similar to one followed in the search to find the best method to extract fresh water from sea water.

The committee also stated that the Secretary of the Interior, who would contract for construction of these plants, should not request funds for any pilot plant until the specific process had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

As the author of the Senate bill, and as a long-time advocate of developing processes to manufacture this much needed food supplement, I support the Senate version of the bill.

It is my great hope that this bill will become law this session.

Mr. Chairman, it is not often that we, as individuals, can take affirmative action to help solve one of the great and complex problems of our modern world. We have an opportunity to take affirmative action in this crisis. As humanitarians, as officials interested in policies of benefit to our nation and to the world, we must not be guilty of ill-advised inaction.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to testify.

Senator BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, you were kind enough to hear me this morning, and I came over here to record a belief, a conviction that this is a bill of a high order of importance. It has dramatic and exotic possibilities. If we move into a situation whereby we become, we in the United States, large producers of fish protein concentratewhich we can do and will do if we address ourselves soon actively and aggressively to this subject-we shall serve a dual purpose, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

In the first instance, and I suppose the most important one, we will have made available to scores of millions of undernourished, malnourished people throughout the world, especially in the undeveloped and underdeveloped countries, protein in a form they would use. We are told over and over again that people who have acquired certain esthetic habits don't turn easily to other forms of food; that they sometimes will starve rather than start to eat that which would build up their strength, their health, if they are not used to this particular food. That is one of the great virtues of this concentrate. It can be mixed in rice or whatever. Most of these people eat too much starchy foods and lack protein. The concentrate, whether in powder form or in liquid form, is tasteless. It is a high concentration of protein. It would be accepted without any difficulty at all.

You doubtless have been shown, because I know over in the Senate hearing we were, pictures of certain experiments made down in South America where children would come into the hospital-youngsters, little fellows, skinny, almost dead because they were not nourished properly and the fish protein concentrate that they have there in some quantity was fed to them and in a few weeks there were amazing changes as these children became healthy. This can be done, of course, on a vast scale and this can be done by us, because we have such large resources of bottom fish suitable in the production of the concentrate, immediately off our coasts.

So, in doing all of this, we would serve a highly humanitarian purpose; and we would do something else, something of a more selfish nature. We would give the American fishing industry the greatest boost it has ever had, in my opinion.

Now, 90 percent of all the fish caught by American fishermen is caught within or very close to our territorial waters. We don't go out, except for king crab and for other limited fishery purposes, into the blue waters as foreign fleets do. We fish right offshore. It we can

get this program going, we will build fishing vessels of a size to rival those used, for example, by the Russians, by the Japanese, and we will be utilizing some of these resources that we don't now use at all but which, to an increasing degree, are being taken right off our coasts by nationals from other countries.

It is easily seen, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, that this could become such a big industry, such an important industry, even such a vast industry that it would submerge in economic importance, so far as our fishing industry is concerned, everything we are now doing in the fishery on all coasts.

As was so well stated by the witness who preceded me, we do need these pilot plants to demonstrate economic feasibility and to correct production methods. I have been talked to by at least three representatives of three big companies who told me that they are ready to invest almost unlimited amounts of money in this industry, provided a pilot process is successful-as it will be-but they don't want to do this on their own, and this is understandable, in my judgment.

So it is, I think, the function of Government to perform this intermediate process, as it became the function of Government to develop a concentrate which hopefully, and soon, will receive the approval of the Food and Drug Administration.

A speech was made not long ago on the floor of the House implying the theory that the fish protein concentrate or fish in general-I never was sure which might be responsible for cancer, particularly stomach cancer. Quite a point was made of this. I guess this theory came originally from a declaration made by a scientist down in New Zealand. After reading this speech, I wrote to Mr. Donald L. McKernan, Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, and posed this problem to him. He quoted Dr. Frederick Seitz, president of the National Academy of Sciences, as saying:

Fish protein concentrate from whole hake, as prepared by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries process, is safe, nutritious, wholesome, and fit for human consumption.

Elsewhere, Mr. McKernan submitted a statement to me from his staff completely destroying this argument that fish in any form was conducive to cancer in humans. And I rather suspect that all of this is connected with an effort to benefit another food industry at the expense of the fish industry.

My reply to that would be that there is plenty of room for both. There are so many people who are starving or almost starving in the world, that we, from the vastness of our riches and our resources, have a duty to provide whatever we can and whenever we can food for these people. And I submit that we can do this in no better form than by making available fish protein concentrate. And it is my earnest hope, Mr. Chairman, that this bill will be approved by the subcommittee, will be approved by the full committee, and will be approved by the House of Representatives.

In connection with the number of plants recommended by the administration, namely, one, and the number approved by the Senate, namely, five, I would like to call your attention to the statement beginning at the bottom of page 3 and carrying over to the top of page 4 of the Senate report on this bill as providing the substantial reasons why we need not one plant or three, but five.

And in addition to that, let me say this: that we know well enough that the Department of the Interior and the administration won't ask for five plants, if the bill finally emerges in the form approving five plants, in any one fiscal year. These will come on step by step: but in my opinion it would be wise to have the authorization bill make possible the construction of five plants, so that we can explore the various processes for reducing fish to concentrate from different species of fish in different areas.

I thank you very much, gentlemen, for the opportunity to appear before you. In conclusion, I want to say once more that I think that this bill is of a high order of importance.

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you very much, Senator Bartlett.

Mr. Pelly.

Mr. PELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think, Senator, that on the subject of one or five pilot plants this committee has received information since the hearings were held in the Senate indicating that the administration did approve more than one. We got that report expanding the position of the administration just a few days ago.

Senator BARTLETT. That is welcome news.

Mr. PELLY. President Johnson, incidentally, was quoted in this report on some remarks that he made when they were having quite a festival over the new oceanographic ship, the Oceanographer. The President indicated his support of research plants, and on the basis of his statement that supplementary report from the agency was sent to the committee.

Senator, I am sure that you were briefed by our technicians that came back from recent discussions in Moscow over some of our problems with the Soviet Union. If so, I think you were as interested as I was in the fact that the Soviets have an overall production quota that they have set for themselves.

Senator BARTLETT. Twenty-one billion pounds.

Mr. PELLY. Right. Incidentally, too, their estimates of the available resources, I take it, come very close to our own scientific findings as to the potential that we have for fish protein which is not being utilized at the moment, at least by our own country.

Senator BARTLETT. Yes; there are billions of pounds of fish that could be safely taken. I use the word "safely" meaning that this wouldn't deplete the resource. But I want to add this: If we don't move into that fishery, if we are not prompt, if we are delinquent in point of time or negligent, we will find that others are taking all the fish that are available, because some of these foreign fleets are being built up at a very rapid pace.

Mr. PELLY. As I know you are aware, a new fish protein plant was recently opened in Aberdeen in Grays Harbor, Wash., and there they have four fish boats that go out to supply them with the raw product. These four boats have found it more difficult to locate and bring in catches since the fleet of 119 Soviet vessels were intensively fishing off the coast of Washington.

Senator BARTLETT. This is true. Of course, these people put in their own money and erected this plant, and now they discover that they can't operate it profitably because the Russians moved in, in

these vast numbers you described, immediately outside of our territorial waters and temporarily or otherwise made it virtually impossible for our people to catch any fish in that particular region.

Now, as a result of the Moscow negotiations, we believe that the Russians have consented to bring their fleets not closer than 12 miles to our line of coast. This is not a firm clad agreement, but there is some reason to be hopeful on that score. However, as we all know, there is a bill before the Congress to establish a 12-mile fishing zone. A Japanese biologist stationed in Bistol Bay, Alaska, was interviewed by a reporter for the Anchorage, Alaska, Times, and he said that if the United States enacted such a bill into law, the Japanese would not honor the law. A preposterous statement, of course, because such a law would be enforced by the Coast Guard and other appropriate agencies of the U.S. Government. But the point I want to make right here in response to what you said, Mr. Pelly, is that although we have hope that the Russians will abide by this informal under standing-and that is all it is at this time-not to come closer than 12 miles to our line of coast, that at this very moment there are four Japanese research vessels surveying the water immediately outside the territorial limits of Cape Flattery in your State. And this is indicative of a high probability that if they find what they are looking for, a sizable Japanese fishing fleet will move in and begin to take fish of all kinds right outside of our present territorial fishing

zone.

Mr. PELLY. And, Senator, I received a letter yesterday from someone in the fishing industry who had information to the effect that the Japanese are now planning to construct 300 more fishing vessels. So that, if those research ships of theirs locate stocks of fish, then they are apparently preparing to follow up and come close to our shores, close to the 3-mile limit, and take those resources which can mean so much to our own fishing industry if they were conserved.

Senator BARTLETT. Of course, an imperative need riding along with this, as Senator Magnuson, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has stated repeatedly, is for an international conference on this subject, so that jointly perhaps we can explore the resources of the sea, determine their extent, and make sure that they aren't depleted to the point of exhaustion.

But at the present time one nation simply seems to be trying to outdo another. The Japanese have always held that a 3-mile fishing limit is all that is permissible, but it is rather interesting to note that last year the Japanese established a 12-mile limit off one particular section of their coast to keep the Koreans out.

Mr. PELLY. I think most of the fishing nations now, the coastal nations, support a 12-mile limit now.

Senator BARTLETT. I can't think of any really important maritime nation in the world save and except the United States that does not have a 12-mile limit. Canada, of course, within the last year or two unilaterally went to the 12-mile limit with protection for historic rights of other fishermen, including Americans.

The bill before the House provides like treatment for other nationals who may have, if they can so demonstrate, historic rights within our waters subject to agreement.

Mr. PELLY. Of course, the Russians came within 3 or 4 miles of our shores when they had their big fleet operating off the mouth of the Columbia, and I think that it is going to be necessary to protect by some means the stocks of fish that are in the waters at least as far as the 12-mile limit.

Senator BARTLETT. And as we were told during the hearing on this 12-mile bill on the Senate side, some of these stocks of fish have their spawning grounds between 3 and 12 miles.

Mr. PELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Downing.

Mr. DOWNING. Thank you very much, Senator, for a most interesting

statement.

Senator, as a matter of interest, do you know how this protein is administered to people? Is it in the form of a condiment, or is it taken like a medicine, or just how is this done?

Senator BARTLETT. I think in the South American incident which I related it was in the form of medicine. Of course, the way we envision the program the concentrate would simply be mixed in whatever quantities were required with other food. We realize that a lot of this would be used in Asia. We realize that they depend chiefly upon rice. What is simpler than to put a little of this tasteless concentrate in the rice and stir it up a bit?

Mr. DOWNING. Thank you very much, Senator.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Watkins.

Mr. WATKINS. Senator, I wish to apologize for being a little late. I certainly will go over your report here, because I know you have been most constructive and helpful to us in your testimony with your knowledge, and it is a privilege to hear you testify.

Senator BARTLETT. Thank you, sir.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your courtesy.

I, too, am sorry I was a little late to hear your statement, Senator, but I have read it quickly and agree that there is a problem that needs to be met head on immediately. I am a little concerned about the fact that the legislation as drawn by the Senate doesn't seem to me to contemplate as much cooperation by industry as I had anticipated in the program. I noticed that the appropriations section there appropriates the money for the construction as well as for the operation and maintenance.

What would be your feeling, if, say, we just include funds for authorization for the construction of the plants, but let operation and maintenance be worked out by contract agreement with industry; or, if a State wanted to get into it, a contribution.

Senator BARTLETT. I wouldn't see any great objection to that. The reason it was so framed was that actually we had no precise knowledge as to what would happen after these plants were built, whether industry would under contract be willing to move in and operate them, or whether in certain cases government should operate them, always remembering that this is in the experimental zone; that it is a pilot venture and preliminary and only preliminary to that which surely will come later-the erection of big plants by industry.

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