You have been making a study, I think, or have a contract for a comprehensive study of State and local food and drug laws. A matter of a quarter of a million dollars was authorized for that purpose. Mr. LARRICK. That is correct. Senator MORTON. What is the status of that study now? Mr. LARRICK. The study was delivered to us about a month ago. We convened, the executive committee of the National Association of Food and Drug Officials of the United States, together with the overall advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration, and had the independent group who had made this 20-month study make a presentation of the study to the State people and to us. The State people passed a resolution endorsing it. At the present time my staff is making a meticulous analysis of this document, 200-some odd pages. We will report to our superior: in the Department with our recommendations. Senator MORTON. Can you give me any idea as to what extent the States have laws which deal with the labeling of food and drugs and other consumer products? Is this general among the States? Mr. LARRICK. Roughly, about half the States have laws that are. in some extensive measure, comparable to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The others do not, in some important particulars. The objective of our study is to try to make an analysis first of what the laws of the States are, what their facilities are to enforce it, the laboratories they have, whether they are modern, what they need, and how much of this gigantic job of administering controls over $100 billion worth of commodities can be pushed back to the States, with their full consent and cooperation. I would be very happy to send you a copy of this report. I have sent some to Members of the Congress who were particularly interested. Senator MORTON. I think the committee ought to have it. I don't think it should be incorporated in the record if it is that voluminous. I would like to have it. Senator NEUBERGER. Would you send a copy to the committee? Mr. LARRICK. I would be delighted to. Senator MORTON. It can be analyzed by our staff. Do these States that have these requirements have laws, for instance, on the question of slack-filled packages? Mr. LARRICK. Some do. Senator MORTON. Would this report, that you referred to, show which ones do? Mr. LARRICK. I think it would. I am not positive on that. I would have to check it. Senator MORTON. Most States that have laws in this area probably have laws against deceptive labeling? Mr. LARRICK. Yes, with almost no enforcement of the deceptive packaging. Senator MORTON. Your point, No. 3, at the top of page 6, you say: "Establishment of designations of size (other than net quantity of contents) which may be used to describe quantitatively the contents of packages," and you comment on that provision. Are you speaking there for instance, say a vegetable can, No. 2 size can, would this knock that out? Mr. LARRICK. Not necessarily. Let's assume that you have a situation where you have one man putting out a pint of olive oil, and another man comes along and he wants to shave that price a little vit, so he takes 1/2 ounce out of his package and he puts out a package that looks just exactly like the pint, but rather inconspicuously somewhere, he points out that it is only 1512 ounces. If you ran across a situation where that competitive drive began 10 manifest itself, as it does sometime, each one has to cut it a little bit more, and this would permit us to standardize the package to a point and stop that. In many of these situations, the complaints come to us from busiLess people, rather than-we get as many from business people as we lo from consumers, or more. Senator MORTON. Do you think that every vegetable, or olive oil, or anything else, that all vegetables should say 16 ounces? Mr. LARRICK. No, I don't, necessarily. Senator MORTON. Wouldn't it lead to something like this? Wouldn't you finally get it so that I want to get a pound? Mr. LARRICK. You would have to show, as I understand it, that you have a probable cause to believe that there is deception here, or the consumers can't make rational comparisons. If you found that, yes, then you would have to move in. Senator MORTON. If I buy a can of tomatoes Mr. LARRICK. It has been pointed out, or the consumers can't make rational comparisons. Senator MORTON. If I take a can, an ordinary, standard size can, it may have 15 ounces of a certain vegetable, and it may have 17 ounces of another. The specific gravity of these items vary. I suppose we have to come to a place where every one has to be 16 ounces. Mr. LARRICK. If it were deceptive, or if the consumer couldn't make logical comparisons between two brands of the same article. In other words, you wouldn't compare spinach Senator MORTON. Have you ever been in a packing plant? Senator MORTON. Have you ever been in a packing plant where they can vegetables? Mr. LARRICK. I was a packing inspector for five years, and Chief Inspector of this organization for 20 years. I have been in food factories. I have been in business 42 years, and I go in plants every morning. Senator MORTON. Heinz says 57 varieties. I guess they have more than 57-probably 157. But you go in the average packing plant, and you don't have to go to the great big ones. Go in a packing plant in the harvest season. They are canning tomatoes, beans and corn. It is one line of cans that come through. They go through one Burp label machine, or whatever kind they have, and every one has a different weight, but they are all the same size. If you are going to make these people set up a new line for each item they can Mr. LARRICK. No. Senator MORTON. That is what you have the authority to do here. Mr. LARRICK. I don't have that in mind. Senator MORTON. You won't do it because you are too smart. Some bureaucrat will come along and take your place Mr. LARRICK. Each generation gets smart. [Laughter.] Senator MORTON. I agree with you there. It strikes me that you are going to run into all kinds of difficulties when you start standardizing packages to the extent that you have indicated in your testimony. As I said to Mrs. Peterson, I am not going to convince you and you are not going to convince me. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Senator NEUBERGER. Senator Morton and Commissioner Larrick, I believe one of the accommodations to the industry to take care of the cans is provided for on page 5 of the bill, beginning at line 15: no such regulation may be inconsistent with standards prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce before the effective date of this act with regard to the sizes of containers used for the retail sale of any commodity, and no weights and measures shall be established in amounts of less than two ounces. Mr. LARRICK. That would, with one fell swoop, wipe out all the sizes of canning operations that I am familiar with. Senator MORTON. You mean the Secretary of Commerce Mr. LARRICK. He has made a stand. Senator MORTON. They have a pretty good Secretary. Mr. LARRICK. They have a very good Secretary. But this was made before his time. [Laughter.] Senator NEUBERGER. Thank you very much. We will try to get to our next witness. Mr. LARRICK. Thank you. (Commissioner Larrick subsequently furnished the committee a copy of a summary of the Public Administration Service Report on a Study of State and Local Food and Drug Programs, which is printed below :) DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, Hon. WARREN G. MAGNUSON, DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: During the course of my appearance before the Committee on April 28 in its consideration of truth-in-packaging legislation, Acting Chairman Senator Neuberger asked that we furnish the Committee with a copy of the Public Administration Service Report. This report runs to some 250 pages and has not yet been printed. A copy of the summary is enclosed and the Committee will be furnished with a copy of the report itself after it has been reproduced. Sincerely yours, GEO. P. LARRICK, Commissioner of Food and Drugs. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, To: State and local officials. From: Geo. P. Larrick, Commissioner of Food and Drugs. Subject: Public Administration Service report on a study of State and local food and drug programs. As you know, the Food and Drug Administration contracted with Public Administration Service of Chicago in June 1963 to conduct a study of State and local Food and Drug programs. This followed many years of effort by the Association of Food and Drug Officials of the United States to obtain financial support for such a study from sources outside of the Federal Government. Since this effort was unsuccessful, the Food and Drug Administration obtained support from Congress which made the study possible. Hundreds of State and local offcials have cooperated in this Study. We have just received the Report from Public Administration Service but it has not been evaluated by either the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare or the Food and Drug Administration. We do not as yet have copies of the complete Report for distribution. We are, however, sending you the first chapter, which presents a Summary of the Findings and Recommendations. The Food and Drug Administration will review this Report with the Executive Committee and the Study Committee of the Association of Food and Drug Officials of the United States on March 30. It will also review the Report with the National Advisory Food and Drug Council on March 31. Following these meetings, FDA will study the report intensively and will make its recommendations to the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare as promptly as possible. Copies of the complete report will be sent to you as soon as they are available. Your comments are invited. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE REPORT OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SERVICE ON A STUDY OF STATE AND LOCAL FOOD And Drug PROGRAMS TO THE COMMISSIONER OF THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, FEBRUARY 1965 INTRODUCTION This report deals with state and local food and drug programs in their legal, financial, administrative, and intergovernmental relations aspects. In original design, the study was intended to examine only those programs which are comparable to the responsibilities of the federal Food and Drug Administration. The latter's legal responsibilities extend to features of health and economic protection for the public in relation to foods and feeds, drugs, devices, cosmetics, and hazardous household substances. Scope of the study At an early stage, it became apparent that to so confine the inquiry at state and local levels would impair its usefulness, for the Food and Drug Administration's responsibilities do not encompass to the full scope of governmental health and economic protection activities in relation to the cited product classifications. The Department of Agriculture, for example, is responsible for inspecting meat and poultry processing for interstate and foreign shipment. The Public Health Service is the active federal program agency for attention to milk for human consumption in fluid form, for shellfish sanitation, for the safety and quality of biologicals, and for eating and drinking place sanitation. Responsibility for preventing false and misleading advertisement of foods, nonprescription drugs, and cosmetics is assigned to the Federal Trade Commission. In addition to activities which have been designed to protect the public, there are other federal programs that operate to the benefit of the consumer. These include, among others, (a) grading meat, produce, and other agricultural products, and controlling animal diseases, programs of the Department of Agriculture; (b) weights and measures work, in the Department of Commerce; and (c) improving fisheries products, a function of the Department of the Interior. Because such activities, though not continuing responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration, are performed for consumers or have the effect of affording protection to them, because State and local governments engage in such additional activities, and because the allocations of functions wthin State and local governments do not coincide with those in the Federal organizational structure, the study has been conducted within a broader frame of reference than was originally planned. The study, then, has considered all State and local programs which have the purpose or the significant and direct effect of providing protection to the consumer's health or pocketbook in relation to foods and feeds, drugs, devices, cosmetics, and hazardous household substances. It has not extended to activities which may indirectly produce these results, such as milk price control and resale price maintenance, or to those directed at protecting the consumer as a part of the procurement programs of governmental agencies or private business firms. Nor has it taken account of the work of conservation agencies in helping to enforce regulations affecting fishing or hunting which have consumer protection purposes or effects. Finally, it has not included such programs of consumer benefit as those of educational, extension, and welfare agencies, even where they concern themselves with the product categories included within the frame of reference of the study as described above. Throughout the text of this report, the phrase "food and drug" is used, for purposes of convenience, to comprehend the full array of articles within the scope of the study. Methods of study The study has been concerned with activities performed in some degree by State agencies in all 50 States and by some several thousand local agencies in a thousand or more local governmental units. Thus, the study necessarily sought to secure representative information regarding programs thus widely scattered in their administration. Some information important for the study takes the form of published documents-statutes, regulations, budgets and financial statements, and reports of prior studies. The limitations on the availability of these materials in leading collections gave support to emphasis in the original study design upon the importance of securing information by, and basing evaluations upon, direct work with administrative agencies. Among such limitations are: (a) Legal collections do not include regulations and other less formal expressions of public policy; (b) budgets and financial statements are not so structured as to provide financial information in the form and detail desired; and (c) many other published materials are out of date, based upon inadequate samples, limited to particular jurisdictions, or include these weaknesses in combination. Accordingly, about two-thirds of the total project effort was devoted to fieldwork. This extended to the 50 States and some 200 different State agencies, and to about 100 local governments and some 200 local agencies. Twenty states (and certain of their local units) received more careful attention than did the remaining jurisdictions. These 20 states were: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Field visits made possible the collection of legal materials, activity information, and data on personnel systems and characteristics, finances, and facilities for the great majority of the agencies visited. Of equal importance, they afforded the opportunity of learning something of the experience, in sights, judgments, and attitudes of the officials interviewed. State and local governmental programs of course do not function in isolation from those of Federal agencies or from the economic and social environment with which they are concerned. Fieldwork was therefore extended to include interviews with over 100 interested organizations and business firms, meetings with representatives of interested Federal agencies, and inquiries of State and local officials about their relationships with other governmental agencies, regulated industry, and the public. Limitations on information obtainable The study design properly placed emphasis upon the compilation of current and detailed information in a manner permitting meaningful comparisons among agencies and units of government. Accomplishments in these respects fell short of the ideally desirable in a number of respects, as is indicated below. The formal content of public policy in consumer protection programs consists of laws, ordinances, court interpretations of both, formal regulations, and administrative interpretations of legal provisions. With respect to State policies, it was feasible to identify and locate statutory provisions governing food and drug programs, by consultation with administrative officials and resort to indices of statutes. Formal regulations were often obtainable, but at times copies available for release had been exhausted. Administrative interpretations proved difficult to secure for, if recorded, they take such various forms as memoranda to or correspondence with affected business firms and advisory bulletins to inspectional staff. At the local level, the only serviceable approach to comprehensive coverage of ordinances and regulations is by personal visit to all jurisdictions and search of their files, an approach clearly beyond the scope of the present study. It is often difficult if not impossible to secure current information on the number and principal characteristics of establishments subject to regulatory |