TABLE 5.-Total regularly employed fishermen for the Great Lakes, Lake Superior, and the State of Michigan, specified years

Senator HART. It will not surprise you that my primary concern is the Great Lakes fishing area and for three reasons I would hope the committee would favorably regard Senate bill 627. We feel that for three reasons the Great Lakes fishing basin is the subject of extraordinary pressure and difficulty.

First, as you know far better than I, the general problem of commercial fishing applies to the Great Lakes fleet, an obsolescence of equipment, processes and marketing techniques.

A second and more specific problem, again one with which you are completely familiar, was the penetration of the sea lamprey into the Great Lakes basin in the early forties. This had the effect of just about killing the lake trout fish and as a consequence we lost about $8 million of production annually.

In Superior the trout had accounted for about 70 percent of our cash income, and that has virtually evaporated. As a consequence of the fall-off because of the lamprey, States like Michigan and others in the Great Lake basin come out very poorly under the formula for Federal aid that is contained in S. 627, since that formula is based upon the amount of raw fish taken and processed in a period of 3 years just before the enactment date of the bill. Thus, ironically, those States that have suffered the most in recent years and have the greatest need, stand to get the least under the bill.

It was in recognition of this operation of nature that the Senate adopted an amendment to S. 627 that is now section 4(b) of that bill. This amendment was introduced in light of the experience suffered at the hands of the lamprey, a resource disaster produced by an act of nature. After the Senate had passed the bill, the third and really devastating act of God was visited on the Great Lakes and that was what we know as botulism.

Again I know that you gentlemen are thoroughly familiar with the problem. As a result of some seven deaths traced to fish smoked in the Great Lakes basin, the Food and Drug Administration acted. As a consequence of the action-and I have no criticism of the action that was taken-a cloud has fallen over the whole fish output from the Great Lakes, not just the smoked fish that were involved in the FDA warning. We estimate 20,000 men to be out of work in the Great Lakes area as a result of this disaster. Eight thousand of them are in Michigan.

Large quantities of fish that had been caught are still in storage. Fishermen have no reason to take a boat out. There is even no market for the boats or the nets.

The fishermen of the Great Lakes basin are typical of commercial fishing the country over. They are small, independent firms, many lacking any substantial reserve capital. They have not had any formal organization in the sense of Washington representation over the years, but, responding to the botulism disaster, the Small Business Act was amended to provide for some disaster loans. This is good. It will help get them over a bad hump until a more permanent solution can be found. But the loans of course aren't the whole answer.

The basic problem is how we get the men back to work, and one thing that all of us realize is that intensified research can nail down the nature of this botulism E and improve processes of treating the chub in light of the new knowledge. New markets and promotion must also be developed.

While all of these things are being done we have to find a way to move the existing stocks of frozen chub and get the fishermen out in the boats again. As you have indicated, there have been many legislative proposals, Mr. Chairman, to accomplish these objectives. I would add two bills which I think were not enumerated as you opened the hearing, one by Mr. Blatnik, H.R. 9408, and the other by Mr. Staebler, H.R. 9469, authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to make section 32 payments to reestablish the purchasing power of fishermen and small processors.

Some of us feel that the end result could be accomplished as well, if not better, under S. 627. Now, I have discussed with the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries the possibility of some clarifying language. I think they will be in a position to indicate to you what they feel might be desirable. With it, it would seem to me that section 4(b) could provide the Great Lakes fishermen and processors with a kind of immediate concrete assistance they have to have if they are going to survive as a part of this industry.

I believe that the new language that the Bureau may suggest would authorize the Secretary, if he felt it appropriate, to use the sums available under 4(b) to move the stored fish out of storage and temporarily to assure the fishermen markets at previous price levels.

I know that you are deluged always by expressions of "this is an emergency." We overdo it on occasion, I realize, but to my own knowledge I can assure you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that the Great Lakes fishery situation indeed is a desperate one and that only prompt action, specific assistance such as proposed here, will keep the industry from destruction.

You were kind to permit me to come in. I stand ready to help in any way possible.

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Senator. I might ask you this, sir. I know you have a busy schedule and we don't want to detain you any longer than necessary, and I do appreciate your statement in behalf of your own people and the nationwide problem, but under section 4(b) how would this work toward the authorization of buying at previous market prices the fish that are in storage now, having to do with the chub I believe that you mentioned?

Senator HART. As it is in the form passed by the Senate I think we couldn't do it, but what I would hope would be for specific language from the Department which would assure that the $500,000 would be available for the first 2 years and the $750,000 for the remaining 3 years; that the Secretary be authorized to make deficiency payments