[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                  AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD

                  AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED

                    AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2003

_______________________________________________________________________

                                HEARINGS

                                BEFORE A

                           SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                         HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                      ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
                             SECOND SESSION
                                ________
     SUBCOMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG 
                  ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES
                     HENRY BONILLA, Texas, Chairman
 JAMES T. WALSH, New York            MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
 JACK KINGSTON, Georgia              ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
 GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, Jr.,          MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
Washington                           SAM FARR, California
 TOM LATHAM, Iowa                    ALLEN BOYD, Florida         
 JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
 VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia
 RAY LaHOOD, Illinois               
                         
 NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Young, as Chairman of the Full 
Committee, and Mr. Obey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full 
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
   Henry E. Moore, Martin P. Delgado, Maureen Holohan, and Joanne L. 
                        Perdue, Staff Assistants
                                ________
                                 PART 4

               RESEARCH, EDUCATION, AND ECONOMICS PROGRAMS

                                                                   Page
 Research, Education, and Economics...............................    1
     Agricultural Research Service................................  113
     Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension 
Service...........................................................  529
     Economic Research Service.................................... 1155
     National Agricultural Statistics Service..................... 1423

                              

                                ________
         Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
                                ________
                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
 79-702                     WASHINGTON : 2002




                        COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                   C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida, Chairman

 RALPH REGULA, Ohio                  DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin
 JERRY LEWIS, California             JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania
 HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky             NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
 JOE SKEEN, New Mexico               MARTIN OLAV SABO, Minnesota
 FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia             STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
 TOM DeLAY, Texas                    ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia
 JIM KOLBE, Arizona                  MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
 SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama             NANCY PELOSI, California
 JAMES T. WALSH, New York            PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
 CHARLES H. TAYLOR, North Carolina   NITA M. LOWEY, New York
 DAVID L. HOBSON, Ohio               JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
 ERNEST J. ISTOOK, Jr., Oklahoma     ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
 HENRY BONILLA, Texas                JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
 JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan           JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
 DAN MILLER, Florida                 ED PASTOR, Arizona
 JACK KINGSTON, Georgia              CARRIE P. MEEK, Florida
 RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
 ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi        CHET EDWARDS, Texas
 GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, Jr.,          ROBERT E. ``BUD'' CRAMER, Jr., 
Washington                           Alabama
 RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM,          PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
California                           JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
 TODD TIAHRT, Kansas                 MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
 ZACH WAMP, Tennessee                LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
 TOM LATHAM, Iowa                    SAM FARR, California
 ANNE M. NORTHUP, Kentucky           JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
 ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama         CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
 JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri            ALLEN BOYD, Florida
 JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire       CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
 KAY GRANGER, Texas                  STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey    
 JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
 JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California
 RAY LaHOOD, Illinois
 JOHN E. SWEENEY, New York
 DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
 DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania
   
 VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia     
   
                 James W. Dyer, Clerk and Staff Director

                                  (ii)

 
   AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND 
                RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2003

                              ----------                              

                                       Thursday, February 28, 2002.

    UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND 
                               ECONOMICS

                               WITNESSES

JOSEPH J. JEN, UNDER SECRETARY, RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND ECONOMICS
ED KNIPLING, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE
COLIEN HEFFERAN, ADMINISTRATOR, COOPERATIVE STATE RESEARCH, EDUCATION, 
    AND EXTENSION SERVICE
SUSAN OFFUTT, ADMINISTRATOR, ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE
R. RONALD BOSECKER, ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 
    SERVICE
STEPHEN B. DEWHURST, BUDGET OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

                            Opening Remarks

    Mr. Bonilla. The subcommittee will come to order this 
morning. Ms. Kaptur, I note, is already enjoying the goodie bag 
that is provided by ARS, many of the products that are a direct 
result of the research that is done by ARS. We appreciate the 
bag being provided this morning to every member. They are all 
sitting behind the dais here and we appreciate that.
    Today we are delighted to have before us Dr. Joseph Jen, 
the Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. Dr. 
Jen, we are happy to have you here for the first time, and we 
welcome your testimony today as well as that of your associates 
who administer the four agencies that are under your purview.
    But before we begin, I would like to recognize my 
colleague, Ms. Kaptur. She is trying to get around the goodie 
bag I think.
    Ms. Kaptur. I just want to thank everyone from the 
Department for being here today, all those responsible for the 
research side of the equation. There could be no more pivotal 
part of the Department than those activities that you 
represent. You really represent the future. And so I look 
forward to your testimony, and we thank you for your service to 
our country, and really the people of the world.
    Ray and I were talking when I walked in about some meetings 
that we had yesterday with representatives from the Nation of 
Lebanon. And we spent the entire time talking about research 
and the future, and the challenges that that country faces with 
water use and with plant life. And I just kept thinking about 
the work that all of you do, largely unrecognized for the most 
part, and thank you so very much for being with us today.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Ms. Kaptur.
    Before we proceed, I would also like to acknowledge Mr. 
LaHood, who is here today. He is probably the best-known face 
on television of almost any member in the House, because he is 
always chosen to preside over the House floor during the very 
contentious debates we consistently have. So whether a bill is 
a campaign finance reform, or even a broadband bill that we 
debated on the floor yesterday, the Speaker calls on Mr. LaHood 
to do duty in the Speaker's chair. He spends long hours there, 
and sometimes has to make tough choices as to whether or not to 
be here or in the Speaker's chair. I wish we could clone you, 
Mr. LaHood so we could put you in two or three spots at once. 
We are proud of the work you do, and we missed you, but we 
welcome you back today.
    Mr. LaHood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. Mr. Jen, you may proceed with your opening 
statement. We have put your entire written statement into the 
record.
    Mr. Jen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Congresswoman Kaptur.
    Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is my pleasure 
to appear before you for the first time to discuss the fiscal 
year 2003 budget for the Research, Education and Economics 
mission area agencies.

                       Introduction of Witnesses

    I am accompanied by the administrators of the four mission 
area agencies, Dr. Ed Knipling, Acting Administrator of ARS; 
Dr. Colien Hefferan, Administrator of CSREES; Dr. Susan Offutt, 
Administrator of ERS; and Mr. Bosecker, Administrator of NASS. 
Also present is Mr. Steve Dewhurst, Director of the Budget 
Office of the Department. Each administrator has submitted 
written testimony for the record.

                           Opening Statement

    Given today's tight budget constraints, driven 
significantly by the need to shore up our homeland security and 
current economic situations, the REE budget that we are 
discussing reflects a recognition of the critical role of our 
REE's research, education, economics and statistical programs 
in solving the problems facing our Nation's agriculture and 
food systems. We appreciate the support received from Congress 
in our appropriation for fiscal year 2002. The President's 
fiscal year 2003 budget proposes $2.3 billion for the four REE 
agencies.
    REE's four agencies have a proud history over many decades 
of finding solutions to the challenges confronting farmers, 
ranchers and consumers. The work of these agencies has resulted 
in a high return on Federal investment, thus enabling our 
Nation to enjoy a plentiful, affordable and safe food supply. 
For more than 100 years science has been the foundation of 
American agriculture. During the past century research 
investment and scientific advances have fueled the tremendous 
rate of productivity growth in the American agriculture sector. 
America's public investment in agricultural research is a major 
reason the percentage of household income we spend on food has 
dropped from 20.5 percent in 1950 to 10.2 percent in the year 
of 2000.
    However, without continued gains in agricultural science, 
the United States cannot continue to provide affordable, safe 
and nutritious food to American consumers and the world 
population. Without continued scientific progress, we also 
cannot continue to compete effectively in a global marketplace, 
nor can we develop practices that mitigate the effects of 
agriculture on the environment.
    The remarkable success enjoyed by the agriculture sector 
and food systems, and the resultant benefits that have accrued 
to the Nation depend heavily on our having a reservoir of 
scientific knowledge. That reservoir is filled through 
conducting basic fundamental research. Applied mission-oriented 
research and technology development thendraw on that knowledge 
reservoir to address pressing problems faced by the agricultural sector 
and the society. If we are to continue the successes of the past, we 
must continue to replenish the basic fundamental knowledge reservoir.

                      BALANCED RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

    USDA is committed to achieve a balanced agricultural 
research portfolio including an appropriate blend of basic 
fundamental research and applied mission-oriented research. The 
proposed REE budget provides such a balance.
    Increases in research focus on basic fundamental science to 
replenish the knowledge reservoir. Increases in applied 
mission-oriented research draw on the knowledge in the 
reservoir to develop solutions to pressing problems in 
agriculture. For these reasons the fiscal year 2003 budget 
proposes an increase to $240 million for the National Research 
Initiative, NRI, a program authorized in 1991 legislation at 
500 million annually. Competitive grants such as NRI, open to 
all the research community, provide the most effective 
mechanism for attracting the best minds in the Nation to 
conduct research in agriculture and food systems.
    Agricultural genome research is another program receiving 
an increase in the President's budget. We are only at the dawn 
of the age of biotechnology. However, the promises are well 
established. The science is solid, and the results to reduce 
production inputs and increase yield are clear. Just around the 
corner we see function of food or food products with beneficial 
health properties emerging. However, harvesting the promises of 
this powerful technology depends on having a fundamental 
understanding of the genetic makeups of plants, animals and 
microbes. The sequencing of genomes and identifying and mapping 
genes that influence resistance, reproduction, nutrition and 
other economically important trades, are all part of this new 
science. In collaboration with other Federal agencies, USDA is 
currently participating in and supporting the National Plant 
Genome Initiative and the Microbe Project. We have also been 
asked by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to 
lead in the coordination of research activity related to 
domestic animal genomes.
    The present budget also proposes increases in research for 
exotic and emerging plants and animal disease and pests. For 
example, citrus canker threatens Florida citrus industry, and 
Pierce's disease threatens California vineyards. In addition, 
the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United 
Kingdom and the resultant destruction of huge numbers of 
animals, resulted in immense economic losses and international 
trade embargoes for the United Kingdom. The budget includes an 
increase in exotic and emerging diseases and pests of $13 
million in the ARS base program and $5 million in biosecurity 
research. Funding will support the development of new methods 
to rapidly and accurately detect and identify pathogens, as 
well as research to pursue long-term solutions for integrated 
control strategies.
    The President's budget also reflects an increase in 
biobased products and bioenergy research. This research focuses 
on solving multiple national problems through finding new uses 
and new market for value-added agricultural products such as 
biofuels to improve our Nation's energy security.

                               EDUCATION

    Increases in the budget supporting the research component 
of REE are complemented with increases in education, a second 
critical function of REE. U.S. agriculture has entered an era 
characterized by global competitiveness, food distribution 
inequities, environmental concerns and promising technologies.
    Grappling with these issues require a reliable supply of 
highly-qualified scientists and other skilled professionals 
working to advance the frontier of knowledge and technology in 
agriculture and food systems. The President's budget provides 
an increase of $2.7 million in three higher education programs, 
the Institution Challenge Grant, the Graduate Fellowship Grant 
and international grants to land grant institutions.

                    STATISTICS AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

    Thirdly, statistical and economical analysis also receive 
increases in the President's budget proposal. Comprehensive 
agricultural statistics and an understanding of agricultural 
markets and the evolving farm sector are critical ingredients 
for crafting informed farm policy and maintaining our 
competitive position in the global economy. A core source of 
information for gaining this understanding is derived from the 
Agricultural Research Management Survey known as ARMS. This 
survey is jointly sponsored by NASS and ERS. Conducted 
annually, ARMS is the primary source of information about the 
financial condition, production practices, use of resources and 
household economic well-being of American farmers. Data from 
ARMS form the foundation of research analysis, making it 
possible to answer key questions from Congress, administration 
officials, USDA and other decision makers about the 
differential impact of alternative policies and programs across 
farm sector.
    As Secretary Veneman has often stated, ``USDA's policy 
decisions must be based on sound science.'' This science base 
depends upon how effectively the various Federal research 
partners collaborate with each other. The challenges in our 
food and fiber system today are complex and often require 
collaboration among USDA agencies and other Federal 
departments. REE is making that collaboration happen, working 
with NASA on precision agriculture, with NSF on plant genome 
research, with DOE on microbial genome research, and with DOD 
and DOE on biobased products and bioenergy. We are also 
collaborating with the FDA and the CDC on food safety research, 
with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on trade 
negotiations, and with EPA on implementation of the Food 
Quality Protection Act of 1996.
    In summary, I want to reiterate that given an overall tight 
budget, the REE agencies' budget presents a balance portfolio, 
reflecting a commitment to replenish our knowledge reservoir of 
basic fundamental science by supporting applied mission-
oriented research to address immediate problems. The budget 
also provides new funding in education, economic and 
statistical analysis. It also reflects an understanding that 
REE programs are essential not only to solve the problems 
American agriculture and our producers face today, but also to 
address the emerging problems of tomorrow and expand 
opportunities for consumers. With continued investment in 
agricultural research, we will be ready to meet those future 
problems and take advantage of new opportunities presented by 
cutting edge science and technology. Thank you.
    [The information follows:]

              [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    
                   CONGRESSIONALLY-INITIATED RESEARCH

    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Dr. Jen. Dr. Jen, I want to make a 
point at the beginning of this hearing that I feel is shared by 
all the members of the subcommittee. All the members who serve 
on this subcommittee do so with great enthusiasm, and it is a 
privilege to be on this subcommittee. It is one assignment 
that, when all of us began serving, whatever year it was, 
worked real hard to get. There are many other subcommittees 
that are out there for consideration for those of us who are on 
the full Appropriations Committee. This assignment is extremely 
important to those of us who are sitting on this subcommittee, 
whether we care about agriculture production, domestic or 
international feeding programs, marketing, trade, or economics. 
All of those issues are important to us, but the sharpest focus 
is on serving the people that we represent back home, the 
people who sent us here, by being a strong voice for those 
constituents.
    The members of our subcommittee cover a broad range in this 
country as you look across the room. Just to name a few of the 
States that are represented here, Texas, of course, New York, 
Georgia, Washington, Iowa, Missouri, Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, 
Connecticut, California, Florida, Wisconsin. Our Vice Chairman, 
Mr. Latham from Iowa, is greatly concerned about agriculture, 
but he does not have a lot of cotton in his part of his 
district, as I do in Texas. Our ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, has 
swine production in her area. I do not have that in my area, 
but we do have a lot of wool and mohair producers. I say that 
because it just gives you an example of the diversity and the 
different interests that we are all concerned about.
    It is a big country. My point is that we have been sent 
here to work on the problems that our constituents bring to our 
attention, and not to put too much of a fine point on it. If we 
do not work on these problems, Dr. Jen, they are not going to 
send us back every two years. That is what makes our system 
better than a centrally-planned economy, because we are able to 
look after the particular issues in our area.
    Once again the budget proposes to virtually eliminate 
congressionally-initiated research for which we have 
appropriated funds in the past. I am sure we will be talking 
about that a lot this morning. The budget also proposes to 
redirect these resources in order to increase work that is 
directed entirely by the Executive Branch, such as the proposal 
to double the National Research Initiative.
    I would just point out that such proposals might have some 
chance of success if it were not for the fact that they are 
financed by terminating congressionally-initiated projects. The 
budget for ARS proposes to cut over $89 million from 
congressionally-designated funding. The budget for CSREES 
proposes a cut of $136 million from congressionally-designated 
funding. This is not just trimming around the edges. This is a 
whole scale elimination of work that we have deemed important 
on this subcommittee.
    Dr. Jen, in my view, the budget proposes a big shift in how 
we decide to spend our research dollars. I think that we know 
your views, and some of us have shared our views even before 
this hearing with you and your staff. I would simply state that 
I do not think our subcommittee is going to stop doing what we 
were sent here to do.

           CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY OVER FEDERAL EXPENDITURES

    And the closing point that I want to make about this is to 
reference the letter that I am sure you saw that was sent by 
our Chairman of the full Committee, Bill Young, on February 
6th, to Mitch Daniels, Director of OMB. I am not going to read 
the whole letter, but citing the Constitution, the Chairman 
pointed out and, I quote: ``My Committee will vigorously defend 
our constitutional authority over Federal expenditures.'' 
Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 states: ``No money shall be 
drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations 
made by law.''
    This leaves no ambiguity, as Mr. Young pointed out. I am 
sure that some of the views that I just stated are shared by 
many other members of the subcommittee.
    And with that, I will yield to Ms. Kaptur.
    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to support 
you in your very clear statement, and quite frankly, to say 
that on the research front, our region of Ohio got absolutely 
no attention from USDA over the years, even though we are at 
the cutting edge of a great deal of research relating to plant 
genetics. We had no research station from USDA, even though we 
were at the eastern end of the Corn Belt, and we had every 
major grain company. We did have the presence of the Farm 
Service Agency in different forms over the years, but I would 
just have to say that our part of America, for the most part, 
was ignored.
    Now, the eastern part of Ohio had a presence, and some of 
the research scientists there paid a tad of attention to what 
was happening in our region, but I guess, in support of the 
Chairman's point, USDA really needs to wed its, what I call 
process knowledge, to the particularized knowledge that exists 
in various communities across this country. And I think in that 
way we actually build a much stronger and realistic program. 
And so the Chairman has my full support, as does the Chairman 
of the full Committee on is statement.

                         USDA RESEARCH FUNDING

    Now, I wanted to turn immediately to the overall figures 
for the research budget, the cumulative dollars that you have 
available. As I read the numbers, as important as your work is, 
the budget actually, for the Agricultural Research Service, for 
example, has a $10.8 million cut as I look at totals and so 
forth. If I look at what we have done with the National Science 
Foundation over the last few years, we as a country, and I 
supported this, have voted to double the National Science 
Foundation budget. If we look at the National Institutes of 
Health in terms of research, we have tripled the amount of 
research dollars going into those accounts. And the path-
breaking work that you need to do in plant genetics, for 
example, and biotech, the request that is being made of this 
committee in no way reflects the importance of your work, and 
in fact it is a flat line or regressive budget in terms of 
research as I look at it.
    So, Dr. Jen, I am concerned about the way agricultural 
research is being treated in the context of the President's 
budget. My first question to you is, is this the budget that 
you submitted as a department, to the Office of Management and 
Budget for research?
    Mr. Jen. Congresswoman Kaptur, I think you actually capture 
the essence of the problem of USDA's research budget in what 
you just stated, in that we just do not have enough funds to 
cover all the research that needs to be done, whether it is 
basic research, whether it is applied research which is mission 
oriented, and all that. So we are being forced into choosing 
between various good programs.
    Given that, Mr. Chairman, I do understand your concern 
andcertainly every year the administration has taken the position of 
favoring competitive grants over some of the research special grants. 
But I do want to state that the four REE agencies have always carried 
out the final budget appropriated by the Congress with diligence and 
efficiency, and we are ready to administer all types of research, 
education, economic programs as directed.
    I came on board in July of last year, so I did not know the 
initial budget process for this coming year, but it is my 
understanding that agencies did not propose cutting all these 
programs.

                    COMPARATIVE FUNDING FOR RESEARCH

    Ms. Kaptur. Dr. Hefferan or Dr. Knipling, do you wish to 
comment on the comparison of the flat line or regressive 
research budget for USDA compared to NIH and NSF, or any other 
research being conducted by the Government of the United 
States?
    Dr. Knipling. Well, we certainly share that concern. Up 
until this proposed budget we have enjoyed modest growth in our 
Agricultural Research Service budget and other segments of the 
Department as well. For example, this fiscal year our budget is 
about 10 percent over the amount last year. That is not quite 
in the same league as those other agencies, and we would aspire 
to be at that level. As you point out, the proposed budget for 
next year is essentially flat. That $10 million number you 
cited represents about a 1 percent decrease overall.
    Ms. Kaptur. For the cumulative research that you will all 
do together on behalf of the Department, what is the total? 
What is the total budget figure? Maybe Mr. Dewhurst could give 
me that.
    Mr. Dewhurst. It is $2.3 billion.
    Ms. Kaptur. It is $2.3 billion. And as you look at the 
comparison of the increases at NIH and NSF over the years, you 
have not experienced that kind of increase at Agriculture, 
double or triple.
    Mr. Dewhurst. No. The facts speak for themselves. You are 
absolutely correct. Our research has not grown at the rate 
those other organizations have grown.
    Ms. Kaptur. I think that is really important to put on the 
record. Dr. Jen, I listened to you carefully, and you talked 
about the bioterrorism and the increase of $5 million, $5 
million to fund animal and plant research in support of 
biosecurity? Now, $5 million is a lot of money to any family in 
my district, but I have to say in terms of meeting national 
need, I call that an embarrassment. So when I look at the 
dollars that we will be spending related to terrorism, it just 
seems to me that this is not a realistic request.

                        PLANT GENOMICS RESEARCH

    I know that my time is probably up, but very quickly, if I 
wanted to get a special briefing for our committee on the issue 
of plant genomics and the ongoing research, or just genomics at 
USDA, where in the country is the most concentrated set of 
researchers and information available? Where would I take this 
committee? Where would we go, or where would we invite people 
in from in order to brief us on that? I just do not think you 
get enough publicity for the work that you are doing. Who would 
do that for us?
    Mr. Jen. The plant genome research is very diverse. It is 
being carried out at many places, both in ARS labs as well as a 
lot of land grant institutions which are funded through CSREES. 
I would say that if you want to just have one location to have 
a briefing, probably Washington, DC is the best to bring people 
to do that. And if there are specific segments of the program 
you are interested in, then we can direct you to specific 
locations.
    Ms. Kaptur. I just see so much of the future of our country 
relates to plant genetics, whether it is stream bed cleanup and 
water filtration, or whether it is bioenergy production, which 
I will ask about in subsequent questions. As I look at these 
walls, we do not say that to the public that comes in here, and 
I think we need to help tell your story better. NASA does a 
much better job of telling it story than USDA does on research 
in this really incredibly exciting area. I would just ask for 
your working with us as a subcommittee, and I just offer the 
opportunity for interested members to learn about the research 
that is ongoing in this area. We need to inform ourselves 
better.
    Mr. Jen. I will be very happy to organize a briefing 
session for you because I do serve as the co-chair of the 
National Plant Genome Initiative, together with NSF. And I do 
have a background in plant technology myself. So I will be more 
than happy to organize a session if you have time for it.
    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, doctor. We will bring the lunches. 
[Laughter.]
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you very much.
    Mr. LaHood.
    Mr. LaHood. Thank you very much, all of you, for being 
here.
    And, Dr. Jen I wonder if you have ever visited the research 
lab in Peoria?
    Mr. Jen. I must say that I have not yet.
    Mr. LaHood. Well, I want to extend an invitation to you. I 
see where you actually studied in Carbondale, and at Southern 
Illinois University, and have a degree from there. And we are a 
long way away from Carbondale, but you would certainly be 
welcome in Peoria. We have one of the four premiere Ag. 
research labs in our community, and you folks have really taken 
care of our Ag. lab over the last several years with the 
renovation that is going on. We are really moving the lab into 
the 21st century. It was built over 50 years ago, but it is 
being modernized to really come into the 21st century, so I 
hope you will take an opportunity sometime to come to Peoria 
and visit it. What you will find there, as I am sure you know, 
many highly-professional people who contribute an awful lot to 
the future of agriculture.
    What I have been saying to people in my district is that 
research is one of the two or three keys to getting out of the 
recession that we are in, and I am distressed as the Chairman 
has indicated, about the zeroing out of a program there called 
BRDC, which is a program--that does not cost a lot of money; it 
is only a couple of million dollars--but they have worked with 
the private sector in trying to find more and better uses for 
corn and beans, and then develop those and let the private 
sector take them. They develop patents and really expand what 
we can do make markets for our corn and beans, and the residue 
from those.
    And I do not know that that was done by you, but it has 
been zeroed out and it is a very, very important program, and 
it has contributed mightily to our ability to really expand the 
use of some things that we have not been able to do because of 
lack of exports.
    And so in any event, I want to make that point aboutBRDC. I 
hope we can restore the funding for that. It is a marvelous program. 
But I also want to compliment you and your folks for really putting a 
lot of emphasis on our Ag. lab, on renovating it, on bringing it into 
the 21st century, and extend an invitation to you to come to Peoria and 
see the great work that goes on there.
    That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Jen, thank you.
    Mr. Jen. I will make sure that I do visit very soon. Thank 
you, sir.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. LaHood.
    Mr. Boyd.
    Mr. Boyd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Jen, other panelists, welcome. Just reading the 
biographical sketches, I know every one of you has a long 
history of service to this country in agriculture, mostly with 
an agricultural background. The members of this committee heard 
me say before that I believe very strongly the reason we are 
the best agricultural production company in the world is 
because we are the best at research and we stay ahead of the 
curve. I think in the last few years we have not kept the pedal 
to the metal, so to speak, and I think it is time that we turn 
that around. We just have to.

                             Citrus Canker

    This may surprise you, but I might want to talk about 
Florida and citrus. You know, we have a $9 billion industry 
down there that is in serious, serious jeopardy. You referred 
to it in your spoken remarks. My question to you is, from your 
perspective, how are we focusing our research efforts to find 
solutions to the citrus canker problem? We know they are not 
right around the corner, but can we find solutions long-term 
and are we making the effort, the financial commitment, and 
resource commitments, to find those solutions?
    Dr. Jen. Congressman Boyd, I was at Florida twice the last 
2 months. In relation to the citrus canker, I had a brief 
discussion with the citrus department, Florida Department of 
Agriculture research people, on how to combine our effort to 
find a solution. But I think in terms of the technical details, 
I am going to have to defer to Dr. Knipling, who might know a 
little more about it.
    Dr. Knipling. Well, we agree with you. Citrus canker is 
just one of many plagues, as you know. With respect to the 
canker problem in South Florida, at this point it is a 
regulatory issue, of course, but ARS is providing technical 
advice. We have studied the epidemiology of the disease of some 
of our research as the science basis for some of the regulatory 
policy, and certainly that has been our present recent focus on 
detection, epidemiology, sampling methodology, but for the long 
term breeding resistance in citrus varieties is the solution.
    Mr. Boyd. Let me be a little more specific. In this budget 
you are presenting here today, what do we have which 
specifically focuses on this issue?
    Mr. Knipling. The base program at Fort Pierce, and this is 
where this effort is centered for citrus canker, is fairly 
modest. I would say about $500,000 per year. We have 
considerable more in some of the other citrus diseases.
    Mr. Boyd. I thank you. And I want to say that I agree with 
you, it is fairly modest. And we tried, this committee, back to 
what the Chairman said in his opening statement, is tried to, 
through the expertise on this committee, has tried to focus on 
some of these problems nationally, and that is going to be the 
issue as we develop this budget, and the differences that--you 
seem to have left out some of those programs that we had funded 
in the past, and we just want to have a healthy discussion with 
you about those.
    Mr. Jen. Congressman Boyd, if I could introduce Colien 
Hefferan, she could add a little bit on the subject.
    Mr. Boyd. Thank you.
    Dr. Hefferan. One of the primary justifications for the 
large increase in the National Research Initiative focuses on 
both plant and animal disease. The University of Florida has 
been one of our most successful applicants to the National 
Research Initiative, and currently has a number of plant 
disease projects that focus not only on citrus canker, but 
other diseases of citrus, as well as related issues.
    We have depended on the collaboration between the 
Agricultural Research Service, the university researchers and 
the extension programs to help with the real challenge in South 
Florida now, and of course the extension base programs provide 
a lot of effort related to citrus canker. I think our primary 
increases in 2003 for the National Research Initiative would 
focus so much effort on both animal and plant disease, that the 
opportunity for the Florida researchers, opportunity which they 
have been very successful in capitalizing on, would be very, 
very good.
    Mr. Boyd. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, if I might, with one 
final comment. I think we have 7 ARS stations in Florida. Mr. 
Knipling, is that right?
    Dr. Knipling. That is correct, yes.
    Mr. Boyd. I have not had a chance to visit them all, but I 
am making that effort to see them, and I will be, next month, 
in March, visiting at least 3. I know you got some 
infrastructure facility issues, and I want to be helpful to you 
on that also. Thank you.
    Mr. Knipling. I might just add that there is an 8th one 
located at Tallahassee at Florida A&M, which is connected to 
the Gainesville program.
    Mr. Boyd. Right. A brand new very unique cooperative 
relationship with an 1890s land grant college.
    Mr. Knipling. That is correct.
    Mr. Boyd. Thank you for making that happen.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. Boyd.
    Mr. LaHood. Mr. Chairman, could I insert my statement about 
BRDC into the record?
    Mr. Bonilla. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. LaHood.
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    Mr. Bonilla. Mr. Walsh.
    Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to 
associate myself with your remarks and the remarks of the 
ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, regarding the administration's 
approach to member priorities. I do not think it is helpful. I 
have experienced that in my bill also. And as I said to Mr. 
Daniels last year, the Executive Branch certainly has their 
priorities. We respect those, but they need to respect ours 
also.

                                 HACCP

    I have a question. I believe it would be for Dr. Offutt, 
regarding HACCP and the study that has been done recently. We 
went through a very difficult exercise several years ago in 
trying to improve the quality of meat inspection at the plants 
throughout the country, and there was a gradual phasing in of 
the HACCP standards from large plants all the way down to the 
smaller ones. And I understand that your department has done a 
study, and I wondered if you could share or give us a synopsis 
of the report and how that is working out.
    Dr. Offutt. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Walsh. We are indeed 
looking at the question of the experience of adoption of HACCP 
across plant size. The concern, of course, is that if there are 
large fixed costs associated with the institution of the 
system, that that is a relative disadvantage to the smaller 
plants. We are currently in data collection on that, actually 
trying to build the empirical picture that will allow us to 
determine whether or not there are differential degrees of 
adoption, costs of adoption, but we do believe that there are 
some differences, and we expect to have a better idea of what 
they are and the extent of difference with larger plants 
probably in the next 6 to 8 months.
    Mr. Walsh. What is your impression, if you could give us 
generally, of the success of the qualitative improvement of 
meat inspection in the country due to the implementation of 
HACCP?
    Ms. Offutt. I do not know that I am qualified to give a 
comprehensive answer.
    Mr. Walsh. Is anyone in the panel qualified to do that?
    Dr. Jen. I think that is mainly in the FSIS, in the mission 
area of food safety, and they would be able to answer.
    Mr. Walsh. Well, then I will pursue that with them.
    Dr. Offutt. But I would say that our part of this business 
is to try to track the human health costs and benefits of 
adoption of these measures. And while there may be benefits in 
the industry that we have not completely categorized, the 
incidence of foodborne disease associated with meat products 
does seem to have declined. Now, we would like to know more to 
establish a firm causal relationship, but certainly the 
direction of change in the reduction in disease is the way we 
would like to see it.

                         HOMELAND AND SECURITY

    Mr. Walsh. Thank you. There has been an emphasis certainly 
in the country on biosecurity and counter-terrorism and 
planning for these events that we just experienced or trying to 
plan for these events. What type of improvements are we 
providing to make our laboratories safer and to ensure that 
they have the capability to respond to new and emerging 
threats, Plum Island, for example, in Long Island?
    Dr. Jen. Congressman Walsh, right after the 9-11 incident, 
the Department immediately formed a Homeland Security Council, 
which is led by Deputy Secretary Jim Moseley. The Department 
not only reviewed the safety and security issues of our 
facility ourselves, but also hired outside consultants that 
specialize in security management to assist us, to develop more 
guidelines and physical improvements. Many of those 
improvements have already been implemented, and more are being 
added on a daily basis at this point.
    Mr. Walsh. Thank you, sir.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. Walsh.
    Mr. Farr.
    Mr. Farr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I have the feelings that many of the members of this 
Committee have, particularly about the benefit of your service 
in the Department and to this Nation. I think the only way 
America is going to stay on the cutting edge is to stay 
smarter, and the way you stay smarter is to stay in research. 
But as I look over the mandates of the Department, it is 
essentially mandates to develop new knowledge and to expand 
knowledge. And if you just limit that to the formula grants 
that have been set in law, I do not think that is necessarily 
based on that criteria. Those formulas were devised a long time 
ago for land grant colleges and not on basis of competition or 
basis of what those colleges are doing to improve new knowledge 
or expand knowledge.
    The competitive grants, I am very interested in those. I 
think that is the way to go. But I also think that when you cut 
congressional earmarks, you are cutting off the public access, 
the process that we have in America, where it is the taxpayers' 
money and we are elected by those taxpayers to try to make it. 
And here is why I get concerned, because I do not see in those 
competitive dollars that the new stuff is getting addressed, to 
develop the new knowledge, particularly in minor crops. They do 
not have the lobbying firms. They do not have even the research 
university spending a lot of time on them. I happen to 
represent an area that grows a lot of those minor crops. We 
grow lettuce. We grow 85 crops in my county. There is not 
another state that grows 85 crops. We produce $2\1/2\ billion 
in agricultural sales in Monterey County alone, without any 
subsidies. There are no Federal water subsidies. There are no 
crop support subsidies. There is nothing. This is free market 
enterprise. This is the stuff we really want to get into, and 
we are doing with all the environmental regulations and all the 
land use regulations that California and local governments put 
on them, and we are still being able to--the only area where we 
need help is in research. And those crops are not getting that 
kind of research because of all this other stuff.
    So when a legislator comes in here and earmarks some of 
these things and say, ``Let us pay attention to this.'' I mean 
I paid attention when it got elected 10 years ago to the methyl 
bromide issue. We had a big problem with methyl bromide, and we 
have allocated to your Department over $100 million in the last 
10 years for methyl bromide research. And you know where it 
went? To structural methyl bromide, to tending houses. It did 
not get down into the fields where the problems with methyl 
bromide are.
    And so I have sort of a love-hate relationship with these 
research dollars of not really getting to the spot where they 
need to be done. So one question I have is that if I look at 
the West, there are $9 million in proposed project terminations 
in California alone. You look at the Pacific West region, I 
think we take a disproportionate hit in administration's cuts 
for fiscal year 2003. 20 percent ofthe proposed decreases come 
from 8 western states, and heavily on research.
    You know, we have issues like Pierce's disease, and I am 
glad you mentioned that in your statement. Thank you. It is a 
big industry, the wine-viticulture industry in California. And 
yet can you explain to me why there is a $2.5 million proposed 
termination of the Pierce's disease research? Why is the 
Western Regional Research Center at Albany slated for 
terminations of about $5.3 million in a highly productive 
processed foods research unit? And even my little district 
office of research, I notice through the years has been going 
down, down, down, and yet the production and the interest in 
specialty crops is going up, up, up.
    So I think that you are hearing from this committee that 
the leather hits the road in research, and we really want to 
see that there is more of an appropriate response to the needs 
out there by the farmers who are trying to stay on the cutting 
edge and not live off the subsidies of American taxpayers to 
produce their product and compete with the world economy. And 
frankly, these emerging countries and these trade agreements, 
what are they going to do, these countries? The value-added 
crops that they can produce are going to be specialty crops. 
They are not going to compete with us in wheat and corn. They 
are going to compete with us in strawberries and apples and 
things that a lot of members in this committee have growing in 
their districts.
    So I plead with you to explain why these cuts are hitting 
those crops that are most essential to our trade competition, 
and to keeping agriculture a free market?

                       REDUCTION IN ARS PROGRAMS

    Dr. Jen. Congressman Farr, I am from California, so 
therefore I am very sympathetic with all of the things that you 
said, and it is of the same concern. Particularly I have served 
on the Advisory Board of the California Department of Food and 
Agriculture for a number of years.
    Mr. Farr. I know that, and I know your reputation, and it 
is a great reputation. But both you and the Secretary are from 
California, and we in California sort of expect a little bit 
more leadership. [Laughter.]
    Dr. Jen. In terms of the closing or the reduction in some 
programs is concerned, in the ARS side, really, I think ARS has 
over 100 research locations, over 1,000 research programs 
around the country, and there are many of them that have some 
duplications in a sense. When we were given the mandate of 
having to look into the reduction of the ARS budget, that those 
areas were looked at very hard. The decisions were based really 
on the recommendations in a particular report, the report of 
the Strategic Planning Task Force on USDA research facilities, 
mandated by the 1996 Farm Bill. And almost all the closings, 
reductions, or transfers of the program can be traced back to 
direct recommendations from that particular report.
    Am I right, Dr. Knipling?
    Dr. Knipling. That is correct.
    Mr. Farr. It does not explain though the value of the 
congressional earmarks that really go to these minor crops that 
otherwise are not getting attention. I do not think if we had 
not pushed for organic, that you would be out there putting 
money in organic, and it is one of the fastest-growing 
developing industries in the country, and producing millions of 
dollars in sales out of our counties, and actually, a lot of 
traditional agriculture is moving to organic because it is the 
best management practice.
    So I think you have got to keep this research up where the 
concerns are.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. Farr.
    Ms. Emerson.

                      AGRICULTURE IN THE CLASSROOM

    Mrs. Emerson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Jen and all of you, welcome. And I have to echo my 
colleague's comments about disappointment in zeroing out 
research projects, and I will just leave it at that.
    Mr. Chairman, I do have a couple of questions I would like 
to submit for the record, please.
    And unlike my colleague, Mr. LaHood, of course Southern 
Illinois University is right across the river from Cape 
Girardeau, where I come from, so I have lots of familiarity 
with it, and certainly am pleased that you are in this 
position, and hope that you will be able to come to Southeast 
Missouri sometime. Maybe you will have a school reunion.

                          AG IN THE CLASSROOM

    Let me direct my questions to something that is real 
important to me, representing a rural area, probably the most 
rural area in our State, and that has to do with Agriculture in 
the Classroom. I want to know what your thoughts are regarding 
this program? Since primary and secondary education are really 
state-based, it does make sense for the Ag in the Classroom 
programs to be conducted by state-level organizations that 
better meet the particular requirements of each state. Can you 
explain how you assist state-based Ag in the Classroom programs 
and also detail the financial support that USDA provides those 
programs?
    Dr. Jen. Congressman Emerson, first of all, I appreciate 
the question, because having been a dean of a college of 
agriculture, that is a great concern, of the pipeline support 
bringing students into the college. And I think it has to come 
from the elementary schools and secondary schools. And Ag in 
the Classroom is a wonderful program, and it is being 
supported, I think, as strongly as we are able to through the 
CSREES, but I would like Dr. Hefferan probably to give more 
details.
    Mrs. Emerson. Okay.
    Dr. Hefferan. The Ag in the Classroom program is supported 
through a network of volunteer teachers across each state, with 
a great deal of support from State Departments of Education, 
the Farm Bureau and other organizations interested in Ag 
literacy.
    What we have tried to do in the last couple of years with 
the Ag in the Classroom program is to use some of the increased 
resources for that program to set up a national website, which 
we have done through a cooperative arrangement with teachers in 
Utah. We also have worked with NASA to collaborate on some 
programs that really pique the interest of young children in 
science, and talk about the inter-relationships of agricultural 
science with all other areas of science, and that has been a 
very productive program. We have also worked Government-wide in 
issues related to the localization of science and the 
challenges that brings for agriculture.
    We work primarily with the Ag in the Classroom network that 
we coordinate and use our funds to manage that network, but we 
also have supported several other groups to develop curricula 
that can be used as models. It is a small program, where we 
really feel like the Federal role is catalytic rather than 
managing, and I can tell you, it is a remarkable thing what 
effort the teachers across the country put into this program. I 
have attended their annual meeting, and the creativity of these 
teachers is amazing.
    Students really learn a great deal about science by 
understanding agriculture, and particularly young children are 
interested in food and in grass and how things grow, and they 
make remarkable examples.
    I will take 30 seconds to tell you the best little project 
they started this year in Ag in the Classroom, and it involves 
taking a potato and slicing it into the number of pieces there 
are students in the classroom, passing the potato around the 
room and putting several slices into a Ziploc bag. Then they 
have the children go out of the room, wash their hands, cut up 
another potato, pass it around the room, and put the slices in 
a Ziploc bag. They teach more about food safety and 
microbiology by looking at those bags a week later, where there 
are a couple of pieces of potato in one bag, and a black liquid 
in the other.
    Those are the kinds of creative things teachers do in Ag in 
the Classroom.
    Mrs. Emerson. I am familiar with those, and I think it is a 
tremendous idea. But let me ask you, what kind of benchmarks do 
you use to really measure success, or is it possible to do 
that?
    Dr. Hefferan. Well, the benchmarks are very much related to 
the state standards of learning, making sure that the curricula 
that are developed and implemented can be used across a whole 
range of subject matters. We do go in and do an evaluation 
particularly of the curricula that are developed and shared at 
a national basis, but that evaluation is based not only on the 
use of the curricula but the relationship of the curricula to 
the local standards that must be set. So while there is an 
overall effort to analyze the program, the evaluation factors 
are very locally determined.
    Mrs. Emerson. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you.

                        KNOWLEDGE OF AGRICULTURE

    Ms. Kaptur. Would the gentlelady yield just for a second?
    Mrs. Emerson. Yes.
    Ms. Kaptur. I am extremely interested in your line of 
questioning, and you mentioned you represent a largely rural 
area, the most rural in Missouri. I represent both an urban 
area and a rural area, and not the largest rural area in Ohio. 
In the urban area I have been disturbed for a long time about 
the divorce of our youth from nature and from an understanding 
of nature. And a few years ago, in the rural area we had 
problems with inspiring young people to go into the field of 
agriculture in so many of its dimensions. NRCS, through a 
private contract I guess, produced this book that I am just 
fascinated with, ``Food, Land and People.'' It comes in a big 
binder, and the only reason I am injecting after your time is 
to say that I do not know how you make that available across 
our country, but many of our 4-H chapters work in urban areas 
as well as urban areas, I think those lesson plans are the 
finest I have ever seen. And they connect whether you are in an 
urban classroom or in a rural setting. And I would just urge 
the Department to do what you can to make that available to a 
broader range of students through every program you have, 
students and teachers.
    So I apologize to the gentlelady for taking a few moments 
here, but I am with you on this one.
    Mrs. Emerson. And I appreciate that too, but as you know, 
it is rather shocking, to be honest with you, how many people 
and students who live in rural areas do not have a clue either. 
That is very frustrating and frightening, as well. So we have 
our work cut out for us on all fronts in my opinion.
    Dr. Hefferan. Well, let me assure all of you that we also 
contributed to the development of those curricula materials, 
and they are one of the primary sources of information used not 
only by the Ag in the Classroom program, but also by the 4-H 
program for teaching about agriculture in the context of 
environmental concern.
    Ms. Kaptur. Doctor, is that up on the Web?
    Dr. Hefferan. The Food, Land and People program is a 
private program, and they do not have a web-based program, but 
you can access almost all of those materials through our 
website at wwwreeusda.gov.
    Mrs. Emerson. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Ms. Emerson.
    Ms. DeLauro.
    Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And welcome 
and thank you all for being here.
    I have three questions and others I will put into the 
record, so I will try to be succinct. The first one has to do 
with an economic study of a single food agency. According to 
your testimony, the second goal of the Economic Research 
Service is that food production system is safe and secure, and 
it is further stated that research helps Government officials 
design more efficient and cost-effective approaches for 
promoting food safety.

                           SINGLE FOOD AGENCY

    I introduced, along with some others last year, the Safe 
Food Act, which is legislation that would create a single 
consolidated Food Safety Administration. And my two questions 
related to this are: Has ERS done an economic study of creating 
a single food agency? If so, what were the results? And 
secondly, if not, would ERS do such a study?
    Mr. Jen. Dr. Offutt, I think this is directed to you.
    Dr. Offutt. Thank you. No, we have not done a study of the 
economic cost of the implementation of a single food agency. 
Our focus is on the initiatives that a single food agency would 
undertake, not whatever efficiencies might be gained by 
consolidating the bureaucracy. We really probably do not have 
the expertise to make that assessment. We look at questions 
about what regulatory regimes actually produce safer food by 
direct action in the field.
    So certainly if Congress directed us to do such a study, we 
would, although I have to tell you that our ability to take 
that on as economists is probably limited because many of the 
questions of efficiency do not run strictly on cost or savings, 
as in typewriter purchases. It is more of a political science 
question.
    Ms. DeLauro. I also think it may be, but maybe we can have 
someone come in and do a study to find out whether or not it is 
more efficient for us to deal with one agency responsible for 
food safety, rather than 12 different pieces of it.
    My question was, would you? If you do not want to do it, 
would you be willing to have someone else do it?
    Dr. Offutt. Well, in fact, the National Academy of Science 
has done a number of studies that go to the question of the 
organization of the Federal Government with respect to the 
delivery of safety programs. So our starting point would be to 
familiarize you with the results of their findings, and see 
what else might be required.
    Ms. DeLauro. Well, that is what I asked. My first question 
was, have there been any studies? If there are, we would loveto 
get the benefit of that. And then secondly, what I will try to do is to 
pursue the effort to try to do an economic study to see in fact what is 
cost efficient, what allows us to get where we need to go on the issue 
of food safety, and to try not to be duplicating efforts in what those 
efficiencies are.
    So I would appreciate that, and any thoughts that you have 
on how you might, or you in conjunction with others, might do 
some sort of an economic study that would allow us to look at 
this issue.
    A second question has to do with the agriculture 
biotechnology cooperative arrangements. In the field of 
agriculture biotechnology, how much research, as a percentage 
of USDA's total research, and in dollars, does USDA do with 
private industry? How much of this is done with large companies 
or with small companies? Is this all in the form of grants? Are 
there any cooperative arrangements? Who retains the title to 
any inventions? What is the rate of return, if any, and does 
the USDA receive any profits made on inventions developed with 
USDA funds?
    Dr. Jen. At this moment I do not have this information 
right off----
    Ms. DeLauro. If you can get me that information, that would 
be terrific.
    Dr. Jen. Yes. We will be happy to send you a report to 
answer that question.

                      FOOD SAFETY RESEARCH FUNDING

    Ms. DeLauro. Wonderful, okay. I think we are all concerned 
about the issue of food safety. I know all of you are. It 
certainly is a subject of interest of this committee, and just 
personally I have taken an interest in that area. And the 
research at CSREES shows that funding has essentially stayed 
the same at $15 million since fiscal year 2001. What is the 
total budget for food safety research at USDA? How does the 
Department deal with the funds? What does CSREES do with their 
food safety budget, and does the agency need more funding, 
especially since there has not been an increase since 2001? And 
again, prior to September 11th, certainly post September 11th, 
there is more concern in this area.
    Dr. Jen. I think I would like both Dr. Knipling and Dr. 
Hefferan, because I think ARS does spend quite a bit of 
research funding in food safety. I think it is over $100 
million a year.
    Dr. Knipling. Yes. ARS has a very significant program in 
food safety research. It is on the order of about 10 percent of 
our total program nationwide, which amounts to about $92.3 
million, and that has grown dramatically over the last 3 or 4 
years. I would say it essentially doubled over the last 5 
years. As you point out, there were no significant increases 
for this fiscal year and none proposed for the next. But 
nevertheless, it represents a tremendous growth in the program.
    There are 3 or 4 categories of that research. The bulk of 
it is in microbiological food safety with respect to meat and 
poultry and even some vegetable crops. Then we also have fungal 
toxins, aflatoxin, mycotoxins. We are also concerned with 
chemical aspects of food safety and chemical residues. Those 
would be the main categories of our food safety research 
program.

                              FOOD SAFETY

    Dr. Hefferan. Let me say that the $15 million that you cite 
is for a specific program, which is under the Section 406 
authority for Integrated Research, Education, and Extension 
activities, and that program was increased to $15 million two 
years ago and has been funded at that level.
    But in addition to that we have spent in excess of $21 
million of the National Research Initiative funding on food 
safety research primarily focused on biological contamination 
issues, and spanning both meat products as well as other food 
products.
    In addition, we have worked collaboratively with the Food 
and Drug Administration on a number of projects that look at 
microbial contamination of fresh fruits and vegetables, and 
have both helped develop some best management practices and 
done training across the country to help farmers utilize these 
practices.
    So our total expenditure for food safety research is more 
in the range of $40 million a year rather than $15 million.
    Ms. DeLauro. So you are at about 90, you are at about 40. 
Are there any other areas at USDA where there is research in 
this area? I just want to try to see what the total----
    Dr. Offutt. The food safety work we do is so intertwined 
with a lot of the work on consumer behavior, it is hard to say. 
I will guess on a number. Probably between $5 and $7 million, 
which is a very large portion of our $60, $70 million. We focus 
on understanding the cost to society from people getting ill 
from foodborne pathogens. We look at how we can change people's 
behavior, for example, how we can make them cook their 
hamburgers to a more well-done degree. So that is the kind of 
thing we do.
    Ms. DeLauro. So you are at about 4 or 5. Again, is that the 
total range of food safety? I just want to try to get to a 
sense of what we are overall spending at USDA for food safety 
research.
    Dr. Jen. Right. I think we can probably provide you later 
with the breakdown.
    Ms. DeLauro. That is fine.
    Dr. Jen. And also because we are only answering for REE. 
You know, there are other agencies within USDA that also 
probably spend funding relating to it.
    Mr. Dewhurst. We do what we call a cross-cut analysis of 
the Department analysis in food safety, and I would be glad to 
make that available to you and to the committee. We can show 
you everything from meat and poultry inspection to the 
research.
    Ms. DeLauro. Absolutely, that would be terrific. I 
appreciate that.
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    Dr. Knipling. If I could add one point, also. We classify 
our research in one category or another, but there is other 
research that is relevant to food safety. I am now referring to 
some of the animal health issues that we talked about earlier. 
Waste management, environmental quality and other research 
activities, also impact food safety, but we don't categorize 
the work as such.
    Ms. DeLauro. Well, again, as I say, I think it would be 
enormously helpful to get the overall picture. It sounds to me 
like we have a substantial commitment. If that is the case, 
that is terrific, but let's just try to take a look at what we 
do have, and be able to ask some questions from there. That 
would be very, very helpful.
    Do I still have any time, Mr. Chairman, or is all gone?
    Mr. Goode [presiding] That is it.
    Ms. DeLauro. That is it. Thank you very, very much, Mr. 
Chairman. I will submit the other pieces for the record.
    Mr. Goode. Next is my turn for questions, but I am going to 
delay them until the end, and go right to Ms. Kaptur.
    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. I 
appreciate that.

                         USDA RESEARCH FUNDING

    Dr. Jen and Dr. Hefferan, Dr. Knipling, Dr. Offutt, I have 
been sitting and listening to you, and all I am thinking up 
here is you do not have enough money for what you need to do, 
and your strength is your incredible partnerships across the 
country with our landgrants and through your own labs. Your 
weakness is that you do not have an image that captures the 
fancy of Congress, and so that is why you do not win in the 
research fight. We have to figure out how to do that. And I 
want to think together with you on this.
    If I look at the increase, just the increase that NIH is 
requesting this year, it is 1\1/2\ times your entire budget. It 
is 150 percent of the total USDA research budget, just their 
increase, and $27.2 billion is the total amount that they are 
requesting. Now, I vote for that, and I was one of the members 
that supported the NSF increases.
    So let me tell you, something like the Human Genome 
Project, it captured the fancy of Congress. The brain mapping 
over a 10-year period captured the fancy of Congress. I know 
that I am sitting here with at least, what, 90 percent of the 
genes that plants have, and that the fundamentals are in the 
plant sciences and in the animal sciences. What did they say 
that human beings have some percent of the genes of gnats. What 
is it? 97 percent?
    So it is pretty clear what is going on here from a 
scientific standpoint.Yet you are not the ones in the driver's 
seat on the research front. I do not know what we are going to 
do about that this year, but we have got to do something. One 
of our problems is we are restricted here by the jurisdiction 
of our subcommittee and the big money is flowing to NSF, it is 
flowing to NIH.
    What interests me, Dr. Jen, is your familiarity with the 
White House science advisor. The research battle has to be 
fought inside there, and USDA has to have a bigger chair at the 
table. As I look at the increases proposed for DOD, and you 
have a partnership with DOD; the increases proposed for NASA, 
you have a partnership with NASA, I really think you should 
give some hard thought to how to partner with them in a larger 
sense this year, because I think they are going to get some 
money. And so whether it is bioenergy projects that you are 
doing with DOE or DOD, or plant genetics research that you are 
doing, somehow you have got to get your numbers up, because 
essentially at flat line you are decreasing. You cannot hire 
good staff. You are going to lose your best people. And you 
also lose your image up here, because you do not look as 
exciting, even though I think you are the most exciting 
department in the Government of the United States, with what 
you do and its relevance to life on the planet. You do not get 
the attention you deserve.
    So Think with me on this. I know you cannot give me an 
answer now, but somehow you need to have an image. That is why 
we want to have lunch with you. Let's talk about this a little 
bit and think about, hopefully, this year we can do better than 
the budget you have given us, but for the future you need an 
image and you do not have it, so at least that is this member's 
opinion. So I just wanted to put that on the record.
    In terms of----
    Dr. Jen. Could I probably give you just a very short answer 
on that?
    Ms. Kaptur. Please, doctor. I did not want to put you on 
the spot, yes.
    Dr. Jen. First of all, I would like to thank you very much 
for your advice, because I think it is right on target. It is 
exactly why I came to USDA and took this job. Secondly, I do 
want to say that we have made a small inroad in that OSTP has 
made USDA the leading coordinating agency for a new Domestic 
Animal Genome Inter-agency Work Group. So in some way we are 
saying that NIH is leading human genome; NS is leading plant 
genome, and USDA is leading animal genome. So we are slowly 
making progress--and I was very proud of that little 
accomplishment.
    Ms. Kaptur. I will just place this on the record, and I do 
not want to run out of time here. But I had a medical school in 
my district say, ``Marcy, we need really clean swine because we 
want to use heart tissue for transplants into humans.'' And I 
thought, ``Oh, great. This is something we can work on with 
USDA.'' Then I come back here to Washington, ``Sorry, Marcy. 
USDA is not involved in animal research that goes into humans. 
That is HHS.'' I said, ``HHS knows nothing about swine.'' And I 
said, ``Isn't it interesting, the lines of science are 
blending.'' And we are a little bit rigid in the way that we 
deal with this from a scientific and research standpoint here 
at the national level. And so if you pursue the science, if you 
pursue what you know you have out there, help us to shape an 
image that really gives you the kind of lift that you need to 
get the research dollars that are so vital to our future.

                   FARMERS' SHARE OF THE FOOD DOLLAR

    I wanted to move very quickly to, perhaps Dr. Offutt and 
Mr. Bosecker can give me this. In your testimony, Dr. Jen, you 
said the percent of the food dollars that consumers have to now 
spend is down to about 10 percent compared to 20 percent. What 
is the percent of the food dollar that goes into the pockets of 
productive farmers? If we look historically, do you have those 
numbers now, compare 30 yearsago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 
of what is spent by the consumer and also of the dollars that USDA 
spends on nutrition programs and various--two-thirds of our monies in 
nutrition programs of various kinds that goes into the pocket of 
farmers? Are you able to give us that information?
    Dr. Offutt. Yes. Certainly, I will be happy to provide you 
with charts that will be perfectly accurate historically, but 
today, considering the food system as an aggregate, probably 10 
to 15 percent of the consumer food dollar goes to production 
agriculture, and the remaining 80 to 85 percent is for 
packaging, people who work in restaurants, processing and the 
like.
    [The Information follows:]

              [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    
    Ms. Kaptur. Well, this is a very interesting issue for me, 
and how we use the powers that exist to create income for the 
people in the field--in fact I had this brilliant idea the 
other day--maybe it is not so brilliant, probably a lot of 
people have had it before I did--but I am sitting out there in 
one of our food banks, looking at the fact that they are being 
drawn so heavily, and we are asking people to go to the retail 
stores and purchase all this food and then donate it to the 
Food Bank. And I thought this is crazy. We have got all these 
farmers around Northwest Ohio. Why could we not give them a 
little payment? A lot of them donate pumpkins, and they donate 
squash, and they donate cucumbers, and they donate tomatoes. 
And I am thinking, why do we not have a program where we give 
farmers some benefit if they donate directly to a food bank? 
Why did we not do this? Why do we say there is only one way to 
move that food dollar?
    So I just put that on the table as an issue that any 
information you can provide me, both from the public purchases, 
the private purchases of food, how much of that goes into the 
farmer's pocket? And then looking at USDA programs in totality, 
what of that goes into the farmer's pocket from the nutrition 
side and from the agriculture side would be greatly 
appreciated.

                          Screw Worm Facility

    I just wanted to ask for one piece of information, Dr. Jen. 
I know you will not have this, but your predecessor for several 
years was asked about a proposal to reposition the screw worm 
facility in Chiapas, and to make a proposal to us regarding how 
that facility could be used for other purposes to help the 
people of Mexico to gain some footing in an extremely 
complicated region of that country. We never got an answer back 
from USDA, and I am very disappointed in that.
    It is not your responsibility, but you should be aware of 
that. And this is a part of Mexico our continent should care 
about, and USDA operated the only facility there. Granted it 
was for a very specific scientific purpose, but could we use it 
for tropical fruit production? Is there something else that 
could be done there? If someone could get back to me on that, 
it would be greatly appreciated.
    Dr. Jen. I will check into that.
    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
    Mr. Bonilla  [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Kaptur.
    Mr. Goode.
    Mr. Goode. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I was looking at your proposal here and the zeroing out of 
so many research endeavors that this committee started, but 
global change got an increase. Tell me what global change has 
done this year and what you want it to do next year.
    Mr. Jen. I think you are talking about mainly the ARS 
budget in global change. Dr. Knipling.

                             Global Change

    Mr. Knipling. Well, global change, of course, relates to 
the issue of global warming, carbon dioxide emissions and so 
forth, and there is obviously a lot of uncertainty about that 
issue, yet there in concern around the world for regulation of 
emissions and the like. This Administration believes it is 
premature to regulate. We need more scientific information 
about that activity. Within the agricultural sector, we are 
studying quite a bit on the carbon dioxide relationships 
between the land and the plants and the animals and the 
atmosphere, and that is the primary thrust of our research.
    Mr. Goode. Who are you contracting with and who is getting 
the money?
    Dr. Knipling. We are conducting this work at our own in-
house laboratories.
    Mr. Goode. So this is a $2-1/2 million amount for USDA in 
house?
    Dr. Knipling. Yes.
    Mr. Goode. Where are you doing it?
    Dr. Knipling. We have a network of laboratories, many of 
them in the western United States. Fort Collins, Colorado, 
Phoenix, Arizona, Temple, Texas, are some of the laboratories 
that come to mind at this point.
    Mr. Goode. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. Goode.
    We will now continue our second round of questioning in the 
same order we proceeded earlier. Mr. Boyd.

                      Grapefruit Drug Interaction

    Mr. Boyd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Dr. Jen, I want to 
ask a question which I think is of great importance to Texas, 
not only Texas citrus mutual and California citrus growers, but 
also our Florida citrus growers. That question has to do with 
what has become known as the grapefruit drug interaction 
problem. You may be familiar with this issue, or you may want 
Dr. Knipling to address this, but this obviously has caused a 
serious decline in grapefruit sales by our grapefruit 
producers. In Florida alone, our growers have invested a 
million dollars in research andeducation efforts to try to 
understand this issue a little better.
    Can you talk to me a little bit about the Department's 
feeling on this and your willingness to get involved and do 
some research to help us find solutions? The reason I ask this 
question now is because in early January, Commissioner Charles 
Bronson, our Commissioner of Agriculture and the Executive 
Director of the Florida Department of Citrus, Bob Crawford, 
wrote the Secretary a letter addressing this issue and asking 
for assistance. If that letter has been responded to, I am not 
aware of it, but I would like to get your thoughts on this, and 
what the Department's role might be in helping us identify 
solutions to this problem, specifically identifying the gene 
that is causing this and how we deal with it.
    Dr. Jen. I am aware of the specific thing that you are 
talking about, but not in great technical details. I think the 
major difficulties of tackling that type of perception or 
advertisement is because it involves food and drug 
interactions. And so I think we would need to work with FDA or 
other agencies to determine how we are going to address this 
issue. This really deals also, with the pharmaceutical 
industry, which we do not have a lot of contact with in terms 
of getting cooperation from them.
    But, with that, Ed, do you have anything to add?
    Dr. Knipling. I am really not that familiar with the issue, 
to tell the truth. To the extent it would involve an 
interaction with citrus genetics and genome, we could certainly 
play a collaborating role. Some of our program at the new Ft. 
Pierce laboratory is in fact focused on citrus genomics.
    Mr. Boyd. So what I hear you saying is that you would be 
open to helping through your research facilities, and that 
there has been no position taken by the Department expressing a 
lack of interest, or stating a position that would say that we 
are not going to do any research there?
    Dr. Jen. Not that I know of, sir.
    Mr. Boyd. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. Boyd. I would just like to note 
that I appreciate you bringing up this issue. This is important 
to a lot of citrus producers in Texas as well, and we will be 
working with you on this.
    Mr. Boyd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a copy of the 
Commissioner's letter if you would like to have it, and maybe 
we could get some response to them if it had not already been 
prepared.
    Dr. Jen. I believe the response is in the mail.
    Mr. Boyd. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Bonilla. Mr. Farr.
    Mr. Farr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have one comment and a 
question.

                            Moisture COntent

    First is Virgil Goode's question about climate change. One 
of the things that I have heard from my farmers that they need 
most of is weather data on moisture content on plant leaves. 
And you might want to remember this and see if you can get the 
Department researchers to work with it. The Navy's Fleet 
Numerical Weather Station, which gathers all the weather in the 
world, is in Monterey, California. And next to it is the 
National Weather Bureau. They moved there because of the 
computer capacity and the information capacity that the Navy 
has.
    They have offered, sort of as a good neighbor, to be able 
to do research with the farmers in Salinas Valley, and we have 
a lot of micro climates as you down the valley. But this is 
something that is very essential, and it is their number one 
priority issue for research, but it is beyond the capability of 
standard research universities to have the kind of weather 
gathering data that they have. So I would hope that you might 
look into that and then work with the Navy and the Weather 
Service with the farmers in Salinas.
    My question goes to the issue of, I would be very 
interested in finding out how much research goes into our 
commodity programs and the crops that are grown in those 
commodity programs that we subsidize, and how much research 
goes into the agricultural products that are on the 
Department's nutritional list, that is, the things that we 
recommend that people eat, and certainly promoting our school 
lunch program as the 5-a-day. I would like to see what the 
contrast is between research for commodity and research for 
nutrition.
    And also I want to thank you for your program in the 
National Research Initiative Competitiveness Grants programs to 
increase that, and it proposes increases for food safety, 
nutrition research and research targeted at small and mid-size 
farms and rural air quality. I think the rural air quality is 
one of the issues we talked about.
    What is your definition of small and mid-size farms? Dr. 
Jen, you know California real estate and you know California 
agriculture, and oftentimes they are small, but their income 
and their expenses far exceed the definition of small or mid 
size. So is this land area, or is this income, or is this 
value, or are these fixed definitions?

               Definition of Small and Medium Size Farms

    Dr. Jen. Do we have a fixed definition for a small or 
medium size farm?
    Dr. Offutt. Well, certainly there is no standard USDA 
definition of small and medium size. We have a farm topology 
that defines small farms as any with sales of $250,000 or less, 
but people running that program would have to say within that 
how they would actually identify small and medium size.
    Mr. Farr. Well, I would hope that it is not our other 
standards that we use for small and medium in the Department, 
because you are going to keep a lot of small and medium size 
agriculture in California, and high productive value-added 
agriculture, expensive agriculture, out of the mix.
    I am going to leave with the idea that I hope you see today 
that this committee are your cheerleaders. I mean we are--and 
we are concerned about research, and I think that the earmarks 
that the Department cut are not appropriate. But the reason the 
earmarks are in there is those are directions that at least the 
political will says we ought to be addressing, and the 
bureaucracy will, if you have, says, well, you know, they do 
not meet our criteria. The problem is you can create a 
bureaucracy industrial complex in agriculture and in 
agriculture research. And I think you have got to keep in mind 
that a lot of these issues, I mean we have our university 
research folks, you have your field stations, and those are 
essentially where the politics are for research, but there is 
other needs out there in society that do not get heard, and 
what they do is they come to us. And so we need to have a 
better balance of what we are trying to articulate as a 
priority, as a help for research and what you traditionally 
have done. And I think if we work thatway, I agree totally with 
Marcy, that if life on the planet is about what you eat, then we ought 
to be spending an awful lot more time in deciding through research what 
is good to eat and healthy to eat, and how we can combat diseases and 
develop a health world, not a healthy Nation.
    Thank you for your work, and we look forward to working 
with you and increasing your budget, and you paying attention 
to our earmarks. Thank you. [Laughter.]
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. Farr.
    Dr. Jen, we have a vote on the house floor right now. I am 
going to go cast my vote and return. It will just be a couple 
of minutes, and if you would be patient with us, we would 
appreciate it.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Nethercutt [presiding]. Ladies and gentlemen, good 
morning. The subcommittee is back in session after our vote. I 
am late getting here because I had other hearings, so I 
immediately get to be the Chairman for a few minutes. I want to 
thank you all for being here, and I understand I am one who has 
not asked questions, and everyone else has, so I will proceed 
if it is all right with the rest of the committee.

                             AGROTERRORISM

    I want to ask about the issue of agroterrorism. My 
understanding is that there is about $5 million in the present 
budget for agroterrorism. I understand Ms. Kaptur has raised an 
issue about this. I have a special interest about agroterrorism 
because Washington State University is in my district, and we 
have legislation that we have introduced that would address the 
issue of extremist groups who want to burn down and destroy 
agriculture and biomedical research facilities.
    So if you have answered it already, I apologize for asking 
the question again. Perhaps you could address that issue and 
then I will follow up.
    Dr. Jen. Yes, I did answer that a little earlier I think. 
The Department formed a Homeland Security Council, led by the 
Deputy Secretary, Jim Moseley. And we are really dealing with 
this issue almost on a daily basis in that the whole Department 
is very much involved.
    The number one issue that we actually dealt with is to try 
to secure particularly the high vulnerability research 
laboratories that we have. There are 6 or 7 of them, including 
Plum Island. We not only did the review ourselves in trying to 
secure physical facilities and things like that, but also 
engaged an outside consultant that specialized in security 
management, to keep us advised. And so we are beefing up 
physical securities on a daily basis. And I think the specific 
allocation of funding in there is in the research side to try 
to develop rapid detection methods for pathogens, in trying to 
find ways to control their spread and various different things.
    Mr. Nethercutt. I appreciate that. I guess my question goes 
further, to the issue of preventing domestic terrorist groups 
from going into a research facility, which is the product of 
years and years of diligent research by well-meaning people 
with good motives to try to help humanity, going in and burning 
it down or tipping over the trays or research items and 
destroying the facilities.
    Is your attention also being paid to the issue of hardening 
facilities that are just basic research facilities, maybe 
research stations out in the middle of a wheat field, but that 
contain very valuable research? Are you looking at that also?
    Dr. Jen. Yes, we are looking at it. In fact, we have a 
consultant right now look at every single research facility ARS 
has in that regard. And also, I want to say that you are 
absolutely right. Our current experience shows that security of 
the physical facility is probably easier to establish. The 
hardest one is the access, the personnel access to the research 
facility, because of the fact that you have academic freedom 
and you have many people visiting labs. We are researching that 
specific issue.
    Mr. Nethercutt. Did you make recommendations to the Office 
of Management and Budget which were in excess of the $5 million 
that has been allocated to agro-security in the present budget?
    Dr. Jen. I do not believe so specifically for 
agroterrorism, no.
    Mr. Nethercutt. Well, I guess it is really up to this 
subcommittee and other appropriate committees within the 
Congress to make judgments about the adequacy of the budget 
request. Certainly is it up to the Congress as a co-equal 
branch to make those judgments. And I know everyone in this 
subcommittee feels very seriously and strongly about the need 
for protection, not only in food safety, but Ag safety and 
research safety all across the board. So I know we will in due 
course be visiting this issue in this subcommittee.
    Dr. Jen. Yes. I would like to add that in the fiscal year 
2002 supplemental budget to the defense bill, the USDA received 
appropriations.
    Mr. Dewhurst. $328 million was provided by the Congress, 
the vast majority of which will be used for the purposes that 
you are talking about. That is over and above what you see in 
the budget. Our Congress has been fairly generous. We have 
money. We just need to get the work done to shore up these 
laboratories.

                    FUNDING OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

    Mr. Nethercutt. I see my time has expired. I will ask a 
final question if I may. I know that every year it seems like 
the administration, previous administrations and this one, want 
to make the reductions in agriculture research, and at the same 
time we see increases in the National Science Foundation and 
NIH research funding. I am here to just tell you as a person 
who cares deeply about agriculture, as does every other person 
on this committee, we think Ag research is critically important 
to the future of the Nation as well, especially our national 
security as we look to food security in an uncertain future. So 
even though you cut out research stations, it has been the 
history of this committee to put them back in because they do 
darn good work, and we cannot lose these scientists who have 
the uncertainty of one year to the next of not knowing whether 
they will be funded or whether they will not be funded. That is 
not a good way, in my opinion, to establish long-term high-
quality researchers across this country who will help our 
farmers and growers produce the best food supply in the world.
    So I just say it advisedly that as one member, I am really 
very serious about making sure we have adequate agriculture 
research in this bill, and allow these good scientists to have 
some certainty about the future as it relates to their 
profession.
    So with that, I thank you for being here, unless you have a 
comment?
    Dr. Jen. No, I just want to thank you for your concern 
because we share it.
    Mr. Nethercutt. Yes, sir. Thank you.
    Ms. Kaptur.
    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
    And again, Dr. Jen, I just wanted to urge you to think 
about how to move the research agenda of USDA this year. I also 
serve on the Appropriations Committees for NSF and for NASA, 
and if some of those cooperative programs could be used to 
enhance what you are already doing, so you could move other 
dollars in your accounts, I would urge you to think about that 
and be back in touch with us, because I am disappointed in the 
overall level of the research dollars that you have presented 
us today.

                               BIOENERGY

    Let me move to the issue of bioenergy. At least it is 
referenced in your testimony, and I sure do appreciate that 
since this is a real top priority for me. What concerns me is 
the amount of funds you have and I think my own lack of 
complete understanding of how the Department views its role in 
the use of biofuels and bioenergy for the future. I am 
wondering whether it would be possible for you to produce in 
letter form to this committee a description of how the 
Department at a policy level views its role in the promotion of 
research for bioenergy and ongoing activities in this regard, 
as well as your cooperative relationships with other agencies.
    I read the President's energy report, and I think USDA is 
not even referenced. I think there is something on biofuels 
that is a footnote on page 92 or something. But I really need 
to know how the Department is thinking about biofuels and how 
you are arranging the expenditure of dollars. Was it 9 million 
additional dollars you are asking in this proposal; am I 
correct in that, and how that is going to be spent in 
furtherance of whatever program it is that you have set in 
place, but I cannot claim an understanding of this program, and 
it is something I care deeply about. And if I do not understand 
it, I would venture to say most members of Congress do not 
understand it, because this is something we follow pretty 
closely. So I would appreciate that.
    If you wish to state anything for the record on your 
perspective on biofuels research and bioenergy research and 
production related to the Department, you certainly can do that 
now.
    Dr. Jen. Yes. I will take the message back to the 
Secretary, because I cannot represent the Department. I can 
only represent just REE in the research part of it. And I think 
Ed Knipling can give you the research dollars we spend on 
bioresearch.
    Dr. Knipling. Yes. This $9 million proposal relates to the 
Agricultural Research Service part of the budget. It is 
basically focused on biomass, crop related products that can be 
used for fuels rather than for food. So the program would be to 
enhance biomass production, the efficiency of the actual mass, 
and focus on the conversion processes to alcohol fuels. It 
would assess some oil crops for potential uses for biodiesel 
fuels.
    There is a third component that relates to what we will 
call co-products. As we all may know the economic margin for 
alcohol and biodiesel fuels has always been problematic. If 
through the generation of processing and the conversion, some 
of the residues generate value-added products, we would 
increase the cost efficiency of the whole activity.

                            BIOFUEL RESEARCH

    Ms. Kaptur. Well, I am very interested in the Department's 
overall perspective on this, and I have spoken with Secretary 
Veneman, and she is really very visionary in this regard. But 
we have not had any kind of clear statement from the Department 
on how it views it role in this arena.
    Yesterday we had the undersecretary for conservation up 
here and I asked him about the vehicle fleet for the Forest 
Service, which is one of the largest in the Government of the 
United States, and to what extent they were using E-85 
vehicles. There is not a consciousness, even within the 
Department, about how to use the power you have to help move 
this industry forward. And I think this year, because of 
Enduring Freedom, we have an enormous opportunity in 
cooperative efforts, research efforts that USDA can strike with 
DOD and with DOE that we have not had at other times. And I 
would really urge you to pursue that and not to wait too long 
to come back to us because in the appropriations process we can 
make certain things happen, and this Nation has limped along 
for far too long in not using our biofuels capacity.
    It includes plant research in the most appropriate plants 
so that we can get the most BTUs out of those. It involves the 
processing side, as you have talked about. It may involve other 
products, value-added products that may flow from the process. 
We have plenty of ethanol plants up and operating around this 
country. I do not know to what extent USDA networks with them 
at all, but there are a lot of research projects that would be 
related to the reuse of some of the residues from those for 
animal feed and other things.
    I just do not see the cohesive focus at USDA that would 
help me understand how to help you move not into the third 
ring, but into the center ring on this and helping America 
become fuel self-sufficient again.
    So $9 million, just to put it in perspective, today our 
country, in terms of direct support of the petroleum industry, 
tax credits, support of our armed forces in Saudi Arabia and 
everything else, spends probably over $100 billion on the 
petroleum industry. So when you ask for $9 million, I just sort 
of say we are not even in the same game. And I am not asking 
you to ask for $100 billion, but that is the competition, and 
you should be aware of it.
    If we were to convert all fields into America today, 
existing fields, not those in CRP, but existing fields into the 
production of fuels, we could probably serve 20 percent of the 
market, and our farmers are looking for new value added. So the 
Department really needs to take a leadership role and not be 
shy about this one.

                              SEED STOCKS

    On the issue of seed stocks, we had asked the Department 
for a report that talks about the ownership of our seed stock, 
the location, the condition of those stocks. We had asked for a 
detailed report covering everything from seed storage, 
cataloging, maintenance, we have never received that. We asked 
for that in last year's report. If anyone wishes to comment or 
tell me when we might receive that, it would be greatly 
appreciated. I understand Fort Collins is our jewel, and I 
would like to know if that report is forthcoming, pease.
    Dr. Knipling. That report has been drafted. The 
Agricultural Research Service is the lead agency. It is being 
reviewed by the Department. It should be here soon.
    Ms. Kaptur. All right. Doctor, you think it would behere by 
May, before we are finished with the appropriations process?
    Dr. Knipling. Yes.
    Ms. Kaptur. All right. Thank you very much, and I will hold 
my remaining questions.
    Mr. Bonilla [presiding]. Thank you.
    Mr. Nethercutt.

                                BIOFUEL

    Mr. Nethercutt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of 
quick follow-up questions to Ms. Kaptur's line of questioning.
    I would commend you to a situation we have out in 
Ritzville, Washington, where a fellow has come in--I just met 
with him last week--talking about using soft white wheat as a 
fuel for a distillery to produce vodka and ethanol in eastern 
Washington. It is pretty exciting. The value added approach to 
production agriculture is something we ought to think very 
carefully about, and to the extent that research can be done to 
assist in that effort, I think it is advisable. Also making 
straw board out our way as a value-added product.
    I think there are ways for entrepreneurship to prevail in 
the area of production agriculture, and meet fuel needs and 
alcohol needs for people who are inclined to drink vodka, and 
so we will add to the economy that way.

                  THE ROLE OF EXTENSION IN BIOSECURITY

    I want to ask you as a follow up to the biosecurity issue, 
I am wondering what role you see for the extension services to 
play in rural communities to help farmers and ranchers prepare 
to address the biosecurity issue. Do you see a value there?
    Dr. Jen. Sir, I think I see a great value there, because 
extension is probably one of the ready made networks of 
information flow that can rapidly get down to the local 
community level and have an impact. So we do think that it has 
a great role to play.
    Mr. Nethercutt. Accepting that and agreeing with it, what 
plans are there in the budget and in the administration's plan 
to make sure that that is a reality?
    Dr. Jen. I think Dr. Hefferan can probably say something.
    Dr. Hefferan. Well, the extension system across the country 
is eager to participate and serve communities. I think there 
are two real advantages in extension, in meeting the challenge 
you have just stated. One is that they are a trusted source of 
agricultural and technical information in the community. And 
secondly, and probably more importantly, they are there for the 
long haul. Other groups come in when there is a problem, but 
then they leave, whereas the extension system is one of the 
tenants of the community.
    There was established in the mid 1990s the Extension 
Disaster Education Network, the EDEN program, which was 
developed in response primarily to the natural disasters, the 
floods and hurricanes that we experienced in that era.
    We have been working with the extension system to 
substantially expand that program to include both preparedness 
and responsiveness to manmade disasters, terrorism, 
introductions of pathogens, whatever it might be, into the 
system. And we have been working with the Department in part 
and talking about possibilities through the supplemental 
funding which are still being evolved. But there is a real 
commitment within the extension system and within our funding 
for the base program for extension to mobilize that expertise. 
It is a great opportunity to link extension to the rest of the 
Department and to the local resources.
    Mr. Nethercutt. I think you are right, and there are good 
people in these extension offices who care deeply, are very 
dedicated to agriculture. Are the computer systems and the 
communication systems up to the task of having reliable and 
ready-made information for the real rural world that might be 
faced with a biosecurity problem?
    Dr. Hefferan. Well, some of the systems are up to speed. 
The university systems are in and of themselves very strong. 
They need to be better connected to one another. I know you 
know Mike Tate in Washington State, and Mike and his colleagues 
have been leaders in helping to find exactly what the needs 
are.
    I can say this is a case where the actual financial needs 
are not expansive. We are not talking about 10s and 20s of 
millions of dollars. We are probably talking about wrapping up 
the program, starting with the existing resources and 
redirecting some funds and expanding those programs at the 
State and the Federal level by linking them together, more than 
creating a lot of new things.
    Mr. Nethercutt. Well, thank you very much for your 
testimony.
    Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. Nethercutt.
    My understanding is Mr. Boyd has no further questions, so 
unless another member shows up, I will yield to Ms. Kaptur, and 
we will perhaps wind down.

                      SOFT WHEAT QUALITY RESEARCH

    Ms. Kaptur. I wanted to mention the proposal in the budget 
to terminate the soft wheat quality research work that is being 
done at Wooster, Ohio. And my question really is, USDA tries to 
maintain research stations close to producers. Two-thirds of 
the soft red wheat grown in Ohio is milled in my district, and 
it serves companies like Nabisco. My question really is, what 
is the Department's reasoning on terminating this particular 
research station, this research capability? And where are these 
researchers going to be moving?
    And if no one knows, then please submit this for the record 
or get back to us. And what budget savings does it provide to 
the Department?
    Dr. Knipling. This proposal is part of the ARS budget, and 
it relates to this bigger issue of using some of the existing 
resources we have under a flat budget scenario to finance some 
of the other initiatives that we have been talking about 
earlier in the morning.
    ARS operates 5 locations where we do similar work. In fact 
there are 4 wheat quality research laboratories. In addition to 
the one at Wooster, there is one at Fargo, North Dakota, 
Pullman, Washington, and Manhattan, Kansas, and then a fifth 
laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin, that deals with other cereal 
grains, barley and oats. But basically they have a similar 
function. And as you pointed out, they are geographically 
decentralized to be close to the industry and the plant 
scientists that use the results of those evaluations.
    Under this scenario of flat budget, in order to finance 
some of the other proposed increases, the Department adopted 
the recommendation of the facility task force report that was 
earlier referenced, and proposes the closure and consolidation 
of these laboratories to two locations. So the issue is one of 
similar research activities, and we would propose to carry out 
these functions at Manhattan, Kansas on a nationalbasis to 
serve the entire wheat industry, along with Pullman, Washington.
    Ms. Kaptur. So it would be both hard wheat and soft wheat?
    Dr. Knipling. That is correct, yes.
    Ms. Kaptur. Doctor, do you know the amount of that 
consolidation, what budget savings that provides, or could you 
provide it for the record?
    Dr. Knipling. Yes. We can provide a detailed number. I 
would say the consolidation of the 5 laboratories into 2, would 
result in savings of about $1.2 million.

                     CSREES INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS

    Ms. Kaptur. Well, obviously, I am not too happy about that, 
so we are going to take a close look at this one.
    I want to move on, if I could, to CSREES and the 
international programs that you may be involved in, if there is 
a way through extension or your regular other ongoing 
activities, that you could summarize for me how you look at 
your work in the international realm. Doctor, is there a way to 
do that simply here?
    Dr. Hefferan. Our work with the universities and 
international programs has primarily focused on two things. One 
is helping nations who are seeking to establish an extension 
network, to do so. There are about 40 countries around the 
world that have expressed an interest in emulating the U.S. 
extension model. And in varying degrees we have helped 
universities and those countries extend that model.
    The second is, and one where we are seeking an 
appropriation next year of a million dollars, is to help 
internationalize the curriculum in agriculture so that our 
students are better prepared for the real jobs they are going 
to be facing when they enter agricultural careers. And so that 
focuses on things like promoting international opportunities in 
exchange for students and faculty in collaboration with, 
particularly in that case, developed countries, where there is 
a lot to be learned of mutual benefit.

              U.S. AID FUNDING FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAINING

    We do now work extensively with funding from USAID that is 
managed through our agency to the universities and--
    Ms. Kaptur. May I ask, doctor, how that comes to you? Is 
that through a set aside, or how do you do that?
    Dr. Hefferan. That comes to us as reimbursable agreement 
from USAID. The funds are transferred to our agency for 
administration for specific projects.
    Ms. Kaptur. Are you doing more and more with them?
    Dr. Hefferan. It varies from year to year. The total level 
of funding has been relatively constant, and it has focused on 
some major projects. We have a very large project in Armenia, 
for example, which has been funded now for 10 years. The 
universities, of course, directly receive funds from them for 
other projects that we also provide technical assistance for.
    We have tried to emphasize that our international 
engagement is for domestic benefit as opposed to development, 
per se. So the USAID activities are designed to both help in 
developing other nations, but also improving our own systems 
here by exposing U.S. staff to the challenges and issues in 
other countries.
    So it is a program that almost all of the universities and 
agriculture around the country have a strong interest and 
commitment to, and our activities have been to again, in a 
catalytic way, help them link with other organizations. We do 
have a request in our fiscal year 2003 budget for a million 
dollars to support particularly this undergraduate and graduate 
training programs.
    Ms. Kaptur. I would appreciate from you, if you could, a 
letter that puts your international activities in a context for 
me.
    Dr. Hefferan. Certainly.

                       AID AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT

    Ms. Kaptur. So I am very vitally interested in this, and I 
have been consistently disappointed in AID's performance in the 
rural development and agricultural arena globally with the 
exception of very few countries. I have said this at other 
hearings, but when I asked AID how many people were in their 
employ or on contract, there were over 10,000 globally. And I 
said, how many of them know anything about rural life, 
agriculture, development in the rural economy. It was about 80. 
And I said, well, this is why we cannot get anything going in 
all these places where I visit where people teeter on the edge 
of starvation. Their function delivering food packets is really 
very, very important, but you do not go the next step then.
    So I am very interested in exploring how to more fully 
engage USAID, whether it is by set aside or contract in 
agricultural work around the world, and I would be very 
interested in your experiences there. I am hearing what you are 
saying about this year's budget, but from the standpoint of the 
United States, beyond agriculture, peace is our goal. And what 
I have seen built in the way of friendships between farmers in 
my state and university people flung all across the world is 
absolutely priceless.
    And as we look at Afghanistan, for example, I have no 
confidence in AID to do it right. I have every confidence in 
USDA to do it right on contract to AID, because we can connect 
to communities where people actually speak the language in this 
country, where they have some knowledge of Afghani life. 
Sometimes these AID people spend so much time away from the 
United States, they forget what it is like to live back here, 
and they do not have the connections that we do. Texas A&M 
could make real connections that will last a lifetime, for 
generations. The same is true with Ohio State.
    So I am looking for ways to get USDA more centrally 
involved in this, and your letter could help me understand your 
current activities and----
    Dr. Hefferan. We will be pleased to do that. We work very 
closely with the Foreign Ag Service and International 
Cooperation and Development staff there, and we will be glad to 
put together a summary of what we are doing.
    My staff just tells me that this year we have $9 million of 
USAID money coming to the agency for specific projects.
    [The information follows:]

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    The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension 
Service (CSREES) designs, implements, and evaluates extension/
outreach, teaching and research partnership projects overseas. 
The U.S. land-grant colleges and universities are key 
collaborators in our international work because they provide 
much of the technical expertise needed on our projects. The 
International Science and Education Competitive Grants program 
will provide support to American colleges and universities as 
they train the next generation of agriculturalists to be 
globally competent and competitive. It has been designed in 
consultation with faculty and staff of many colleges and 
universities around the country.
    Current CSREES international research and extension 
activities include projects funded by the U.S. Agency for 
International Development (USAID) in Armenia, Nigeria and 
Ghana. USAID provides funds to CSREES through reimbursable 
agreements. The Hurricane Mitch reconstruction program in 
Central America was recently completed. A brief description of 
these programs follows.
    In Armenia, we continue to work with the Armenian Ministry 
of Food and Agriculture and newly privatized farmers to enhance 
production, processing and marketing capabilities. We are 
managing an agriculture marketing assistance project to help 
private entrepreneurs sell high-value horticultural and 
livestock products. At the same time, we are tapping the 
expertise of staff from several U.S. colleges and universities 
to develop the Armenian Extension Service's ability to meet the 
needs of clientele at the local level. In collaboration with 
Texas A&M University, we are assisting the Armenian 
Agricultural Academy to improve its applied research, marketing 
and outreach curriculum. We work closely with U.S. Historically 
Black Colleges and Universities to provide training to Armenia 
for improvement of goat production.
    In Ghana, CSREES is working within the bilateral agreement 
of cooperation between USDA and the Republic of Ghana's 
Ministry of Agriculture on several training projects funded by 
USAID. Training topics were identified at meetings in Ghana 
last year that CSREES sponsored with representatives of the 
Ministry, Ghanaian agricultural universities and other leaders 
of Ghanaian agriculture. CSREES is also using USAID funds 
through the Africa Trade and Investment Policy to assist in the 
formation of U.S.-style farmer cooperative organizations in 
Ghana.
    CSREES is using USAID funding to implement the 
Agribusiness/Extension Development project in Nigeria. 
Agriculture accounts for an estimated 38 percent of Nigeria's 
Gross Domestic Product, and is viewed as key to the country's 
prospects. CSREES, with help from land-grant university 
trainers, is providing a series of train-the-trainer workshops 
in marketing, post-harvest handling, food preservation and 
storage, extension information dissemination, farm management, 
and business plan development. The first workshop was held in 
mid-2001. Between 50 and 100 Nigerian extension officers were 
trained, and subsequently trained 100-300 other agents.
    Hurricane Mitch swept through Central America in late 1998, 
severely damaging the agricultural sectors in Honduras, 
Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. With technical assistance 
from a number of land-grant universities CSREES has just 
completed a successful effort, funded by USAID, to provide 
assistance to small and medium producers in affected areas. 
Project emphases included watershed rehabilitation, food 
safety, agricultural extension, dairy safety and shrimp 
production. We are reviewing lessons learned form the Hurricane 
Mitch experience so that, if needed, we can provide this kind 
of recovery assistance efficiently and effectively in the 
future.
    We are tracking USAID efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere 
in Central Asia so that, in the likely event that our help is 
needed in agricultural reconstruction efforts, we are prepared 
to assist.

                         AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITS

    Ms. Kaptur. Very quickly let me just summarize that one of 
my staff was just down at Epcot in Florida, looking at the 
exhibits there, including one that ARS is cooperatively working 
on with Epcot, with Disney World. And it deals with genetics, 
and it is a very exciting display. As we are building these new 
USDA facilities here in Washington, and we are looking at the 
Smithsonian here in D.C., for a long time I have been concerned 
of the millions of visitors that come here a year, no one would 
ever go into Agriculture and the Plant Sciences because of the 
way it is presented.
    And I would just encourage you, Dr. Jen, in your tenure, if 
you could take a look at what has happened in Florida. How did 
ARS manage to do that in Florida, yet it is not able to 
influence what happens here in the buildings in Washington as 
we build, and also at the Smithsonian to improve their 
exhibits? If you could make recommendations to thiscommittee on 
what might be able to be done, or go take the person from the 
Smithsonian out to lunch and talk about what is happening down there at 
Epcot Center. I really think we are missing a huge opportunity with all 
these kids that come through here every year that we could influence. 
And there are some good examples down there in Florida.

                              PLATE WASTE

    Two final items. One is on plate waste and the report that 
we had asked for regarding how much food is thrown away across 
this country by our children in these school programs. And I 
have to say this is such a priority for me based on what I 
know, I was exceedingly disappointed in this report. It is 
based on data that is over 10 years old. Its recommendations 
are very weak. And my question really would be--and you don't 
have to answer it now--what would it take to produce a real 
report on what is happening to food programs across this 
country, what we need to do in order to minimize food waste and 
to get our youth conscious of where food comes from and how 
they are partners in feeding the world. I really think that 
USDA has a much broader role here than it imagines. And we have 
problems down there in the schools. They range from losing food 
as a value and throwing it out, poor nutrition, and then on the 
other side, obesity.
    One of the recommendations in here is to have recess before 
lunch. I do not quite know how that fits. I guess if they 
exercise more, they will eat more, and they will not waste as 
much on the plate. But we have a problem down there in the 
schools.
    And all these are connected. There is no more important 
function we have than to feed our children and to do it 
properly. So my question to you really is how do I get a 
report, what is it going to cost, that gives us workable 
recommendations? I know you cannot answer that right now, but I 
would appreciate it for the record.
    [The information follows:]

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    It is important to improve program efficiency by reducing 
plate waste in the School Lunch Program as much as possible 
without compromising nutrition benefits of the program. To the 
extent that plate waste indicates a loss of nutrition benefits, 
particularly from foods such as fruits and vegetables that are 
underconsumed by American children, reducing plate waste may 
also enhance program effectiveness. USDA's School Nutrition and 
Dietary Assessment Study (SNDA-I) collected detailed, 
integrated information on school meal program effectiveness. 
That study took approximately 3 years to design and complete 
and cost about $2 million. A strengthened study completed today 
would probably cost in the range of $4 million to $5 million. 
The Economic Research Service has interest in conducting such a 
study and is currently evaluating alternative study design and 
data collection strategies. An expanded study would provide 
useful information on foods offered, consumed, and wasted, 
stratified by operational factors hypothesized to affect 
quality, effectiveness, and efficiency.

                            INVASIVE SPECIES

    Ms. Kaptur. And finally, on the proposals that the Economic 
Research Service is making to do additional studies on invasive 
species, and the real cost to our economy of what this is all 
about. I hope that when you make recommendations to us in that 
regard, you will consult with organizations like the World Law 
Institute, which is based here in Washington, because the cost 
of citrus canker or the cost of Asian longhorn beetle are now 
being placed on the public sector, the public taxpayer of this 
country. Meat inspection in Mexico. We can go across the board.
    There is a whole range of issues here relating to really 
the underbelly of the third world, coming here, affecting our 
food safety, the system that we use every day. And some of the 
recommendations will have to deal with world law, and many of 
the trade agreements we are locked in, and ways in which we can 
impose torts internationally and responsibility for the damage 
that is being done.
    Mr. Boyd comes in here every year, and I think we are over 
a billion dollars now in terms of a cost to try to remediate 
citrus canker, which did not start in the United States. The 
same will be true with Asian longhorn beetle. That is coming 
out of the budget that should be paying for research, and those 
funds are being limited every year because of this rising cost 
within the agency for remediation, and the laws of the world. 
We cannot get at it.
    We cannot place blame in the normal tort system that we are 
used to operating in this country.
    So I just wanted to say that to you in hopes that the study 
you construct and the way that you proceed will be broad enough 
and perhaps the recommendations will range beyond the narrow 
jurisdiction of this subcommittee, but it is just absolutely a 
staggering issue. I am very pleased to know that you are going 
to be looking into it.
    And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your forbearance.

                         Agricultural Education

    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Ms. Kaptur, and I would just like 
to note that I associate myself with your concern that the 
young people in this country are not as exposed to some of the 
great research that is being done. I think it is a very good 
point that you bring up, and I wanted to acknowledge that.
    Mr. Farr has joined us. I believe he has a couple of 
remaining questions. Mr. Farr.
    Mr. Farr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

                            Invasive Species

    Two questions. One follow up on Congresswoman Marcy 
Kaptur's question on the ERS research that is going to be done 
on invasive species. Could you describe for us what you are 
going to undertake? It is a huge issue. In California, as you 
know, we have always had it because of so many people coming 
from all over the world and landing in Los Angeles or San 
Francisco International Airports. And we also have the very big 
commercial port in Long Beach.
    How is this work going to be done to monitor invasive 
species that are coming through our trade agreement?
    Dr. Jen. Well, I will let Dr. Offutt give you the detail, 
but I think generally speaking, what we do and is try to 
prevent it from getting in, and for example, ARS does have some 
biocontrol labs in foreign countries. So I think with work will 
look into the cost of border control versus preventive coming 
from our side and the various different----
    Mr. Farr. I mean is it more technology based now? I know we 
have done some Med fly labs in other countries and thins like 
that. Is it an increase in that, or is more on appropriate 
technology like the methyl bromide fumigation that the 
countries require us to do and we require them to do?
    Dr. Offutt. No. We will not consider ourselves the designer 
of new technology or detection methodology. What we are going 
to try to devise is a strategy that minimizes the cost of 
effective protection, try to determine, because pests and 
disease vary in their origin, the way they enter the U.S., the 
nature of their impact, how best to use resources of the 
Federal Government; or in fact create incentives for the 
private sector to behave differently.
    I think of this as diseases plants and animals do not get 
here on their own. Somebody brings them in. So we need to 
understand what motivates that transmission.
    Mr. Farr. The follow up of that, I mean here we are 
promoting, and the Department's been big in being part of the 
promoter of these trade agreements that the administration has 
brought forward. Is there going to be feedback that if we find 
our trade agreements producing commodities that have or 
products that have high risk invasive species, that we can----
    Dr. Jen. We are actually quite aware of that. That is why 
we are asking for more funding in this area of prevention of 
animal disease and plant pests, and also that is the number one 
priority for increasing the NRI.
    Mr. Farr. Are they giving it to you? I mean, we are--you 
know, I never thought about that before, but when we go out and 
vote for these trade bills, and the follow up for the 
administration, you think of that money going to commerce, not 
to USDA, and yet USDA ought to be getting a percentage of the 
benefit of this trade, what we are going to commit to it.
    Dr. Offutt. We have a memorandum of understanding in the 
works with APHIS, so we will consider the activities that APHIS 
undertakes in countries where they believe the disease 
originates. That is governed by protocols for making that risk 
assessment under WTO agreement. So, yes, that is within the 
scope of what we would consider.
    Mr. Farr. Could you give our committee a list of the high-
risk areas that have come up with WTO agreements?
    Dr. Offutt. We would be able to tell you a little bit about 
the entry of disease and pests just as a consequence of foreign 
trade, but what part of that would have been motivated 
specifically by the WTO, we probably would not be able to tell 
you, but certainly we can talk to APHIS about it.
    Mr. Farr. But there isn't there a correlation between new 
trade agreements and commodities that will be coming in under 
those agreements or products that will be coming under those 
agreements and the fact that those countries host exotics or 
host invasive species?
    Dr. Offutt. Possibly. I can't think of an example offhand, 
but, yes, we will certainly look at that.
    Mr. Farr. If there is a correlation, I would be interested.
    Dr. Offutt. Okay.

                             Methyl Bromide

    Mr. Farr. Now I have another question. I mentioned a moment 
ago about methyl bromide, and I am very concerned that the 
original research, which ironically--I mean I do not think the 
building trades came in here and lobbied for that money, but 
the benefit for all of the USDA's research went into structural 
rather than field research. As you know, there is a drop-dead 
deadline on phasing out methyl bromide as an ozone depleter, 
and that was agreed to in international agreements many years 
ago, before any of us were on board. Since then the technology 
of application of methyl bromide injection into the soil has 
greatly improved and monitoring of it has been improved. Now 
there is a discussion that if indeed you can apply methyl 
bromide without escape, without atmospheric contamination, why 
not just allow it to be used, insist it be used safely? If it 
is not being an ozone depleter because it is not getting into 
the air.
    Is there any research that you know, or are you addressing 
this issue of how the atmospherics of application can be 
contained? I think this is really important to the strawberry 
industry all over the United States, and a lot of the other 
industries that require--I mean nursery stock is requiring 
methyl bromide treatment in the soil. Dr. Jen, I know you are 
familiar with these issues. But what I have not seen before--we 
have just been looking to alternatives, not to essentially safe 
management or best management practices, that might in the end 
reach the same goals that elimination of methyl bromide is 
trying to achieve. A different approach, but it is one that 
requires some applied science.
    Dr. Jen. Yes, I think you are absolutely right. After all 
these years of research we really could not find another silver 
bullet to replace methyl bromide with the same degree of 
effectiveness, the ease of application, the cost and various 
different things. But I do think that ARS research did look 
into the pest management, including the application side of it.
    Mr. Farr. Well, we asked the Secretary when she was here a 
few weeks ago, and the indication was that they were not aware 
of the fact that anybody was dealing with the--I am trying to 
think of the word; I am using atmospheric, sort of the air 
quality issues, of being able to apply it without having it be 
a depleter.
    Dr. Knipling. ARS is doing some work that I think is 
relevant to the question you raise. Certainly, we are not 
involved in the atmospheric chemistry of ozone depletion, but 
we are working on alternatives. Based upon some of the 
scientific data that we have developed over the years, that 
contributed to the extension of the ban from 2001 to 2005, and 
that bought some additional time. But I think probably the term 
you were looking for is recapture.
    Mr. Farr. Well, it is barrier or recapture, yes.
    Dr. Knipling. As part of our research on alternatives, we 
have been also looking at how to use it more effectively and 
safely, and in fact we have developed some recapture 
technology, if you will.
    Methyl bromide is used as a fumigation, not only for the 
soil in a pre-plant, pre-production aspect, but much of it is 
also used for the fumigation of commodities that are destined 
for export to ensure that they are pest free.
    Mr. Farr. But I understood that in the phase-out that that 
was not included. You could still use it for the chamber 
treatment, but not for the soil treatment.
    Dr. Knipling. The phase-out actually, I believe, applies to 
both, but there are some allowances for exceptions, for so-
called quarantine use. That is the treatment of the 
commodities. Or for other critical use exemptions yet to be 
defined.
    Mr. Farr. Well, the same science that created that 
exception, if we could create good technologies on barrier and 
recapture, I mean if it works in chambers where it is 
controlled, and we can develop it by controlling it in the 
field, we ought to be looking at that, and we ought to be 
starting to promote it internationally, and not just use methyl 
bromide as we have said that we are going to do--I mean I am 
against methyl bromide as an ozone depleter, but I am for 
methyl bromide as an effective tool.
    Dr. Knipling. Decontaminant, yes. Actually, some of this 
recapture work that we have done shows that we can recapture up 
to 99 percent, especially on commodity fumigation. That is 
where we are working in a chamber, so we can put it in and take 
it out. The soil is more problematic, but even then, methyl 
bromide is applied under tarps, and before the tarps are taken 
off, we can actually withdraw the excess and so recapture a lot 
of it also.
    So this data I think would be very helpful to regulatory 
officials on an international scale who would make some of 
these decisions.
    Mr. Farr. Are you pushing that?
    Dr. Knipling. We are reporting it in our scientific 
literature, in our reports. We have an international methyl 
bromide conference every year. It often alternates between 
California and Florida, and this data has been reported.
    We publish a methyl bromide newsletter. I think we have 
called this committee's attention to it before, and actually 
one of our recent issues addresses this recapture technology.
    Mr. Farr. I have never seen that newsletter. Could I be put 
on your mailing list?
    Dr. Knipling. Yes, certainly.
    Mr. Farr. I will give you a lot of other names.
    Dr. Knipling. I think it does have quite a bit of wide 
distribution among the industry that is concerned with this, 
and many of these people also interact with us.
    Mr. Farr. I am finished on this, but you have got to get 
this information to the growers. It is going to the 
researchers, but the researchers are not talking to the 
growers, and that is why Congress mandated that this field work 
had to be done in the fields alongside people that are actually 
applying methyl bromide in the fields and can use the 
developing technologies to be better at it.
    And I thank you.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Mr. Farr.
    Thank you, Dr. Jen, and ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for 
being with us today. You help us a lot by providing us 
information, and we look forward to working with you as we put 
this bill together this year. Please rest assured, we will be 
looking after your priorities, but we sure hope you look after 
ours as well.
    Dr. Jen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. The subcommittee will stand adjourned.

              [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    


   AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND 
                RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2003

                              ----------                              

                                       Thursday, February 28, 2002.

    UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND 
                               ECONOMICS

                               WITNESSES

JOSEPH J. JEN, UNDER SECRETARY, RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND ECONOMICS
ED KNIPLING, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE
COLIEN HEFFERAN, ADMINISTRATOR, COOPERATIVE STATE RESEARCH, EDUCATION, 
    AND EXTENSION SERVICE
SUSAN OFFUTT, ADMINISTRATOR, ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE
R. RONALD BOSECKER, ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 
    SERVICE
STEPHEN B. DEWHURST, BUDGET OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

                            Opening Remarks

    Mr. Bonilla. The subcommittee will come to order this 
morning. Ms. Kaptur, I note, is already enjoying the goodie bag 
that is provided by ARS, many of the products that are a direct 
result of the research that is done by ARS. We appreciate the 
bag being provided this morning to every member. They are all 
sitting behind the dais here and we appreciate that.
    Today we are delighted to have before us Dr. Joseph Jen, 
the Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. Dr. 
Jen, we are happy to have you here for the first time, and we 
welcome your testimony today as well as that of your associates 
who administer the four agencies that are under your purview.
    But before we begin, I would like to recognize my 
colleague, Ms. Kaptur. She is trying to get around the goodie 
bag I think.
    Ms. Kaptur. I just want to thank everyone from the 
Department for being here today, all those responsible for the 
research side of the equation. There could be no more pivotal 
part of the Department than those activities that you 
represent. You really represent the future. And so I look 
forward to your testimony, and we thank you for your service to 
our country, and really the people of the world.
    Ray and I were talking when I walked in about some meetings 
that we had yesterday with representatives from the Nation of 
Lebanon. And we spent the entire time talking about research 
and the future, and the challenges that that country faces with 
water use and with plant life. And I just kept thinking about 
the work that all of you do, largely unrecognized for the most 
part, and thank you so very much for being with us today.
    Mr. Bonilla. Thank you, Ms. Kaptur.
    Before we proceed, I would also like to acknowledge Mr. 
LaHood, who is here today. He is probably the best-known face 
on television of almost any member in the House, because he is 
always chosen to preside over the House floor during the very 
contentious debates we consistently have. So whether a bill is 
a campaign finance reform, or even a broadband bill that we 
debated on the floor yesterday, the Speaker calls on Mr. LaHood 
to do duty in the Speaker's chair. He spends long hours there, 
and sometimes has to make tough choices as to whether or not to 
be here or in the Speaker's chair. I wish we could clone you, 
Mr. LaHood so we could put you in two or three spots at once. 
We are proud of the work you do, and we missed you, but we 
welcome you back today.
    Mr. LaHood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bonilla. Mr. Jen, you may proceed with your opening 
statement. We have put your entire written statement into the 
record.
    Mr. Jen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Congresswoman Kaptur.
    Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is my pleasure 
to appear before you for the first time to discuss the fiscal 
year 2003 budget for the Research, Education and Economics 
mission area agencies.

                       Introduction of Witnesses

    I am accompanied by the administrators of the four mission 
area agencies, Dr. Ed Knipling, Acting Administrator of ARS; 
Dr. Colien Hefferan, Administrator of CSREES; Dr. Susan Offutt, 
Administrator of ERS; and Mr. Bosecker, Administrator of NASS. 
Also present is Mr. Steve Dewhurst, Director of the Budget 
Office of the Department. Each administrator has submitted 
written testimony for the record.

                           Opening Statement

    Given today's tight budget constraints, driven 
significantly by the need to shore up our homeland security and 
current economic situations, the REE budget that we are 
discussing reflects a recognition of the critical role of our 
REE's research, education, economics and statistical programs 
in solving the problems facing our Nation's agriculture and 
food systems. We appreciate the support received from Congress 
in our appropriation for fiscal year 2002. The President's 
fiscal year 2003 budget proposes $2.3 billion for the four REE 
agencies.
    REE's four agencies have a proud history over many decades 
of finding solutions to the challenges confronting farmers, 
ranchers and consumers. The work of these agencies has resulted 
in a high return on Federal investment, thus enabling our 
Nation to enjoy a plentiful, affordable and safe food supply. 
For more than 100 years science has been the foundation of 
American agriculture. During the past century research 
investment and scientific advances have fueled the tremendous 
rate of productivity growth in the American agriculture sector. 
America's public investment in agricultural research is a major 
reason the percentage of household income we spend on food has 
dropped from 20.5 percent in 1950 to 10.2 percent in the year 
of 2000.
    However, without continued gains in agricultural science, 
the United States cannot continue to provide affordable, safe 
and nutritious food to American consumers and the world 
population. Without continued scientific progress, we also 
cannot continue to compete effectively in a global marketplace, 
nor can we develop practices that mitigate the effects of 
agriculture on the environment.
    The remarkable success enjoyed by the agriculture sector 
and food systems, and the resultant benefits that have accrued 
to the Nation depend heavily on our having a reservoir of 
scientific knowledge. That reservoir is filled through 
conducting basic fundamental research. Applied mission-oriented 
research and technology development then


                               I N D E X

                              ----------                              

                   Research, Education and Economics

                                                                   Page
4-H Youth Development............................................  1563
Agency for International Development.............................   105
Ag in the Classroom..............................................    83
Ag Education.....................................................   108
Agroterrorism....................................................    98
Bioenergy/Biofuels.............................................100, 102
Biography of Under Secretary Joseph Jen..........................    20
Biosecurity...................................................1569, 102
Citrus Canker....................................................    76
Congressionally Initiated Projects...............................72, 82
Food Consumption...............................................91, 1563
Food Safety............................................87, 80, 85, 1565
Formula Programs.................................................  1574
Genetically Modified Foods.......................................  1565
Global Change....................................................    94
Grapefruit Drug Interaction......................................    95
Homeland Security................................................80, 98
International Research........................................104, 1576
Introduction of Witnesses........................................     2
Invasive Species...............................................108, 109
Methyl Bromide...................................................   110
National Research Initiative.....................................  1570
Plant Genomics...................................................    75
Plant Waste......................................................   107
Questions Submitted for the Record:
    Mr. Bonilla..................................................  1560
    Ms. Kaptur...................................................  1562
Research Funds...............................................73, 90, 99
Research Portfolio...............................................     3
Screwworm Facility...............................................    94
Seed Stocks......................................................   101
Small Farms Commission...........................................  1580
Small to Medium Sized Producers................................97, 1562
Smithsonian Exhibit..............................................   107
Statements Submitted for the Record:
    Dr. Jen, Under Secretary for Research, Education & Economics.     6
    Congressman Ray LaHood.......................................    79
Statement by Dr. Jen, Opening....................................     2
University Reserach and Extension Programs.......................  1573
Wheat Research...................................................   103

                     Agricultural Research Service

Aflatoxin......................................................192, 405
Africanized Bee..................................................   243
Animal Health Research...........................................   218
Aquaculture Research.............................................   192
ARS Profile 2001.................................................   346
ARS-Owned Aircraft...............................................   293
Asian Longhorned Beetle..........................................   240
Avian Coccidiosis................................................   401
Avian Influenza..................................................   223
Avian Leukosis...................................................   401
Avian Myelocytomatosis...........................................   402
Avian Pneumovirus................................................   401
Beltsville Tornado Damage........................................   380
Biodegradable Plastic............................................   200
Biofuels.........................................................   414
Biography of Edward B. Knipling..................................    33
Biosecurity......................................................   426
Biotechnology Research and Development Corporation...............   202
Biotechnology Risk Assessment and Risk Management..............394, 419
Bioterrorism.....................................................   361
Bluetongue.......................................................   220
Bovine Spongiform Encephalapathy (BSE)...........................   221
Brucellosis......................................................   219
Budget:
    Fiscal Year 2002 Highlights..................................   344
    Fiscal Year 2003 Extramural Terminations.....................   121
    Offsets (Budget Impacts).....................................   361
    Programmatic Reductions......................................   420
    Project Terminations by Location.............................   114
    Project Terminations/Diseases................................   397
    Project Terminations/Pacific West Region.....................   431
    Proposed Projection Terminations: History....................   124
    Request......................................................   124
    Research Priorities........................................401, 403
    Research Projects in the Budget Presentation.................   372
Canola Research..................................................   309
Centers of Excellence............................................   179
Citrus Canker..................................................226, 398
Citrus Root Weevil...............................................   225
Citrus Tristeza Virus..........................................226, 398
Congressionally Earmarked Projects...............................   399
Cooperative Agreements...........................................   170
Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA's)........   183
Counter-Terrorism................................................   397
Customers/Clients/Stakeholders...................................   309
Emerging Diseases and Exotic Pests.............................359, 416
Ergot Disease....................................................   241
Explanatory Notes................................................   437
Floriculture and Nursery Research Initiative.....................   433
Food Safety....................................................172, 424
Fruit and Nut Research...........................................   203
Fungal Phytase...................................................   242
Genetically Modified Foods.......................................   423
Germplasm--Plant and Animal....................................228, 395
Global Change....................................................   238
Grain Sorghum....................................................   375
Grains and Livestock.............................................   375
Grape Phylloxera.................................................   231
Grape Virology Research..........................................   232
Grasshopper and Mormon Cricket...................................   232
Greenhouse Hydroponics Research..................................   422
Guayule..........................................................   242
Hog Cholera and Foot and Mouth Disease...........................   198
Homeland Security................................................   397
Honey Bee........................................................   246
Hops Research....................................................   243
Human Nutrition Research.............................174, 236, 308, 425
    National Nutrition Monitoring (NHANES/CSFII).................   408
    Nutrition Survey.............................................   422
    Phytoestrogen Research.......................................   266
    Integrated Pest Management...................................   233
Invasive Species.................................................   416
IR-4 Research....................................................   246
J-1 Visa Process.................................................   377
Jointed Goat Grass Control Research..............................   247
Kenaf............................................................   248
Kyoto Global Warming Treaty......................................   409
Lapsed Salaries..................................................   172
Late Blight Potato Research....................................271, 399
Livestock........................................................   375
Locoweed Research................................................   249
Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture................................   250
Lyme Disease Research............................................   251
Management Costs.................................................   113
Methyl Bromide Research........................................252, 431
Narcotics Control Research.......................................   256
National Agricultural Library:
    Document Delivery Service Activity and Cost..................   301
Information Centers..............................................   305
Library Changes and Usage........................................   303
Library Object Class Table.......................................   302
Repair and Maintenance...........................................   308
National Arboretum...............................................   257
National Nutritional Monitoring (NHANES/CSFII)...................   408
New Crops........................................................   257
Nutrition Survey.................................................   422
Object Class Table...............................................   170
Office of Pest Management........................................   113
Patents..........................................................   184
Peanut Research..................................................   260
Peas, Lentils, and Legumes.......................................   262
Pecan Research...................................................   264
Permanent Positions..............................................   393
Pfiesteria Research..............................................   236
Phytoestrogen Research...........................................   266
Pierce's Disease.....................................227, 398, 400, 431
Plant/Crop Genome Sequencing.....................................   394
Plant Gene Expression Center.....................................   267
Plant Genetics Research..........................................   400
Plant Stress and Water Conservation Laboratory, Lubbock, TX......   375
Porcine Respiratory Disease......................................   416
Potato Research..................................................   269
Programmatic Reductions..........................................   420
Project Terminations by Location.................................   114
Project Terminations/Diseases....................................   397
Project Terminations/Pacific West Region.........................   431
Proposed Project Terminations: History...........................   124
Questions Submitted for the Record:
    Mr. Bonilla..................................................   113
    Mr. Kingston.................................................   405
    Ms. Emerson..................................................   408
    Mr. LaHood...................................................   413
    Ms. Kaptur...................................................   414
    Ms. DeLauro..................................................   428
    Mr. Farr.....................................................   431
Research Available for Public/Commercial Use.....................   413
Research Facilities:
    Backlog of Facility Replacement..............................   297
    Buildings and Facilities.....................................   289
    Contagious Animal Disease Facilities.........................   421
    Facilities Requirements......................................   294
    Fees (Rental Rates)..........................................   393
    Modernization of NCAUR, Peoria, IL...........................   413
    New Research Facilities......................................   288
    Repair and Maintenance.......................................   301
    Staffing.....................................................   284
Research Projects in the Budget Presentation.....................   372
Sclerotinia......................................................   399
Scrapie..........................................................   220
Seed Stock Ownership.............................................   422
Soil and Water Research..........................................   272
Soybean Research.................................................   273
Soybean-Based Ink................................................   276
Staffing of Research Facilities..................................   284
Statement of Dr. Edward B. Knipling, Administrator, ARS..........    21
STEEP Research/Water Quality in the Pacific Northwest............   276
Strategic Planning Task Force Recommendations....................   404
Successes of Projects Proposed for Termination...................   380
Sudden Oak Disease.............................................399, 400
Support for Other USDA Agencies..................................   392
Sweet Potato Whitefly............................................   278
Swine Research...................................................   179
Tabular Budget Displays..........................................   339
Technology Transfer..............................................   279
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalapathy (TSE)....................   220
Tropical/Subtropical Research....................................   280
Tuberculosis.....................................................   222
Urban Pest Control Research......................................   282
Utilization Centers..............................................   426
Utilization of Research Data.....................................   283
Weslaco, Texas...................................................   297
Wheat Disease....................................................   283
Wooster, OH (Soft Wheat Quality Research Laboratory).............   420

      Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service

1890 Payments....................................................   535
1890 Facilities Program..........................................   626
1890 Institutions and Tuskegee University........................   568
4-H Enrollment...................................................   622
Advanced Genetic Technologies, KY................................   648
Advanced Spatial Technologies, MS................................   649
Ag-Based Industrial Lubricants, IA...............................   937
Ag in the Classroom............................................642, 991
Agrability.......................................................   619
Agricultural Development in the American Pacific.................   938
Agricultural Diversification and Specialty Crops, HI.............   650
Agricultural Diversity/Red River, MN and ND......................   652
Agricultural Waste Utilization, WV...............................   940
Agriculture Telecommunications, NY...............................   993
Agriculture Water Usage, GA......................................   653
Agriculture Water Policy, GA.....................................   942
Agroecology, MD..................................................   655
Air Quality, TX..................................................   656
Alliance for Food Protection, NE and GA..........................   657
Alternative Crops for Arid Lands, TX.............................   658
Alternative Nutrient Management, VT..............................   660
Alternative Salmon Products, AK..................................   661
Alternative Uses for Tobacco, MD.................................   662
Animal Genome Mapping............................................   548
Animal Health and Disease Research...............................   572
Animal Science Food Safety Consortium............................   663
Animal Waste Management, OK......................................   943
Apple Fire Blight, MI and NY.....................................   665
Aquaculture Centers..............................................   575
Aquaculture Product and Market Development, WV...................   677
Aquaculture research:
    Arkansas.....................................................   666
    Florida......................................................   668
    Idaho and Washington.........................................   669
    Louisiana....................................................   670
    Mississippi..................................................   672
    North Carolina...............................................   674
    Ohio.........................................................   945
    Virginia.....................................................   675
Armillaria Root Rot, MI..........................................   679
Asparagus Technology and Production, WA..........................   680
Audits...........................................................   540
Avian Conservation, PA...........................................   996
Babcock Institute for International Dairy Research/Develop.......   681
Beef Producers Improvement, AR...................................   997
Beef Technology Transfer, MO.....................................   683
Biographical Sketch:
    Colien Hefferan..............................................    41
Biomass-Based Energy Research, OK and MS.........................   684
Biotechnology, MS................................................   946
Biotechnology, NC................................................   686
Biotechnology Risk Assessment....................................   542
Blocking Anhydrous Methamphetamine Production, IA................   687
Botanical Garden Initiative, IL..................................   999
Botanical Research, UT...........................................   947
Bovine Tuberculosis, MI..........................................   688
Brucellosis Vaccine, MT..........................................   690
Buildings and Facilities.........................................   604
Canola...........................................................   578
Capacity Building Grants Program...............................570, 594
Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, IA.................   949
Center for Innovative Food Technology, OH........................   950
Center for North American Studies, TX............................   952
Center for Rural Studies, VT.....................................   691
Chesapeake Bay Agroecology, MD...................................   693
Citrus Canker, FL................................................   694
Citrus Tristeza..................................................   695
Competitiveness of Agricultural Products, WA.....................   697
Competitive Grants...............................................   567
Conservation Technology Transfer, WI.............................  1000
Cool Season Legume Research, ID and WA...........................   699
Cotton Fiber Quality, GA.........................................   700
Cotton Research, TX..............................................   953
Cranberry and Blueberry, MA......................................   702
Cranberry/Blueberry Disease and Breeding, NJ.....................   703
Critical Agricultural Materials..................................   575
Crop Diversification, ND and MO..................................   704
Crop Genomics, MS................................................   705
Crop Integration and Production, SD..............................   706
Dairy and Meat Goat Research, TX.................................   707
Dairy Education, IA..............................................  1001
Dairy Farm Profitability, PA.....................................   709
Data Information System (REEIS)................................616, 957
Delta Rural Revitalization, MS...................................   710
Designing Foods for Health, TX...................................   711
Diabetes Detection and Prevention, WA............................  1003
Diaprepes/Rootweevil, FL.........................................   713
Drought Mitigation, NE...........................................   715
Ecosystems, AL...................................................   717
Efficient Irrigation, NM and TX...............................719, 1006
E-Government.....................................................   639
Emerging Pests/Critical Issues...................................   720
Environmental Biotechnology, RI..................................   724
Environmental Horticulture, FL...................................   725
Environmental Research, NY.......................................   726
Environmental Risk Factors/Cancer, NY............................   729
Environmentally Safe Products, VT................................   732
Exotic Pest Diseases, CA.........................................   733
Expanded Food & Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP)..............   620
Expanded Wheat Pasture, OR.......................................   734
Expert IPM Decision Support System...............................   735
Explanatory Notes................................................  1036
Extention Agents.................................................   618
Extension Indian Reservation Program.............................   616
Extension Specialist, MS.........................................  1007
Family Farm Beef Industry Network, OH............................  1008
Farm Injuries and Illnesses, NC..................................   738
Federal Administration:
    Classification by Objects....................................   596
    Peer Panels..................................................   597
    Table........................................................   597
Feed Barley for Rangeland Cattle, MT.............................   739
Feed Efficiency, WV..............................................   960
Feedstock Conversion, SD.........................................   741
Fiscal Year 2003 Budget Request..................................   536
Fish and Shellfish Technologies, VA..............................   742
Floriculture, HI.................................................   743
Food and Agricultural Policy Institute, IA and MO................   745
Food Animal Residue Avoidance Database (FARAD)...................  1009
Food Irradiation, IA.............................................   747
Food Marketing Policy Center, CT.................................   748
Food Processing Center, NE.......................................   750
Food Product Development, AK.....................................  1011
Food Quality, AK.................................................   752
Food Safety, AL..................................................   753
Food Safety, OK..................................................   754
Food Safety Research Consortium, NY..............................   755
Food Safety Risk Assessment, ND..................................   757
Food Security, WA................................................   758
Food Systems Research Group, WI..................................   759
Forages for Advanced Livestock Production, KY....................   760
Forestry Research, AR............................................   762
Formula Funding..................................................   531
Fruit and Vegetable Market Analysis, AZ and MO...................   961
Generic Commodity Promotion, NY..................................   764
Geographic Information System....................................   963
Germplasm Development in Forage Grasses, OH......................   966
Global Change....................................................   766
Grain Sorghum, KS................................................   769
Grass Seed Cropping Systems/Sustainable Agric., ID, OR, WA.......   770
Hatch Act........................................................   529
Health Education Leadership, KY..................................  1012
Hesperaloe.......................................................   579
Higher Education Programs........................................   595
Hispanic Education Partnerships Grants Program...................   593
Hoop Barns, IA...................................................   772
Human Nutrition:
    Iowa.........................................................   773
    Louisiana....................................................   775
    New York.....................................................   776
Hydroponic Tomato Production, OH.................................   778
Illinois-Missouri Alliance for Biotechnology.....................   779
Improved Dairy Management Practices, PA..........................   781
Improved Early Detection of Crop Diseases, NC....................   783
Improved Fruit Practices, MI.....................................   784
Income Enhancement Demonstration, OH.............................  1013
Increasing Shelf Life of Agricultural Commodities, ID............   785
Infectious Disease Research, CO..................................   786
Institute for Food Science and Engineering, AR...................   788
Integrated Cow/Calf Resources Management, IA.....................  1014
Integrated Pest Management.......................................   790
Integrated Production Systems, OK................................   791
Integrated Research, Education, and Extension Activities.........   614
Intelligent Quality Sensor for Food Safety, ND...................   793
International Arid Lands Consortium..............................   794
International Programs...........................................   624
Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems (IFAFS)/The 
  Fund for Rural America.........................................   635
Iowa Biotechnology Consortium....................................   796
Iowa Vitality Center.............................................  1017
IR-4 Minor Crop Management.......................................   798
IR-4 Program and Pesticide Clearance.............................   549
Jointed Goatgrass, WA............................................   801
Livestock and Dairy Policy, NY and TX............................   803
Livestock Genome Sequencing, IL..................................   805
Livestock Marketing Information Center, CO.......................   967
Lowbush Blueberry Research, ME...................................   806
Maple Research, VT...............................................   807
Mariculture, NC..................................................   969
McIntire-Stennis Forestry Grants.................................   532
Meadowfoam, OR...................................................   809
Michigan Biotechnology Consortium................................   810
Midwest Advanced Food Manufacturing Alliance, NE.................   812
Midwest Agricultural Products, IA................................   813
Midwest Poultry Consortium, IA...................................   815
Milk Safety, PA..................................................   816
Minor Use Animal Drugs.........................................551, 817
Mississippi Valley State University..............................   955
Molluscan Shellfish, OR..........................................   820
Montana Sheep Institute..........................................   822
Multi-commodity Reserach, OR.....................................   823
Multi-cropping Strategies for Aquaculture, HI....................   825
Multicultural Scholars Program...................................   623
National Alternative Fuels Laboratory, ND........................   970
National Beef Cattle Genetic Evaluation Consortium, NY...........   827
National Biological Inpact Assessment Program....................   828
National Center for Peanut Competitiveness, GA...................   972
National Education Center for Agricultural Safety, IA............  1018
National Research Initiative...................................608, 640
Native American Institutions Endowment Fund......................   591
Nematode Resistance Genetic Engineering, NM......................   830
Nevada Arid Rangelands Initiative................................   831
New Crop Opportunities, AK.......................................   832
New Crop Opportunities, KY.......................................   834
Nonfood Agricultural Products, NE................................   835
Nursery, Greenhouse, and Turf Specialties, AL....................   837
Oil Resources from Desert Plants, NM.............................   838
Organic Transition Program.......................................   645
Organic Waste Utilization, NM....................................   840
Oyster Post-Harvest Treatment, FL................................   841
Ozone Air Quality, CA............................................   842
Pasture and Forage Research, UT..................................   844
Peach Tree Short Life, SC........................................   845
Pest Control Alternatives, SC....................................   847
Pesticide Impact Assessment Program.......................595, 618, 625
Pest Management Alternatives.....................................   848
Phytoremediation Plant Research, OH..............................   851
Phytophthora Root Rot, NM........................................   850
Pierce's Disease, CA.............................................   853
Pilot Technology Projects, OK and MS.............................  1020
Pilot Technology Project, WI.....................................  1022
Plant, Drought, and Disease Resistance Gene Cataloging, NM.......   854
Plant Genome Mapping.............................................   543
PM-10 Study, WA..................................................   974
Potato Research..................................................   855
Potato Pest Management, WI.......................................  1024
Precision Agriculture, AL........................................   975
Precision Agriculture, KY........................................   857
Preharvest Food Safety, KS.......................................   858
Preservation and Processing Research, OK.........................   860
Produce Pricing, AZ..............................................   977
Protein Utilization, IA..........................................   862
Questions Submitted for the Record:
    Mr. Bonilla..................................................   529
    Ms. Emerson..................................................   644
    Mr. Farr.....................................................   645
    Mr. Nethercutt...............................................   642
Rangeland Ecosystems, NM.........................................   863
Range Policy Development, NM.....................................  1025
Red Snapper Research, AL.........................................   864
Regional Barley Gene Mapping Project.............................   866
Regionalized Implications of Farm Programs, TX and MO............   868
Ruminant Nutrition Consortium....................................   869
Rural Development, AK............................................  1027
Rural Development Centers.................................579, 621, 873
Rural Economic Development Through Tourism, NM...................  1028
Rural Rehabilitation, GA.........................................  1030
Rural Policies Institute, MO, NE, IA.............................   870
Russian Wheat Aphid, CO..........................................   879
Salmon Quality Standards, AK.....................................   978
Satsuma Orange Production, AL....................................   880
Seafood Harvesting, Processing, and Marketing, AK................   881
Seafood Harvesting, Processing, and Marketing, MS................   883
Seafood Safety, MA...............................................   884
Shrimp Agriculture...............................................   979
Small Business Innovation Research Program.......................   589
Small Fruit Research, OR, WA, ID.................................   886
Soil and Environmental Quality, DE...............................   887
Southwest Consortium for Plant Genetics and Water Resources......   888
Soybean Cyst Nematode, MO......................................644, 890
Soybean Research, IL.............................................   892
Special Research Grants Table....................................   553
Statement of Colien Hefferan.....................................    34
STEEP--Water Quality in Pacific Northwest........................   893
Sustainable Engineered Materials from Renewable Resources, VA....   902
Sustainable Agriculture:
    California...................................................   895
    Michigan.....................................................   897
    Nebraska.....................................................   898
    Ohio.........................................................   981
    Pennsylvania.................................................   900
    SARE Program..........................................580, 619, 645
Sustainable Beef Supply, MT......................................   901
Sustainable Pest Management for Dryland Wheat, MT................   903
Swine and Other Animal Waste Management, NC......................   905
Synthetic Gene Technology, OH....................................   907
Technology Development of Renewable Resources, MO................   908
Tillage, Silviculture, and Waste Management, LA..................   909
Tomato Wilt Virus, GA............................................   911
Tri-State Joint Peanut Research, AL..............................   912
Tropical and Subtropical Research................................   913
Tropical Aquaculture, FL.........................................   915
Urban Horticulture, WI...........................................  1032
Urban Silviculture, NY...........................................   982
Value-Added Product Development/Agricultural Sources, MT.........   917
Value-Added Products, IL.........................................   918
Viticulture Consortium, NY and CA................................   920
Youth-At-Risk Program............................................   619
Water Conservation, KS...........................................   921
Water Pollutants, WV.............................................   983
Water Quality, IL................................................   984
Water Quality, ND................................................   988
Water Use Efficiency and Water Quality Enhancements, GA..........   923
Weed Control, ND.................................................   924
Wetland Plants, LA...............................................   926
Wetland Plants, WV...............................................   989
Wheat Genetics, KS...............................................   928
Wheat Sawfly Research, MT........................................   929
Wood Biomass/Alternative Farm Products, NY.......................  1033
Wood Utilization Research........................................   931
Wool Research, TX, MT, WY........................................   933

                       Economic Research Service
                 FY 2003 House Questions and Responses

Agricultural Resource Management Survey.......................1350-1354
Biographical Sketches:
    Susan Offutt.................................................    58
Budget Request...................................................  1250
Budget and Staff Years..................................1251-1252, 1311
Buy-Out Authority, Use of........................................  1253
Changing Business Structures in Agriculture...................1385-1386
Child Nutrition and WIC.......................................1253-1265
Collaboration with Foreign Institutions.......................1289-1290
Data Purchases...................................................  1250
Definition of Small and Medium Size Farms........................    97
Early-Out Authority, Use of...................................1252-1253
Education in Breastfeeding Techniques............................  1290
Explanatory Notes.............................................1388-1421
Farm Credit Data..............................................1358-1366
Farm Operator Household Income................................1246-1249
Farmer's Share of the Food Dollar................................ 91-93
Food and Nutrition Assistance Research.......1155-1245, 1253, 1265-1288
Food Safety.................................................87-89, 1289
Funding From Other USDA Agencies.................................  1353
Global Climate Change............................................  1251
HACCP Review..............................................80, 1386-1387
Infant Formula Suppliers......................................1311-1349
Invasive Species.....................................109-110, 1352-1354
Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act................................  1289
Nonfarm Earnings and Jobs.....................................1250-1251
Plate Waste Study.........................107-108, 1290-1310, 1355-1358
Questions Submitted for the Record:
    Mr. Bonilla..................................................  1155
    Ms. Kaptur...................................................  1355
Report Elimination Plans.........................................  1252
Service Elimination Plans........................................  1252
Single Food Agency............................................... 85-86
WIC Cost Containment.............................................  1253
Witness Statement of Dr. Offutt.................................. 42-57
World Agricultural Outlook Board..............................1366-1384

                National Agricultural Statistics Service

Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership Survey..............1524-1528
Agricultural Resources Management Survey....4, 17, 68, 1519-1525, 1528,
 1541-1542
Appropriation Language...........................................  1538
Available Funds and Staff-Years...............................1533-1534
Average Grade and Salary.........................................  1536
Biographical Sketch:
    R. Ronald Bosecker...........................................    71
Budget Request...................................................  1436
Census of Agriculture....17, 67, 1423, 1520-1521, 1524, 1546, 1556-1557
Census of Horticulture...........................................  1529
Complaint Process................................................  1528
Computer Security Architecture.............................18, 69, 1543
Congressional District Publications...........................1445-1517
Cooperative Research....................................1426-1427, 1527
Cooperative Agreements........................................1428-1434
e-Government........................................70, 1520, 1544-1545
Employee Pension and Annuitant Health Benefits...............1545, 1547
Enumerators (NASDA)..............................................  1424
Explanatory Notes.............................................1530-1559
Federal Employees' Compensation Act..............................  1547
Food Safety Program..............................................    89
Geographic Breakdown of Obligations and Staff-Years..............  1548
Hog Survey.......................................................  1445
International Technical Assistance............................1423-1424
Justification of Increases and Decreases......................1541-1547
Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act................................  1445
Locality Based County Estimates.....................69, 1523, 1543-1544
Migrant Workers..................................................  1438
Milk Production...............................................1438-1439
Number of Farms, Land in Farms.....................1437-1438, 1527-1528
Object Class Schedule............................................  1536
Ongoing Services.................................................  1425
Passenger Motor Vehicles.........................................  1537
Pay Costs.....................................................1545-1546
Permanent Positions by Grade and Staff-Year Summary..............  1535
Pesticide Data Collection........................................  1444
Pesticide Use Statistics................................1444, 1518-1519
Project Statement................................................  1540
Purpose Statement.............................................1531-1532
Questions Submitted for the Record:
    Mr. Bonilla..................................................  1423
    Ms. Kaptur...................................................  1524
    Mr. Farr.....................................................  1529
Reimbursements:
    AID Reimbursement.........................................1444-1445
    Available Funds & Staff Years.............................1533-1534
    ERS Reimbursement............................................  1444
    List of Reimbursable Surveys Done.........................1434-1435
Reports On-Line...............................................1440-1441
Special Surveys.........................................1441-1444, 1553
Statement:
    Complete Witness Statement by Administrator.................. 59-70
    Opening by Under Secretary................................... 17-18
State Office Funding.............................................  1425
Status of Program.............................................1549-1559
Summary of Increases and Decreases...............................  1539

                                
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