talking about inspections 

in general, she said that you get to know who are the good actors 

and those who maybe need a little bit more scrutiny. 

Do you agree with that? And is that helpful in designing riskbased inspection? 

PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM

Dr. HAGEN. Well, to some extent, yes, I do agree with that. I 

think that what we’re doing with PHIS is a bit more of a scientific 

approach than just knowing the good actors and the bad actors. 

You know, we will continue to have a basic level of inspection. 

We are not looking to cut back inspection resources or attention to 

any given plant. 

But what PHIS will allow us to do is decide, based on how plants 

are performing, who might need some additional look, who might 

need some additional procedures to look at how well their systems 

are working. 

So yes, it is a matter of knowing the good actors and the bad actors. But I think there has to be a scientific framework and algomstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

30 

rithm behind how you decide who are the good guys and who needs 

a little bit more attention. 

I don’t know if Mr. Almanza has something to add to that. 

Mr. ALMANZA. No, other than we have enough flexibility built 

into PHIS. And I think that goes to Congresswoman DeLauro’s 

question, is: There is enough flexibility within the system. And 

we’ve taken a long time to build a system. And as a matter of fact 

some of the situations that we’ve dealt with along the way have 

caused us to make some changes. 

And so I think both of you will be pleased with the end product, 

because it’s not a matter of the day we implement PHIS. That’s the 

way it is. There’s going to be some flexibility, and that’s the way 

the system was built. 

FOODBORNE ILLNESSES

Mr. KINGSTON. In terms of the decrease, Listeria down 26 percent, Salmonella ten percent, E. coli 41 percent, what do you attribute that to? Did you break down why those decreases happened? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, we certainly think that in some significant 

part, it’s due to the policies and procedures that have been put in 

place by this Agency and by other regulatory bodies, by the industry itself to provide controls—— 

Mr. KINGSTON. Do you know specifically which ones? 

Dr. HAGEN. I can’t tell you, Mr. Chairman, specifically, you 

know, which interventions or which policies have led to, you know, 

specific decreases. 

I think also that we’ve done a very good job in consumer safety 

education. I think folks on the fork end of the farm-to-fork continuum are learning more and more about steps that they can take, 

as well, to avoid foodborne illness. 

Mr. KINGSTON. But are you doing that because a 41 percent decrease in E. coli is significant, and we would be remiss if we did 

not figure out, ‘‘Okay, why did that happen? What worked the best? 

And how do we maximize that? How do we invest in that?’’ 

So are you doing that kind of analysis? 

Dr. HAGEN. One of the most important things I think that we 

can do is put metrics in place: How do we know that we have succeeded, and what has made us succeed? And that’s something that 

we’ve been focusing on, with the President’s Food Safety Working 

Group. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me stop you a minute. 

Dr. HAGEN. Mm-hmm. 

Mr. KINGSTON. I’m a little bit flabbergasted by that. It’s kind of, 

‘‘Well, of course, we’re looking into it, Mr. Chairman, you’re damn 

right we are.’’ 

That’s what I’m looking for. 

Dr. HAGEN. I think that’s what I was trying to say, sir. But one 

of the most important things that we can do is hold ourselves accountable to what works and what doesn’t. We put metrics in place 

and we say how will we know—— 

Mr. KINGSTON. Because I think what we would be interested in 

as a committee is that, you know, short little white paper and say, 

‘‘This is why foodborne illnesses went from 76 million to 48 million. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

31 

And here is what we did right, and here is what industry did right, 

here is what the consumers did right.’’ 

I think all that would be very, very important. And would think 

that that information is out there on somebody’s desk right now. 

Dr. HAGEN. Yeah, I think trying to put our finger on that kind 

of information is really very important too. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Okay. Thank you. My time is expired. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, 

Dr. Hagen, for being here. 

H.R. 1 REDUCTION

In your testimony or that of Mr. Almanza, it points out that 

there are 62 hundred federally-inspected establishments in this 

country that you’re responsible for? 

Dr. HAGEN. Approximately, yes. 

Mr. FARR. Well, Secretary Vilsack was here, and in trying to impress him on the fact that the House had already passed H.R. 1, 

which took our funding levels back to 2008. And although people 

in this town seem to think that that’s just not a possibility that it 

will ever get passed, since then we’ve been cutting the federal at 

$2 billion a week. 

And after today’s vote, it will be $8 billion, four last time and six this time, $10 billion. 

If you add up the number of weeks left, that’s $2 billion a week. And the bottom line, you add 30 weeks left, that’s $60 billion. 

That’s H.R. 1. 

And I don’t know where in the Administration somebody is going 

to wake up and say there are consequences if we do this. And I’m 

hoping today you might talk about what those consequences might 

be, and with some passion that Mr. Kingston just talked about. 

If, indeed, the federal responsibility is to prevent or check 

foodborne illness by all these inspections—we have 62 hundred federally-inspected establishments, and you pointed out what the 

workforce is. If we cut that budget back, your budget, back to 2008 

levels, that’s a reduction of $88.4 million and 8.7 percent below the 

2010, and $106.8 billion, ten percent below the 2011 request. 

You’re going to have to furlough a lot of people. 

What’s that going to do to those 62 hundred federally-inspected 

establishments? I mean, many of them will be affected. 

And what’s it do—maybe you could share with us, because nobody’s asked this question—is that as much as the private sector 

may complain about government regulation, they also need government inspection for purposes of assuring sort of quality assurance, 

health assurance; 

But they also need that to buy insurance. 

I mean, what’s going to happen to the financial—if you lay off 

these inspectors, you can’t inspect; facilities come to a grinding 

halt; the financial community pulls back and says, ‘‘We can’t insure 

you if you’re not going to have inspections.’’ 

Could you just discuss how serious this shutdown could be? 

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you for your questions, Congressman. 

As I mentioned before, our budget is largely about our people. So 

much so that 80 percent of our budget goes towards salary and 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

32 

benefits of our employees, and the vast majority of that goes toward our frontline employees. 

And as you point out, those 6,200 establishments cannot operate, 

unless our employees are there, doing their work. And their work 

really matters. And I think that the case that you set out demonstrates how much their work matters. 

We’re certainly looking at a number of scenarios. We don’t know 

exactly what the impact on the industry would be. Each scenario 

that we look at, we look to minimize that impact. But the truth is, 

that this far into the year, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room there. So if we’re looking at something like $88 million, that’s definitely 

going to affect our personnel. 

In one scenario, we have looked at a furlough lasting more than 

a month for all of our personnel. And that would impact every federally-regulated establishment. And we would certainly be looking 

at billions of dollars of economic impact there. 

Mr. FARR. What’s it do to the market? I mean, you know what— 

this is all about processing. We grow chickens and process them 

and slaughter them and feed them. There was over how many billion, did you say in your testimony of? 

Dr. HAGEN. We have 147 million head of livestock in 2010 and 

nine billion birds. 

Mr. FARR. Nine billion? 

Dr. HAGEN. That’s right, sir. 

Mr. FARR. I can’t even imagine how many that is a day. But it’s 

significant. 

Dr. HAGEN. It’s very significant. And obviously if our slaughter 

and processing operations aren’t working, producers don’t have 

anywhere to send their livestock and their poultry. 

So it’s a significant impact that we would— 

Mr. FARR. Have you gotten our message out? Because we’re not 

hearing from them. 

Dr. HAGEN. We’re certainly working on trying to examine what 

the true impact to industry would be. We don’t want to put out 

numbers that we haven’t been able to fully vet and consider. 

But I think, you know, the committee is aware of the numbers 

that have been provided to the Hill. 

Mr. FARR. Yeah, the committee is. And I think, you know, you 

have seasoned members on the Appropriations Committee. We’ve 

been in Congress a long time, and many of us have been in other 

legislative capacities before we even got here. 

But I do think there’s a new freshman class that has very little 

public experience, and very little knowledge, frankly. I mean, that’s 

really what lack of experience is, is just you don’t get exposed to 

these things. 

And I think that the Administration has been very cautious 

about telling the public what the implications are. And this stuff 

is real. 

I mean, before the end of the day, we will have cut $10 billion 

out of this year’s appropriation. And somewhere it’s got to affect 

your Department. And I think in anything, if this sort of 

shockwave that’s hit Congress, and this cutting in it, it ought to 

wake up America. And we have a job to do, is we’ve got to redefine 

what government does. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

33 

I mean, taxpayers are asking, you know, ‘‘Why would, should we 

pay for all these things?’’ And I think we owe them an explanation. 

And Congress isn’t doing a very good job of it, because in many 

cases the people that are advocating the cuts most are the ones 

that have the least understanding of what the impacts are. 

But certainly, those of you in professional roles, I think need to 

be much more articulate on the value of government services to industry, and the implications that indeed these cuts do matter, that 

there are consequences. 

Because right now, I think the Administration’s dealing with, 

‘‘Ah, we can just absorb this stuff.’’ And it can’t. 

You just told us you can’t. Vilsack told us you can’t. 

I have some other questions next round. Mr. Chairman, thank 

you. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Thank you, Mr. Farr. 

Dr. Hagen, but aside from furloughs, what else are you looking 

at? And right now, you have not been cut. It is possible, though, 

that HR 1 gets passed in some form, and it will impact you. 

But we’re not sure right now. But what are your other options, 

besides furloughs? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Almanza and I, since the 

beginning of the fiscal year have been engaged in really looking at 

every opportunity to find efficiencies in our budget in fiscal year 

2011. 

And we’ve been looking at, you know, non-essential travel, we 

have been making tough decisions about hiring and back-filling. 

Things like that. 

And we’ve been able to realize some efficiencies already in fiscal 

year 2011. I think our fiscal year 2012 budget proposal also indicates that we’re committed to that as well. You know, we’re cutting 

spending in a number of key areas. 

But as I said, when you’re talking about a cut the size that HR 

1 puts forward, that size of a cut, when you’re looking at the way 

our budget is structured and the inflexibilities that we have there, 

is not something that we can easily absorb. 

But we’ll continue to look for ways—— 

HAZARD ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL CONTROL POINT (HACCP) SYSTEM

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, let me ask you this. And Mr. Almanza, you 

may be able to answer this well, because I assume you were on the 

line when we passed HACCP. And HACCP was, as you know, to 

take us from carcass to carcass, visual inspection to microbial inspection. And the idea it would be far more effective, far more scientific, far more objective. 

But it was also an idea that you would not need so many veterinarians on the line, but the veterinarian union protested any possible suggestion. As I understand it, Dr. Hagen, maybe just your 

COLA is something like $25 million. 

I don’t know—I mean, you’ve got a pretty significant payroll 

there. And HACCP was not supposed to be a dual inspection system, as much as a primary inspection system. 

So do we have personnel on the lines that we don’t need? 

And I will say this. You know, they’re not all saints out there. 

There are some obnoxious veterinarians, who like to swing their 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

34 

weight around in some of these plants. You won’t hear the stories. 

And that should brother all of us. 

Because I’ve had plants tell me that. And then they will not let 

me do anything about it, because, you know, ‘‘No, no, no. Because 

we might win the battle and lose the war.’’ 

But I’d like to hear your opinion on that. 

Mr. ALMANZA. Well, first of all, the Hazard Analysis and Critical 

Control Point System—HACCP—is not a different type of inspection. Basically it took the place of command and control. It added 

a lot of structure to what was back under what people used to call 

‘‘poke and sniff’’ type of inspection, which was: The inspector would 

show up every day and pretty much go about his—if he focused on 

pre-op sanitation, that’s basically all he did. And he might take a 

sample or two. 

What HACCP did is it laid out a very structured way for them 

to perform inspection, and really removed a lot of the conflict between inspection and the industry. 

And so I think that HACCP was very instrumental in providing 

that structure and creating a very streamlined way of how inspections should work. 

Now are there inspectors where there shouldn’t be? I don’t think 

so. In fact, I do believe that HACCP has made us better, and PHIS 

will make us even better, where HACCP has kind of actually told 

us where we needed to be a little bit better. 

So I do hear some of those stories that you mentioned, Congressman. And when I hear about those stories, I take action against 

those. And I think in my history as the District Manager, I demonstrated that I took swift action. I do not condone our inspection 

personnel being aggressive or swinging their weight around. 

Because we need to provide our focus on food safety and public 

health, and those other things don’t need to play into the picture 

in how we do inspections. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, my time is up. But I do know that one of 

the reasons this committee pushed hard for HACCP in 1996, I believe, was to reduce some of the personnel costs, and put this a lot 

more in the laboratory than in the opinion. 

But I sense that in the Administration, there is some maybe fear 

of unions, or you know, political decisions as opposed to strictly 

management financial decisions, when it comes to the inspectors on 

the line. 

Mr. Bishop. 

STATE INSPECTION PROGRAMS

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. And greetings to you. 

According to testimony, FSIS regulates intrastate commerce 

through cooperative agreements with the 27 states that operate 

meat and poultry inspection programs conducting reviews of the 

programs to ensure that they are at least equal to the federal program. 

FSIS recently released the results of the annual review of the 

state program assessments, and—an on-site review of each state 

program, and determined that all of the states meet at least the 

equal-to standard. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

35 

Are there any states that exceeded the federal standard? And of 

those states which exceeded the federal standard, in what specific 

areas did they do better than the Federal Government? And give 

us any examples of innovation there. 

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you, Congressman Bishop. 

I’m sorry that I don’t have an answer for you on any specific 

states that exceed the federal standard. But that is something that 

I’d be happy to take back to the Agency and provide for you, for 

the record. 

[The information follows:] 

FSIS determines whether each State MPI Program meets and can maintain for 

a period of 12 months, the mandated ‘at least equal to’ standard based on its annual 

review. FSIS’s determination is based on a thorough review of the nine components 

of each state’s program (statutory authority and food safety regulations, inspection, 

product sampling, staffing and training, humane handling, non-food safety consumer protection, compliance, civil rights, and financial accountability). FSIS does 

not determine the extent to which a program exceeds the ‘at least equal to’ standards. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Thank you. 

AUSTRALIAN MEAT SAFETY ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM

Recently, FSIS issued a notice that gives a green light to privatize inspection of all Australian beef, sheep, and goat products 

that are exported to the United States from Australia. 

The inspection system in Australia removes most of the government inspectors from the slaughter land and replaces them with 

company-paid inspectors. And in this country, we imported nearly 

563 million pounds of red meat products from Australia in 2010, 

making it one of the largest meat exporters to the U.S. 

Is this practice consistent with U.S. law that governs inspections 

of imported food, particularly in terms of meeting the safety standards that are imposed here in the United States? 

And can you tell us if there are any developed countries that do 

not accept the Australian Meat Safety Enhancement Program for 

their countries? 

Dr. HAGEN. I’d like to take a shot at a general answer on that 

question and then I’m going to ask Mr. Almanza to provide a bit 

more specifics on the Australia program, Congressman. 

As the committee knows, it is required by law that any country 

that’s exporting meat or poultry products to the United States has 

a system that is equivalent to ours and we determine that equivalency through a rather rigorous process. 

The Australia system that you describe is one that was found to 

be equivalent back in, I believe, 1999 and now they’re looking to 

expand the system to a larger sector of the—of meat production 

there. 

So I’m going to ask Mr. Almanza if he might be able to give a 

little bit more specifics about how that system will compare to 

what we have here. 

Mr. ALMANZA. The system that Australia currently has, I went 

down and took a look at their inspection system and, in fact, they 

still have government inspectors that perform the food safety elements of their food inspection system. So they have governmentpaid inspectors and then they also have some company employees, 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

36 

most of which are veterinarians, that go through a rigorous training program and are recertified on an annual basis. 

So when we go and we do an assessment of their system and we 

try to look at the system as a whole and determine an equivalency 

or make an equivalency determination, we look at the role of the 

government inspector and what they provide in their expertise of 

what the system is like. 

So, yes, I do think that it is a different system but it meets the 

equivalency determination that we have for inspection. 

Mr. BISHOP. Doesn’t it lend itself to possible head-turning if you 

got the company people doing the inspections for their own company? 

Mr. ALMANZA. In the system in which I observed, because you 

have government inspectors at the beginning of the process and at 

the—actually, you had three. There was one at the beginning, one 

that was a roving inspector that could oversee the entire slaughterprocessing part of the system, and then one at the end, so I didn’t 

see that. 

Mr. BISHOP. You didn’t see what? 

Mr. ALMANZA. Any head turning or anything that would—that I 

would say would lend itself to that. 

Mr. BISHOP. Do you think that they knew that you were there? 

Mr. ALMANZA. Oh, absolutely. But I’ve been in the—— 

Mr. BISHOP. They were on their best behavior when you were 

there, don’t you think? 

Mr. ALMANZA. Absolutely. But I’ve been in a few packing houses 

that both knew that I was there and didn’t know but when you 

have three government inspectors that are—that have that type of 

oversight in a very small area, I didn’t think that that was happening. 

Mr. BISHOP. That’s a lot of beef coming into the country and I 

just question whether or not that’s satisfactory. 

I think my time has expired. Thank you. 

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman. Ms. Lummis. 

CONSOLIDATING FOOD SAFETY RESPONSIBILITIES

Ms. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I was on the Agriculture Committee, it became apparent to me how much duplication there is in food safety inspections. I can remember in one hearing asking an FDA person if it didn’t make more sense to move the 

food portion of FDA into Agriculture and allow the current FDA to 

concentrate on the controlled substance prescription drug aspects of 

its responsibility and they nearly had a cow then and there. 

But I noticed that the GAO report makes some recommendations 

in that regard for consolidation and the duplication that occurs in 

food safety. For example, FDA makes sure that chicken eggs are 

safe, wholesome, and properly labeled while USDA is responsible 

for the safety of eggs processed into egg products. 

So it does seem that there’s some bridges to cross and chasms 

to jump for people who are producing agricultural products. 

So my question is this. Which of the four structures for consolidation that the GAO report suggests analyzing do you think are the 

most viable? Do you have an opinion on that yet? 

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you for your question, Congresswoman. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

37 

My opinion on the issue of consolidation of food safety is this. I 

think that consumers want and deserve a system that works and 

that works consistently to protect their families by allowing safe 

products to arrive on their tables and that when things go wrong, 

that the system is able to respond quickly and agilely to take care 

of those problems and limit the scope. 

So whether we do that through one agency or two agencies or 

multiple agencies, I think, is a valid question for debate, but we do 

need a single purpose and that’s to make sure that we’re protecting 

American consumers and, you know, the President is well aware of 

this. This is why he started the Food Safety Working Group in 

2009 to ask what does the system as a whole need to be thinking 

about to be moving forward. Where are the gaps? Where are the 

places that we all need to be doing better, and where are the obvious areas for cross collaboration? 

So that’s my general opinion on consolidating food safety. We 

need to have a single purpose and we need to do the job the American consumers expect us to do. 

In regard to the four specific proposals, no, I wouldn’t submit an 

opinion on that today. 

Ms. LUMMIS. Okay. Do you expect to? I mean, are you analyzing 

it for purposes of prioritizing the options they put forward? 

Dr. HAGEN. We’re not specifically analyzing those four options at 

this point, but what we are doing is working to make sure that the 

system that we have in place for meat and poultry is the best that 

it can be and that we are collaborating at, you know, every and all 

opportunities with our colleagues at FDA and CDC and other agencies that regulate the safety of food. 

FOOD SAFETY WORKING GROUP

Ms. LUMMIS. Is the Food Safety Working Group going to look at 

the GAO suggestions and prioritize it? Is anybody in the Administration going to look at the GAO recommendations or is it just assumed that the Administration will just see what Congress decides 

to do? 

Dr. HAGEN. I’m certain that the Food Safety Working Group will 

be discussing the recommendations. 

Ms. LUMMIS. How often do they meet? 

Dr. HAGEN. We meet approximately once monthly and then there 

are sometimes more frequent meetings in between on specific topics. 

Ms. LUMMIS. Who’s there? 

Dr. HAGEN. There are a wide range of folks. I am there. Mike 

Taylor from the FDA is there. Beth Bell is the principal from CDC, 

and then there are a number of other people there from the Office 

of Management and Budget and other agencies throughout the government. 

Ms. LUMMIS. So is OMB essentially there because, as the White 

House—so there’s a White House umbrella over what’s being discussed or who’s filtering—how’s the information getting into the 

White House on this? 

Dr. HAGEN. I want to be sure that I’m giving you the correct answer, so we can certainly submit more specifics for the record, but 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

38 

I believe that through the Domestic Policy Council, that’s how the 

information gets into the White House. 

[The information follows:] 

Information regarding the Food Safety Working Group gets to the White House 

through the Domestic Policy Council (DPC), which coordinates the domestic policymaking process in the White House, supervises the execution of domestic policy, offers advice to the President on domestic policy, and represents the President’s priorities to Congress. 

Ms. LUMMIS. Okay. May I ask another question? 

Mr. KINGSTON. Yes. 

Ms. LUMMIS. I know my time’s about to expire. Thanks a lot, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. KINGSTON. If the three of us are interested in your question, 

you can ask it. 

HAZARD ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL CONTROL POINT

Ms. LUMMIS. The next one is, you call it HACCP. Is that how 

the—okay. How does the increase for the HACCP inspections relate 

to the increase in the number of products under your jurisdiction? 

Is there any connection there? 

Dr. HAGEN. I’m not sure I understand the question, Congresswoman. The increase in HACCP inspections? 

Ms. LUMMIS. There’s—in the budget, there’s a $5.5 million increase to expand HACCP regulatory sampling—— 

Dr. HAGEN. For sampling? 

Ms. LUMMIS. Yeah, yeah. 

Dr. HAGEN. Okay. 

Ms. LUMMIS. Now is my question making sense? 

Dr. HAGEN. Yeah. I’m sorry. When you said inspections—yeah. 

So the $5.5 million increase is dedicated toward improving capacity 

in actually our laboratory sampling program and that’s just, you 

know, pathogens evolve and we need to evolve, too, and so we’re 

always looking to how we can add capacity when new methodologies need to be brought on. 

We would like to do an additional baseline study. The baseline 

studies are statistically designed to allow us to calculate prevalence 

in certain pathogens in specific product classes. It’s very useful information for us in setting policy, very useful information for the 

industry as they look to change their strategies for control. So 

that’s what that $5.5 million increase is about. 

Ms. LUMMIS. Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and I do have other 

questions, if we go to another round. 

Mr. KINGSTON. We will. 

Ms. LUMMIS. Thanks. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. I want to follow up with Mr. 

Almanza. 

You came up through the system. You started off in a slaughter 

plant, right? 

Mr. ALMANZA. Yes, sir. 

STATE FOOD SAFETY INSPECTORS

Mr. FARR. I’m just curious because I really want to drill down on 

what the impact would be if we have to start laying off these inmstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

39 

spectors because this committee and a lot of members have—Mr. 

Kingston has 15 regulated plants in his district. Mrs. Lummis has 

22 in Wyoming, although you contract with the state to do the 

state inspections. 

So the priority—I mean, I guess the question that nobody’s asked 

in Congress is that you don’t just have the authority to sort of go 

out and cherry-pick who you want to lay off. It’s all based on employee regulations and union federal, you know, rights of employees. 

So if you’re going to have to lay off a lot of people, who goes first 

and what happens to these state contracts? Do the federal inspections or federal employees have higher priority than state employees? 

Dr. HAGEN. Are you asking Mr. Almanza or are you asking me, 

sir? 

Mr. FARR. I’m asking either one of you. It’s more of a labor-management issue or is it not even made in your department? Is it 

made by personnel somewhere? 

Mr. ALMANZA. Well, the state inspection is—there’s different 

types of state inspection. We have the TA inspection which is a 

Talmadge-Aiken inspection which we fund 50 percent of those inspection activities in those establishments. Even though they’re 

state inspectors, we fund 50 percent or pay 50 percent of those. 

Mr. FARR. The state inspectors have all been certified that they 

meet the standards of a federal inspection? 

Mr. ALMANZA. That’s correct. 

Mr. FARR. Because you wouldn’t give them the responsibility to 

do that unless they could do the job as well as you can. 

Mr. ALMANZA. That’s correct. But to answer your question is, no, 

we could not cherry-pick. We would have to—it would have to be 

across the board and certainly we have a labor-management agreement with the union that we would also have to adhere to. 

But in order to have that broad of an impact, it would pretty 

much have to be industry-wide and we couldn’t say the small 

plants would operate or the large plants would operate. It would 

pretty much be straight across the entire industry. 

STATE INSPECTION CONTRACTS

Mr. FARR. And that’s what Secretary Vilsack said. It would have 

an impact on the facilities across the board. 

I’m interested in this pecking order with these state contracts. 

Did you say, Mr. Bishop, that there were 22 states that have the 

contracts? So do the federal—you’re laying off federal employees. 

What about these state contracts? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, the way that those—they’re funded through cooperative agreements. As Mr. Almanza said, we fund up to 50 percent of their operating expenses and the various scenarios that 

we’re looking at for large budget impacts, we would definitely have 

an inability to continue to fund those state contracts. 

Mr. FARR. So it’s up to the state whether they wanted to make 

up the difference or they would have to lay off whatever—— 

Dr. HAGEN. That’s fair to say. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

40 

Mr. FARR. Okay. It’d be interesting to get that, what it would do 

across the country, because this gets serious when it happens in 

your own district, you know, not in my backyard. 

INTERSTATE SHIPMENT PROGRAM

I have some questions. You have a lot of rulemaking that’s stuck 

in OMB or the rules haven’t been finished and you’re behind deadline. 

Do your—what are you doing to try to get those—I have a list 

of them, but I think you know them. I’m just generally talking 

about Federal-State Interstate Shipment Cooperative Inspection 

Program that was due January 1st. It’s not done. The Salmonella 

Compliance Guide for Small and Very Small Meat and Poultry Establishments that Produce Ready-to-Eat Products that was due 

January 13th, Shigatoxin-Producing E. coli in Certain Raw Beef 

Products that was due January 25th, Not Applying the Mark of Inspection Pending Certain Test Results, Test and Hold due February 3rd. You’re behind on getting those implemented. 

Dr. HAGEN. You’re correct, Congressman. We do have a number 

of things with the Office of Management and Budget that we would 

like to move through as soon as possible and we continue to be in 

regular contact with them. There are always questions about documents that go to OMB. So there’s some back and forth there trying 

to get those questions answered and so we’re just working to move 

those things through as quickly as we can. 

Mr. FARR. Do you have any—obviously they’ll enhance your inspection and not having them is is having some problems, I would 

think, because the law’s out there requiring that these inspections 

be made. 

Dr. HAGEN. Particularly on the Interstate Shipment Program, 

sir, we know that we really want to get that one moved. We are 

behind on that deadline and on the expectation of Congress on that 

issue. So we are optimistic that that will move in the very near future. 

Mr. FARR. Okay. I have some equivalency determination issues 

with China and others and I’ll ask that the next time around. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman. Ms. Kaptur. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m sorry to be late for 

this important hearing this morning. I had conflicting scheduling 

and as I sit here still do with some of the other subcommittees. 

H.R. 1 REDUCTIONS

We want to welcome you, Doctor, very warmly to our committee 

this morning and thank you for your testimony. I’m sure others 

have focused on this, but I wondered, you know, when Secretary 

Vilsack came up here, he commented briefly on the impacts of H.R. 

1, but we didn’t get any specific numbers at that time. 

I’m wondering whether earlier in the hearing today you were 

able to provide us with how the proposed cut for H.R. 1 of $88.4 

million below fiscal year 2010 levels and $60 million below the Administration’s request for fiscal year 2011, how does that actually 

translate into food safety and your important responsibilities? 

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you for your question, Congresswoman. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

41 

We have talked some about it this morning. I haven’t given specific numbers because we’re still looking at a number of scenarios, 

all of which we would—in all the scenarios, we would aim to minimize the impact on industry. However, since we are so largely salaries and benefits in our budget at FSIS, over 80 percent of our 

budget goes to salaries and benefits and the vast majority of that 

goes to frontline salaries and benefits, we are very limited in our 

flexibility in terms of what we can do with a cut that is that substantial at this point in a fiscal year. 

So we have looked at a number of—— 

Ms. KAPTUR. And what percent, ma’am, is that of your budget? 

Dr. HAGEN. That’s just under 10 percent. It’s probably about 

eight percent of our budget. So it’s a big hit to absorb without a 

lot of time to manage it. We’re certainly looking for every efficiency 

that we can in our budget but we’re very concerned about the impact on our workforce that a cut of that magnitude would have. An 

impact on our workforce means an impact on the industry that we 

regulate because the industry cannot operate without our mandated presence every day. So we’re looking at a significant impact 

to the industry. 

Ms. KAPTUR. The amount, $60 million below the Administration’s 

request for fiscal year 2011, as you look forward to 2012, what 

budget level are you proposing compared to, you know, flat increase/decrease compared to current operating? 

Dr. HAGEN. So our budget request for fiscal year 2012 is actually 

$7.1 million below the fiscal year 2010 enacted budget. That includes $34 million of cuts. 

Ms. KAPTUR. I know those couldn’t have been easy decisions. 

SMALL SLAUGHTER/MOBILE SLAUGHTER FACILITIES

I want to just quickly shift to another topic as I have time here 

and that is the issue of small slaughter and mobile slaughter facilities. I know that you’ve been doing some identification across the 

country of places that would possibly qualify here but you haven’t 

provided the committee any documentation on the details of what 

is happening or staffing devoted to these facilities. 

Do you have any plans to conduct further mobile slaughter outreach as you look toward 2012 and identifying some of these are 

probably state-inspected facilities or potentially could be? How are 

you—for instance, in a state like Ohio where we have a lot of small 

producers and they look at you as FSIS, what can they expect from 

you in terms of helping them deal with their diminishing slaughter 

capacity? 

Dr. HAGEN. Congresswoman, we’re very well aware of the importance of small and very small establishments, small and very small 

businesses to this economy and certainly small and very small establishments in the meat and poultry sector, and to that end we 

have really launched a number of efforts designed to support small 

and very small establishments. 

We have an entire office dedicated to outreach to plants as well 

as education and that’s really mainly targeted at small and very 

small establishments. We do—we have a small plant help desk that 

we launched in 2009, again dedicated specifically toward this portion of the sector, and mobile slaughter concept is a really exciting 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

42 

concept that allows for small producers that may not have access 

to traditional federally-regulated slaughter establishments because 

of distance or other reasons to be able to slaughter their livestock 

and be able to apply that federal mark of inspection and it really 

potentially creates new opportunities for those producers. So we’re 

very aware of how important that is. 

We, in 2010, had a number of information sessions that we had 

throughout the country on mobile slaughter, how to get up and 

running, what does this mean, how do you apply for a grant of inspection. There are currently eight mobile slaughter units operating in the United States. There are none in your district, unfortunately, but it’s something that we’re very well aware and I’m certain that we’ll be doing some more information sessions. We’d love 

to work with you to help your constituents understand how to navigate that system. 

Ms. KAPTUR. And where do they go on your website or who do 

they talk to at USDA? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, we’ll get that information to your staff, Congresswoman. 

[The information follows:] 

Small producers can find information about how to operate a mobile slaughter establishment under Federal inspection in the following Compliance Guide: http:// 

www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/CompliancelGuidelMobilelSlaughter.pdf. 

In addition, small plants can contact the Small Plant Help Desk’s toll-free number 

at 1–877–FSIS–HELP or 1–877–374–7435. Staff is available 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday. Also, we’re available 24/7 by e-mail. The e-mail 

address is InfoSource@fsis.usda.gov. 

Moreover, a producer interested in setting up a Mobile Slaughter Unit and wants 

to start the process would need to contact our Office of Field Operations’ District 

Office: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/ContactUs/OfficeLocations&PhoneNumbers/ 

index.asp to request a Federal Grant of Inspection which is required for obtaining 

Federal meat and poultry inspection from FSIS. For Ohio, the District Office is located in Chicago, IL at 1919 South Highland Avenue, Suite 115C, Lombard, IL 

60148, Phone: (630) 620–7474. 

In terms of USDA grant/funding opportunities, Rural Development has provided 

funding for Mobile Slaughter Units in the past and your constituents should contact 

the Rural Development State Office and ask to talk to the Business & Cooperative 

Programs Director to discuss available options. Ohio’s State Office is located in Columbus, Ohio and James Cogan is the Director of Business & Cooperative Programs 

at (614) 255–2420. For more detailed information on Rural Development in Ohio, 

you can have your constituent visit the following Web site: http:// 

www.rurdev.usda.gov/oh/. 

Ms. KAPTUR. All right. Do you have—a regular part of your budget then is programmed for that? 

Dr. HAGEN. I believe so, yes. 

Ms. KAPTUR. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so 

much, Doctor. 

Dr. HAGEN. Sure. Thank you. 

CATFISH INSPECTION PROGRAM

Mr. KINGSTON. Thank you. And I just want to clarify something. 

You had said $34 million in cuts, but there are actually $27 million 

in increases for a net decrease of about $7 million. We are very 

happy about that, but it is not—you know, the sentence is not complete, just saying $34 million in cuts. 

And part of that cut comes from the infamous catfish inspection 

program. Do you have a—and you are eliminating that. Would that 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

43 

mean that you would like that to go back to the FDA and maybe 

change the definition of Vietnamese Catfish, or are we going to 

open up that—— 

Dr. HAGEN. Congressman, thank you for—— 

Mr. KINGSTON [continuing]. That kettle of fish? [Laughter.] 

Dr. HAGEN. I wish that I had a fish pun to come back to you with 

on that one, but I don’t. And you are correct, of course—— 

Mr. KINGSTON. Fish around for a while, you will find something. 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. HAGEN. Of course, we—and you are correct, we do not have 

a $34 million decrease in our budget request for 2012. It’s a net decrease of $7.1 million. 

But on the catfish rule, we did not ask for an appropriation in 

the fiscal year 2012 budget. And that is simply because we just 

published the proposed rule last month, and there are going to be 

a lot of comments and questions about this. There is going to be 

a lot of back-and-forth on this. And we have a number of public 

meetings we have planned. And we just did not think that we were 

going to be in a position to actually have the program up and running in fiscal year 2012, and just did not feel that we should be 

asking for an appropriation to do it. 

We are still working—we have identified all these research 

needs. We are firming up how, you know, the sampling program 

will work, what the baseline studies are going to look like, things 

like that. So it is not that we have forgotten about the program, 

or intend to—— 

Mr. KINGSTON. You do not inspect any other sort of fish, correct? 

Dr. HAGEN. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Tilapia, for example, is bred domestically. 

Dr. HAGEN. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Just like catfish. But you do not inspect it? 

Dr. HAGEN. No, we do not. 

Mr. KINGSTON. I do not know, Mr. Farr, if we should just put a 

rider on the bill, just to see what happens on the definition of a 

catfish, but we will talk about that later. 

And it almost brings me to eggs versus—— 

Mr. FARR. Would that be an earmark, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. KINGSTON. I do not know. I do not know that definition that 

would fall in. 

And it almost brings me to eggs versus eggshells. But before we 

go there, what I wanted to ask you to do—because Mr. Farr and 

a number of Members have raised the issue of if H.R. 1 goes 

through as proposed—and so here are some of my questions. 

HACCP INSPECTION MODELS

How many plants were you inspecting in 2008? Because you are 

inspecting 6,200 a day. Do you know what the increase has been? 

Dr. HAGEN. That is information I want to make sure is correct, 

so let me get that for you for the record, if I will, Mr. Chairman— 

if I can. 

Mr. KINGSTON. It seems unlikely that the number of plants 

would have increased during this—— 

Dr. HAGEN. It has not significantly increased. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

44 

Mr. KINGSTON. So that would be extremely relevant to this debate. 

Dr. HAGEN. If I can get that information for you for the record, 

though—I do not know the exact number. 

[The information follows:] 

In FY 2008, there were 6,257 establishments in the United States. 

Mr. KINGSTON. I think that would be something we would like 

to know, and any kind of technological changes in the HACCP program that has impacted it. 

One of the things I am very interested in is the HIMP inspection 

models in 20 plants. And, as I understand it, it is faster for them, 

it has been more productive, and it has increased food safety. 

Dr. HAGEN. The HACCP inspection model is currently in 25 

plants. Those plants do run faster line speeds. And yes, Mr. Chairman, we have found that the sampling data from those plants indicates lower levels of salmonella contamination, overall. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Because that could be something where we could 

all come together and work on something, because there is also the 

unintended consequence of the 25 plants that participate in that 

program have a competitive advantage over those who do not. 

And so, we do need to move forward on that. And is that being 

done? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, it certainly—you know, as I have said before, 

we are looking at everything, at the way that we do business. 

The first thing, the first question we have to ask is, are we protecting public health? Is it based on prevention of illnesses? And 

then certainly, you know, how are we spending our dollars, and are 

we doing this in the most efficient and responsible way for the 

American taxpayer? These are questions that we are certainly asking ourselves right now. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Okay. Well, we are going to encourage you to continue asking that. 

VETERINARIAN SALARIES AND BENEFITS

Also, in terms of your veterinarians, what is their starting salary, and what is their average salary, and what is their maximum 

salary? 

Dr. HAGEN. I am not sure if we have that information. That 

sounds like something I would want to get for the record, as well. 

I do not know if we even want to take a crack at that—— 

[The information follows:] 

The Public Health Veterinarians employed by the Food Safety and Inspection 

Service work a variety of hours and shifts depending on the regulatory coverage requirements at the specific plant to which they are assigned. The average salary and 

benefits in FY 2010 was $106,945.13 with salary and benefits ranging from a low 

of $74,631.70 to a high of $146,515.20. Our veterinarians are compensated for overtime worked at 11⁄2 their hourly rate. 

Mr. KINGSTON. And what do they do on their retirement? And 

how many hours a week do they work? And if they get overtime— 

and how that package compares to their private-sector counterpart. 

That would be of interest, I think, to us. Because it’s relevant to 

this debate and overall efficiency. 

And, okay, so let us talk shell eggs versus egg products. And getting back to Ms. Lummis’s question—and we have all had that 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

45 

question, and the President brought it up in his State of the Union, 

in terms of overlap—but you know what? My time has expired. I 

will leave that out there, but I would like you to answer them on 

my next round. 

Dr. HAGEN. Okay. 

Mr. KINGSTON. So, thanks. Mr. Bishop. 

TRACEABILITY OF PRODUCTS

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. Let me ask you about something more provincial for me. That is tomatoes. In south Georgia, 

north Florida, our tomato growers are still reeling from the FDA’s 

salmonella recall a couple of years ago. In Georgia alone, our growers lost upwards of $14 million from tomatoes that were grown— 

in some cases already harvested—but which they could not sell, because consumers quit buying tomatoes on the recommendation of 

FDA and the CDC, although it really was not tomatoes, it was peppers from someplace else. 

Nationwide, growers lost about $125 million from this. And 

under the Food Safety Modernization Act, it authorizes payments 

to producers for future government decisions which ultimately 

prove to be incorrect or ill-founded. 

I certainly am interested in working with you to find a way to 

provide some help for our tomato producers who suffered past 

losses, given the remedial processes and opportunities that are set 

forth in the new legislation. I do not know how we can do that, but 

they are still reeling from that, and still suffering. 

Under the new food safety legislation, FDA is required to establish, as appropriate, a product-tracing system to get information 

that will improve the capacity to effectively rapidly track and trace 

food that is in the United States, or that is offered for import into 

the United States. How do you expect this process to work for imported fruits and vegetables? 

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you for your question, Mr. Congressman. 

While FSIS does not have responsibility for the safety of fruits and 

vegetables, we are responsible for the safety of the meat—— 

Mr. BISHOP. Meat. 

Dr. HAGEN [continuing]. And poultry. So, while I cannot speak 

specifically to plans about trace-back in fruits and vegetables, I can 

tell you that trace-back, in general, is a really high priority for us. 

This is one of the things that we—— 

Mr. BISHOP. How about meats? 

Dr. HAGEN. Excuse me? 

Mr. BISHOP. How about the meats? 

Dr. HAGEN. Yes, this is something that we have spent a lot of 

time talking about in the Food Safety Working Group. We have actually held two public meetings with FDA to look at what are the 

best trace-back systems and traceability methods available when 

things do go wrong. 

Because, as I said, you know, our first priority is to prevent harm 

from ever reaching a consumer’s table. But when things do go 

wrong, we need to be able to respond very quickly to identify the 

source of that contamination so that we protect consumers, but also 

so that we can wall off that sector, so that there are not producers 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

46 

who are needlessly harmed by being lumped in with a group that 

are at fault. 

So traceability, trace-back, is one of the key priorities for the 

Food Safety Working Group, and it is something that we are working very hard on at FSIS, as well. 

STATE INSPECTION PROCESS

Mr. BISHOP. What is your view of the state role in food inspection, particularly given the expectation that continued budget reductions, and where the federal inspection footprint is largely dependant on your state partners? Are there ways that we can more 

effectively support the state inspection process, particularly in the 

area of training assistance to the states? 

Dr. HAGEN. I think that the state inspection process is very important, and we continue to look for ways that we can best support 

them, not only the state inspection process, but also on the other 

end, the state investigative process. When things do go wrong, it 

is another place where we work very closely with our state counterparts. So we very much recognize the importance of the States in 

this process. 

Mr. BISHOP. Over the years the Department, as well as the—and 

the State of Georgia really have worked together on food inspection 

activity. But given the fiscally restrained environment that we are 

in today, there may be ways to broaden and expand that cooperative relationship. 

Our commissioner of agriculture for the State of Georgia has expressed an interest in building on our current relationship with the 

Federal Government. Are there any thoughts on where we may be 

able to build on existing synergies, or create new synergies, so that 

perhaps some of the overlapping functions with regard to inspection could be eliminated, and have a net efficiency, in terms of taxpayer dollars, both federal and state? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, without being specific, Mr. Congressman, I 

think that what you lay out is very important. We really do need 

to be—the last thing that we need is needless overlap. And I think 

we do need to be looking for efficiencies and ways to partner, and 

really leverage our presence and our resources whenever possible. 

And I think state inspection is one of those areas. 

Mr. BISHOP. Is it possible to perhaps formulate some pilot programs in states that are willing to participate, and see if those pilot 

programs would be more efficient or be efficient enough to perhaps, 

at some later point, if they work properly, expand them? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, that is certainly something that we would love 

to talk more with you about and get your ideas on that, sir. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Farr. 

CHINA EQUIVALENCY DETERMINATION

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman. Are there any updates on the China 

equivalency determination? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, as you know, we—well, maybe you do not know 

this, so I will start again. 

We had a team there in December of last year, looking at auditing both the processing and the slaughter establishments for 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

47 

China, for poultry. China is not currently eligible to export any 

meat or poultry products to the United States. And up until the 

Agriculture Appropriations Act of 2010, we were not able to utilize 

resources to entertain or consider an equivalency agreement for 

China. 

So, the audit has been complete, and our reviewers are still looking at those findings. And there is always some back-and-forth 

there after an audit has been complete. And we can certainly update you on that, as it goes forward. 

Mr. FARR. How long does it take after the audit is complete? 

Dr. HAGEN. That can vary. I think that we are probably in the 

finishing stages of looking at those comments. 

There were two separate audits that went on, which makes this 

one a little bit more complicated, because we are looking at a determination for slaughter separately than we are looking at a determination for processing. 

BRAZILIAN FOOD SAFETY EQUIVALENCY

Mr. FARR. In Brazil there is—it seems they have been having 

some difficulty meeting our food safety standards for meat products 

that they export to us. Every couple of years there is a major issue 

where we do not accept their meat products for one reason or another. The latest incident involved corned beef products that had 

excessive levels of animal drug Ivermectin. What is the FSIS doing 

to ensure that the Brazilian food safety system consistently complies with the equivalency status that we have accorded it? 

Dr. HAGEN. Yes. There were problems with the drug Ivermectin 

in 2010, Congressman, and we delisted a number of establishments 

in May of 2010. There were two recalls for products coming in from 

Brazil in May and June. And Brazil actually self-suspended on 

May 27th. 

FSIS sent a sizeable audit team into the country and was there 

for quite some time, and we did not accept any shipments of products coming from Brazil until December 28th of 2010, when we 

were satisfied, through this audit process, that they were again 

able to meet our requirements. 

And specific to this drug, Ivermectin, part of our equivalency 

process is that we do repeat audits of countries. So we will be back 

there again, and looking at what they are doing, to be sure that 

the improvements that they have made have been sustained. 

Mr. FARR. Well, the President will be there next week, and I 

hope he is not going to make that any more easier after what they 

have done to us with the dairy fine. We are spending a lot of 

money in that country without—taxpayer money—without any benefit out of it, just—Brazil’s WTO case. 

GROUND BEEF RECALL

You are currently in the process of working with Creekstone 

Farms to recall some 14,000 pounds of ground beef products that 

may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Can you tell us how 

the contamination was discovered, and is there any trace-back beyond the plant to find out where the animals got the E. coli? 

Dr. HAGEN. We are in the process of that recall. Creekstone recalled over 14,000 pounds of ground beef on the 8th of March. And 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

48 

the problem was discovered through third-party testing. But we 

would be happy to give you some more specifics about that recall. 

[The information follows:] 

One of the firms that Creekstone Farms Premium Beef distributed ground beef 

products to conducted its own laboratory testing and found a positive for E. coli 

O157:H7 in that product. Creekstone was able to identify the time and date this 

product was ground and recalled all product that went through their grinder which 

could have been associated with the contaminated product. 

Mr. FARR. Are you going beyond the plant, in seeing where it 

was produced? 

Dr. HAGEN. We always—we trace back as far as we are able to. 

And I do not have any specifics for you right now on exactly where 

we are on that trace-back. We were able to at least determine that 

Creekstone Farms had a responsibility there, and we started there, 

and then we always try to get further back, because, you know, the 

further back you can get, the more consumers you can protect from 

harm. 

Mr. FARR. Yes. With leafy greens, you go right back to the field. 

So it is—I would hope that you could—with animals, you might be 

able to go back to the producer. 

That is the only questions I have right now. I will submit some 

others for the record. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Farr. This might be my last 

round, too. Mr. Bishop, you need another round? 

Mr. BISHOP. No, I am fine. 

PLANT INSPECTIONS

Mr. KINGSTON. Now, unfortunately, we have been joined by the 

gentleman from catfish territory in Mississippi, so I need to tell 

him I already covered the question, but I know he is not going to 

be convinced. 

I did want you to know this. I looked at your testimony, or—well, 

I looked at some numbers that, in 2008, there were 6,278 plants, 

and now there is 6,282, a difference of 4 plants. Are—so, actually, 

there is—I have it flipped around. There are four less plants today 

than there were then. 

And the reason why I say this is we do not—you know, each side 

always likes to say the sky is falling—both sides. And I think it is 

very important for us on this, where there is bipartisan concern, 

to make sure that we are really talking on, you know, a fact-based 

level, because we do want to work with you on that. And on that 

regard, by the way, there is 356 Talmadge-Aiken agreements. 

One of the things I wanted to mention is I visited your operation 

in Athens, Georgia. It is fascinating. And I would recommend that 

all of your labs invite Members of Congress to go visit and just 

spend a few hours with them. Because the work that you are doing 

is incredible, and most Members are not exposed to it, particularly 

people who are not on this committee. You do not need me to tell 

you how to handle your politics, obviously, but it is just something 

that—I think your plants sell your mission so well, your laboratories. 

All right. So you want to talk eggs? 

Dr. HAGEN. Let’s talk eggs, sir. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

49 

FOOD SAFETY CONSOLIDATION

Mr. KINGSTON. And the GAO report. Talk to me a little bit—is 

that something that should be consolidated or changed? 

Dr. HAGEN. So you are asking again about whether food safety 

should be consolidated? 

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, is that an example where it is awkward, or 

does that work fine, as far as you are concerned? 

Dr. HAGEN. I do not know that it works fine, Mr. Chairman, and 

with the example in particular. And since that recall, all agencies 

involved have been spending a lot of time talking about how do we 

make that make more sense, and particularly since there are a 

number of agencies that had a presence in that plant, and had an 

opportunity to make observations and to make a difference while 

that was all going on. 

So, that is really where we are focused on after the egg recall is, 

if we are there, how can we kind of leverage our presence and help 

other agencies that are there doing their job, whether it is FDA or 

whether it is FSIS or the Agricultural Marketing Service or even 

OSHA that is there, making observations? 

But to your—you know, to the general question about consolidation of food safety, I think people have talked about this for a long 

time. As I said earlier, I think that our priority needs to be to have 

a single purpose, that this system needs to be seamless to the 

American consumer. Consumers should not have to worry about 

which agency regulates which product, they should just know that 

the products are safe, and that we are doing our best to protect 

their families. 

I certainly acknowledge that during a time when everybody in 

Congress and everybody across government is looking at how do we 

best spend our resources, that this issue will get more attention 

than it has in the past. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Okay. Let me give you a couple more for the 

record, and I will yield to Mr. Nunnelee. But I want to ask: is industry sufficiently at the table? Because you know, while this is a 

job to many people in the industry, you know, if they have one food 

recalled, sometimes it can be death to their plant. 

And so, are they sufficiently at the table working with you, and 

particularly on where there could be overlapped—and some efficiencies? 

Dr. HAGEN. Yes, you are absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. Industry can be impacted by a single recall. That can have a tremendous 

impact on an individual plant or an entire industry, and we are 

certainly well aware of that. 

Although industry is not an official part or member of the President’s Food Safety Working Group, they have been involved in a 

lot of our discussions and in the listening sessions that we have 

had at the White House. And FSIS will continue to seek input from 

the industry, as we move forward on our policies. 

INDUSTRY ADVISORY COMMITTEES

Mr. KINGSTON. Do you have any kind of industry advisory board 

at any level, on a state level, a district area, or—— 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

50 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, we do not exclusively have an industry advisory board. We do have two advisory committees: the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods; and then 

we have a National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection. And in both of those advisory committees, the meat and 

poultry industry are represented. 

As well, there is a group that is advising the Ad Council, as we 

work with them. They are not an advisory committee, but they are 

advising the Ad Council as we move forward with our ad campaign 

about safe food handling, because we think it is important to have 

the industry have some input there, as well. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Okay. 

Dr. HAGEN. So we do not have exclusive boards, but—— 

Mr. KINGSTON. All right. Now, my time is about up. Mr. Farr, I 

am going to submit some questions, but there are a couple of them 

that I know he may be interested in. 

One of them I wanted to get from you for the record. Talk to us 

a little bit about Argentina and how that is going, in terms of if 

you are hooked in with them the way you have been involved with 

Brazil. 

And then, number two, it ties into that on Codex, and your leadership in that. I would like to know how that process is going. 

And number three, Mr. Farr brought up the idea of dockside inspection of cocoa beans. And one of the things that you do on imported food is decide—or you inspect some of this food. And I would 

like to know where and when, because it seems like the inspection 

of cocoa beans by the FDA is unreasonable to make it dockside because it is not processed on the dock. And the issue involves impurities in it. And Mr. Farr brought it up the other day, but I would 

be interested on that—not on cocoa beans, because I know they are 

not your jurisdiction, but on, you know, where and when is it appropriate on imported food. 

And then, finally, I would like to know the integrity of dog food 

and pet food in general, because I know that that is a voluntary 

program, that is something that is close to Mr. Farr’s heart. But 

you go in and you look at dog food and there are 15 different varieties, and the vets often say you got to use this kind and not use 

that kind. And I was just wondering what—you know, if they say 

they are chicken and rice, are they really chicken and rice? Are 

they chicken, sawdust, and rice, or whatever? 

[The information follows;] 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

51 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 92 here 66792A.021
52 

Mr. Nunnelee. 

CATFISH PROPOSED RULE

Mr. NUNNELEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for coming in late. I have had a couple of other things going on. And I can 

follow up with you on the details, but I do want to at least go back 

and talk about the catfish question. 

We like catfish in Mississippi. So you guys have got a proposed 

rule out, but we have not finalized the definition for catfish yet. 

Can you tell me about that? 

Dr. HAGEN. That is correct, Mr. Congressman. We have not finalized the definition. The proposed rule included two alternatives, 

one that would be a narrower definition, and one that would be 

broader. It turns out defining catfish is far more complicated than 

any of us ever anticipated. There are over 3,600 varieties that 

could be considered catfish. And this was something that we 

thought that it was very important to get a really good cross-section of input on. That is why the definition was left open in the 

rule. It will not be left open in a final rule, though. 

Mr. NUNNELEE. All right. So while this is going on, apparently the President’s budget request eliminates all funding, $15.3 million, for the enforcement of this. Is that correct? 

Dr. HAGEN. Let me reassure you, Mr. Congressman, that not 

asking for the money is just a reflection of our—of the fact that we 

know that the program will not likely be up and running by fiscal 

year 2012. It took us to this point to get a published rule, a published proposed rule. We expect there are going to be a number of 

public meetings. We expect ample public comment and input on 

this proposed rule. 

And, therefore, we did not ask for funding in order to implement 

it, because we do not feel there will be an implementation phase 

in fiscal year 2012. But we remain committed to enacting the will 

of Congress on this. I can assure you of that. 

Mr. NUNNELEE. So when do you anticipate having the program 

up and running? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, you know, notice and comment rule-making 

can vary. And it depends on the nature of the feedback, and how 

much feedback that we get. So I know that everybody always 

wants specific time lines on these things, and I cannot provide that 

for you today. But we will move through the processes as expeditiously as possible. 

Mr. NUNNELEE. Can you give me a window? 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, I can tell you that we do not think it will be 

up in fiscal year 2012, sir. 

Mr. NUNNELEE. Do you think it will be up in fiscal year 2013? 

Dr. HAGEN. I am hopeful, yes. 

Mr. NUNNELEE. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Does the gentleman want to have it inspected by 

FDA? 

Mr. NUNNELEE. Absolutely. 

Mr. KINGSTON. You do? To go back to FDA, and not USDA? 

Mr. NUNNELEE. Oh, I thought it was—I am still learning. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Okay. Well, we will—believe me, when she says 

there is 3,600 varieties of catfish, I think we examined at least 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

53 

3,500 of them, trying to figure out that definition. But—and apparently it is the ones that come from Thailand and Vietnam that are 

the biggest issue. 

Mr. NUNNELEE. That is right. Those are the ones that we are 

fearful of. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, we feel that same way about Vidalia onions, 

because if you want a good catfish you have to put a Vidalia on it, 

and not a Walla Walla onion. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. I love origin labels. 

Dr. Hagen, thank you for being here today. It has been an interesting discussion. 

RENDERING PLANTS INSPECTIONS

I think some—a couple of questions. Do we—does your agency inspect rendering plants? 

Dr. HAGEN. Do we inspect rendering plants? No, we do not, sir. 

Mr. FARR. I mean doesn’t dog and cat food come from rendering 

plants, as well? 

Dr. HAGEN. I guess the answer is that some of it—yes. And the 

FDA inspects rendering plants, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Right, okay. So all of—— 

Dr. HAGEN. On a voluntary basis. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. Pet food is done by FDA? I will ask them 

that question. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, they—excuse me—— 

Dr. HAGEN. There is a voluntary—— 

Mr. KINGSTON. You have a voluntary program for—— 

Dr. HAGEN. Right. 

Mr. KINGSTON [continuing]. For pet food. 

Dr. HAGEN. There is a voluntary—at FSIS, yes. 

Mr. FARR. Because I heard that, actually, so many carcases get 

into rendering plants, and then the pet food industry buys it. And 

you—in effect, they are feeding back—— 

Dr. HAGEN. Well, this sounds like this is something that is very 

important to you, Mr. Congressman, and I want to make sure that 

we get you the correct answer. So if I could submit that for the 

record, I would be happy to do so. 

[The information follows:] 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

54 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 97 here 66792A.022
55 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. I would appreciate that. 

And another thing, Jack, I just want to point out that, you know, 

in these cuts you talk about, that if they had the same plants in 

2008 that they have now, and therefore they ought to be able to 

live on 2008 budget, the problem is you are asking them to do this 

in the next few months. I mean it is essentially then double the 

effort, you have six months left, and so you have to do twice as 

many—the impact is, like, twice the cut. So it is not just going back 

to 2008. 

But I do think that all of the Administration needs to more articulate what the impacts of these cuts are. Because Congress has 

to—we have to make some tough decisions. And if we cannot get 

good answers, it is easy to cut. 

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you, Congressman. I will take that feedback 

back to the Department. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. Thank you, Jack. 

Mr. KINGSTON. Thank you, Mr. Farr. And we do, again, you 

know, in this sky-is-falling Washington culture, feel that this is 

something that is of utmost importance to both parties, to make 

sure that it is done right and well. So, when some of these questions are being asked by one side, it does not mean they are not 

a concern of the other side. 

Mr. Nunnelee. Do you—well, with that, this committee stands 

adjourned, and we certainly appreciate the panel for participating 

today. 

Dr. HAGEN. Thank you, sir. 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPRO

56 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 99 here 66792A.023
57 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 100 here 66792A.024
58 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 101 here 66792A.025
59 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 102 here 66792A.026
60 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 103 here 66792A.027
61 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 104 here 66792A.028
62 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 105 here 66792A.029
63 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 106 here 66792A.030
64 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 107 here 66792A.031
65 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 108 here 66792A.032
66 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 109 here 66792A.033
67 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 110 here 66792A.034
68 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 111 here 66792A.035
69 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 112 here 66792A.036
70 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 113 here 66792A.037
71 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 114 here 66792A.038
72 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 115 here 66792A.039
73 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 116 here 66792A.040
74 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 117 here 66792A.041
75 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 118 here 66792A.042
76 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 119 here 66792A.043
77 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 120 here 66792A.044
78 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 121 here 66792A.045
79 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 122 here 66792A.046
80 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 123 here 66792A.047
81 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 124 here 66792A.048
82 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 125 here 66792A.049
83 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 126 here 66792A.050
84 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 127 here 66792A.051
85 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 128 here 66792A.052
86 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 129 here 66792A.053
87 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 130 here 66792A.054
88 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 131 here 66792A.055
89 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 132 here 66792A.056
90 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 133 here 66792A.057
91 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 134 here 66792A.058
92 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 135 here 66792A.059
93 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 136 here 66792A.060
94 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 137 here 66792A.061
95 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 138 here 66792A.062
96 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 139 here 66792A.063
97 


mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with APPROInsert offset folio 140/250 here 66792A.064