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Mr. MCMILLAN. I would certainly agree with you that has been the history of many programs.

Senator ELLENDER. They will expect us to foot the bill for it all, and now is the time to read the riot act to them. We should say that unless take care of your situation, we will not let you cattle come in.

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Senator HOLLAND (presiding). On the screw-worm eradication, of course, I am completely for the continuation of the program. I find myself not understanding however the amounts included in the budget which indicate they expect to transfer to the Federal Government the full cost of the eradication. I am not in favor of that because I don't think it is fair.

The testimony of the cattle people, for instance in Texas in former years, indicated that they were saddled with very heavy annual losses. They ran up into many millions and this relatively small contribution should be required of them to continue this protection. This is something that I think cannot be transferred wholly to the Federal Govern

ment.

RECOMMENDED TRANSFER OF PROGRAM COST TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

I want you to state why it is that you recommend the transfer of that program wholly to the Federal Government.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Senator Holland, it is my understanding in any so-called eradication program once the disease or insect or whatever is involved has finally become eradicated-in any of the various quarantine or disease or insect eradication programs, once they have achieved in the final analysis the eradication stage, then any cost sharing is dispensed with.

Senator HOLLAND. They have not achieved it yet. I am now quoting the testimony from the Department's justification:

During calendar year 1964 there was a total of 240 cases of screw-worm in screw-worm-free areas of the United States all of which occurred in the States of Texas and New Mexico.

Of these, 115 cases in Texas and 5 in New Mexico, occurred outside the existing limits of the barrier zone.

CONFIRMED SCREW-WORM CASES IN TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO

In the first 7 months of fiscal 1965 there were 146 confirmed screwworm cases in Texas and New Mexico, only 70 of which were found outside the barrier zone. That means that about half of the cases which occurred in Texas and New Mexico in fiscal 1965 have been found back of the barrier zone and have had to be eliminated by eradication processes.

It seems to me idle for anyone to claim that the program has been completed when that is not the fact. It is idle to claim that the industry itself should not continue to contribute when their testimony here before we started this program was that it was costing them such a tremendous amount-I believe it was $25 million a year in Texas alone without including New Mexico.

I am in complete accord with the idea of maintaining the barrier zone and the idea of the Federal Government doing its part. Certainly the Government is paying for all of the expense down in the

Mexican part of the barrier zone and at least half of the expense in the Texas part and New Mexico part.

STATE AND INDUSTRY CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM COST

We should not say that the States themselves that are affected and the industries that are so vitally served should not continue to make a contribution to this when it is very evident that there hasn't been eradication, because these infestations continue to occur back of the complete barrier zone, both in Texas and in New Mexico.

In last year's hearing it was shown that there was a substantial number of cases in Oklahoma in 1963. My feeling is, therefore, that the committee somehow has to work out perhaps a different basis than the 50-50 basis-some sort of basis under which the States affected and the industries affected should continue to contribute.

QUESTION OF BUDGET BUREAU POSITION

I might state that the States of Arizona and California, in their pearance the other day before the committee sitting on the supplemental, made it very plain that they were very willing to begin on a full matching basis. I am worried by this recommendation of the Budget Bureau, with which I am certainly not in accord, that the whole cost of the maintenance of this eradication program in the States of Texas and New Mexico should now be shifted to the Federal Government.

I am just asking how you justify that.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Senator Holland, as I indicated earlier, I believe that you will find the Animal Disease Eradication Service, or this branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, even though there have been sporadic outbreaks of screw-worm, particularly in south Texas in the calendar year 1965 and there have been some sporadic in 1965 to date, do consider that for all practical purposes there is eradiction. At such time as eradication is achieved, it is no different than the quarantine that existed at one stage in the eradication program in screw-worms along the Mississippi River, a full Federal appropriation handled these dipping stations and inspection points, and so forth.

Of course, they have an altogether different situation with the Mexican border across Texas and New Mexico. This is a considerably different situation whereby you can get reinfestation of the flies from the infested areas of Mexico from behind the so-called buffer or barrier zone. This is an end result from a fly over by the flies across the Rio Grande. The cost would be considerably higher, obviously, than the program along the Mississippi.

Senator HOLLAND. My information is that they found the flies can fly over the 200-mile zone and that they are doing it, and the figures I have quoted here show, and I read them again:

In the first 7 months of fiscal year 1965 a large part of which was winter by the way and they were not to be figured as there were 146 confirmed screw-worm cases in Texas and New Mexico only 70 of which were found outside the barrier zone

back of the barrier zone.

REAL ERADICATION INCOMPLETE

When you find half of the infestations-and that is substantially half-back of the barrier zone, it is very clear that no real eradication has been completed. I am simply voicing my own opinion on this. We had no screw-worm in Florida until they had the great drought in the West and a great many cattle were brought from Texas and other places that were infested, across the Mississippi River.

Immediately we had outbreaks in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. Of course Florida being the southernmost, the flies carried over in the winter and it became a very horrible pest for us.

We spent a great many millions of dollars, first fighting it, and then contributing to the eradication. We have continued to guard our own borders even when the Federal Government requires us to do so or we did it at very great expense because we know what the effect of these infestations in a moist, humid, warm State can be.

I certainly want to contribute as much as we can to the elimination. of this pest in the more arid regions of the West, where they are confronted with the fact that Mexico is heavily infested. I want the Federal Government to do its full part. But I do not want the States and industries that are so greatly served by this, feel that they do not have to be concerned about it anymore.

FULL COST TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT UNREALISTIC

But for Federal intervention, they would have tremendous infestation right across the Rio Grande every year and across the land demarcation between Arizona and California. I think it wholly unrealistic to plan now to put along that 1,800-mile border existing from the Caribbean to the Pacific to put upon the Federal Government the full cost of this program.

Senator YARBOROUGH. The great bulk of breed cattle in the early days from the Southwest before we had highly bred stock as those herds were driven north into Illinois and the Dakotas, people met them with armed guards because they carried infestation.

I see here on page 49, second paragraph, the USDA budget explanation notes:

In addition the barriers eliminated, the annual north migration of screw-worms into the States north and east of Texas and New Mexico.

CIRCUMVENTION OF BARRIER

With the ues of this barrier has it not been found that some of the screw-worm flies have gone north through Oklahoma and are beginning to circumvent this barrier and have shown up in Tennessee and Kentucky? I have seen maps where they find them occasionally. It is a natural process by which animals of that nature begin to circumvent a barrier.

If this barrier were not maintained they would reinfest the South even if you kept the barrier along the border of Arizona, Mississippi, Arkansas, and so on.

Mr. MCMILLAN. I have seen some maps in this regard, Senator Yarborough. They either circumvent the barrier or on occasion one will sneak through on an animal from a screw-worm infested area and you will have an outbreak in the clear area of the eradicated zone.

TICK INFESTATION

Senator YARBOROUGH. I would like to point out what happened with ticks. I recall driving cattle to these local dips. The local people put in money and the ticks have been eradicated from Texas and they are in Mexico and the Federal Government keeps a barrier of inspection along the zone to keep tick reinfestation out of Texas.

Senator HOLLAND. The screw-worms do fly and they thought the 200-mile zone was more than they could fly but it has since been established that this is not the case.

In the 1965 infestations and we are just coming now to the part of the year when you can expect them to show up most heavily-about half of the reinfestations have occurred back of that barrier zone.

STATE AND INDUSTRY PARTICIPATION

All I can do is express my very strong feeling that the industries affected in the States where those industries are should consider what is their fair share of this load because they are getting out from under a tremendous cost that has plagued them heretofore.

I am not out of sympathy at all with the attitude of the people who have sustained this terrible loss heretofore. I want them to be free from it right on, and increasingly so. As far as the one Senator is concerned, I will never agree to the shifting of this whole load to the Federal Government because I don't think it should be so shifted.

I notice that the $25 million annual contribution which the cattle industry of Texas was making before this was started has been now reduced to where, according to the table which I see here, it has not been carrying 50 percent of the cost of the program to date.

TABLE DELINEATING CONTRIBUTIONS

I am going to ask that the table shown at page 44 of the second supplemental bill record be incorporated in this record and it shows that the States and industries have contributed in the years since this program was started in Texas $7,582,000-plus and the Federal Government $9,869,000-plus.

Now it is proposed that the Federal Government take it all over when the great benefit given to an industry that very greatly needed this protection has been received and would be forfeited unless this work was continued.

My own feeling is that we must work out some sort of matching basis, perhaps short of 50-50 that was involved in the original program. I am asking that the States and industries affected give some serious consideration to that.

(The table referred to follows:)

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