minimum rate of reimbursement shall be adjusted on an annual basis each fiscal year thereafter, beginning with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1976, to reflect changes in the series of food away from home of the Consumer Price Index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor. Such adjustment shall be computed to the nearest one-fourth cent.". Approved July 12, 1974. Legislative history: House Reports: No. 93-1110 accompanying H.R. 14992 (Comm. on Agriculture) and No. 93-1154 (Comm. of Conference). Senate Reports: No. 93-829 (Comm. on Agriculture and Forestry) and No. 93-978 (Comm. of Conference). Congressional Record, Vol. 120 (1974): May 21, considered and passed Senate. June 17, considered and passed House, amended, in lieu of H. R. 14992. [Public Law 93-563; 93rd Congress, H.R. 16901, Dec. 31, 1974] AN ACT Making appropriations for Agriculture-Environmental and Consumer Protection programs for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1975, and other purposes Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following sums are appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for Agriculture-Environmental and Consumer Protection programs for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1975, and for other purposes; namely: * TITLE IV-CONSUMER PROGRAMS DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOOD AND NUTRITION SERVICEFOOD STAMP PROGRAM For necessary expenses of the food stamp program pursuant to the Food Stamp Act of 1964, as amended, $3,989,785,000: Provided That funds provided herein shall remain available until expended in accordance with Section 16 of the Food Stamp Act of 1964, as amended: Provided further, That this appropriation shall be available for employment pursuant to the second sentence of Section 706 (a) of the Organic Act of 1944 (7 U.S.C. 2225), and not to exceed $100,000 shall be available for employment under 5 U.S.C. 3109: Provided further, That no part of the funds appropriated by this Act shall be used during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1975 to make food stamps available to any household, to the extent that the entitlement otherwise available to such household is attributable to an individual who: (i) has reached his eighteenth birthday; (ii) is enrolled in an institution of higher education; and (iii) is properly claimed as a dependent child for Federal income tax purposes by a taxpayer who is not a member of an eligible household: Provided further, That funds provided herein shall be expended in accordance with section 15(b) of the Food Stamp Act of 1964, as amended. Approved December 31, 1974. Legislative History: House Reports: No. 93-1379 (Comm. on Appropriations) and No. 93-1561 (Comm. on Conference). Senate Report No. 93-1296 (Comm. on Appropriations). Congressional Record, Vol. 120 (1974): Oct. 9, considered and passed House. Nov. 25, considered and passed Senate, amended. Dec. 25, House agreed to conference report; concurred in Senate amendment with an amendment. Dec. 17, Senate agreed to conference report; concurred in House amendment to Senate amendment. [Public Law 94-4; 94th Congress, H.R. 1589, Feb. 20, 1975] AN ACT To suspend increases in the costs of coupons to food stamp recipients as a result of recent administrative actions Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, notwithstanding the provisions of section 7(b) of the Food Stamp Act of 1964 (7 U.S.C. 2016(b)), the charge imposed on any household for a coupon allotment under such Act after the date of enactment of this Act and prior to December 30, 1975, may not exceed the charge that would have been imposed on such household for such coupon allotment under rules and regulations promulgated under such Act and in effect on January 1, 1975. [Note by the Office of the Federal Register. The foregoing Act, having been presented to the President of the United States on Friday, February 7, 1975, for his approval and not having been returned by him to the House of Congress in which it originated within the time prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, has become a law without his approval on February 20, 1975.] Legislative History: House Report No. 94-2 (Comm. on Agriculture). Congressional Record, Vol. 121 (1975): Feb. 4, considered and passed House. Feb. 5, considered and passed Senate, in lieu of S. 35. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Vol. 11, No. 7: Feb. 13, Presidential statement. APPENDIX B FOOD STAMP PROGRAM THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE TO THE CONGRESS REQUESTING ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR THE PROGRAM FOR FISCAL YEAR 1976. JULY 25, 1975 To the Congress of the United States: Due to the existing law which invites almost unlimited expansion of the Food Stamp program, the cost of the program has nearly doubled in the past six months. The unemployment rate has also been a factor in the increase. To continue the Food Stamp program for the remainder of this fiscal year, I am forced to ask the Congress for an additional $3 billion over the $3.8 billion which I requested in my budget submitted in February. Accordingly, I am today transmitting to the Congress a budget amendment requesting these additional funds. The flaws in the existing law easily can be seen. Only 10 years ago, there were fewer than 500,000 people participating in the program at a cost of $36 million. Today, the number of participants has expanded to 20 million and the cost to $6.8 billion. Furthermore, if all those presently eligible under current law suddenly signed up for the program, estimates are that between 40 and 60 million persons would be receiving food stamps. In short, what has evolved in just 10 years is another massive, multibillion dollar program, almost uncontrolled and fully supported by Federal taxpayers. Some claim that the Food Stamp program cannot be controlled and that ever-increasing costs are inevitable. I refuse to accept that proposition. Every public program is controllable. The Food Stamp Act was placed on the Statute books by the Congress which has the power and authority to amend the law. Earlier this year, I submitted a proposal which would have required all participants in this program to pay a proportionate share of their total income for food stamps. This plan would have continued assistance to those in need and would have distributed benefits on an equitable basis. This reform was rejected by the Congress. Had it been approved, a savings of $1 billion in fiscal year 1976 at the current rate of participation would have resulted. În submitting this revised budget request, made necessary by the existing law, I once again ask the Congress to work with me on needed changes. We must work toward two goals: In fairness to those truly in need, we must focus food stamp assistance on them; In fairness to the overburdened taxpayers who must pay the bills, we must tighten eligibility and participation requirements. More than 70 members of the Congress already have joined in supporting legislation which would recognize the need for changes in the Food Stamp Act. Their proposal would concentrate resources on assistance to low income Americans and relate the Food Stamp program to other assistance programs directed toward these same families. It would introduce a number of positive objectives which should be supported by everyone who shares the desire to assist those truly in need and to control costs. I urge in the strongest terms possible that the Congress begin hearings on these proposals at the earliest possible date. If this program is to be contained, even within its current bounds action must be taken immediately. THE WHITE HOUSE, July 25, 1975. GERALD R. FORD. APPENDIX C U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, Mr. ARTHUR J. MCDOWELL, Director, Division of Health Examination Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, Rockville, Md. DEAR MR. MCDOWELL: A member of my staff recently spoke to you about the possible uses of the new Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in directing activities of the Food Stamp Program to groups and areas of high nutritional deficiency. Our understanding from the material you have provided is that the present design of the survey will allow some individual level comparisons of the nutritional level of food stamp recipients with non-recipients of similar demographic characteristics, as well as providing a nutritional profile of demographic groups. Geographic distributions will only be available at a broad regional level. The Senate Government Operations Subcommittee on Federal Spending Practices, Efficiency and Open Government, of which I am. Chairman, will be holding hearings April 28 on the efficiency of the Food Stamp Program and whether it is meeting its objectives as a nutritional program. While we will not have time to hear testimony from all the persons who can provide valuable information, I would appreciate your providing the answers to the following questions for the record, prior to May 12: (We will follow up with you directly prior to writing our report.) (1) How well will you be able to separate the impact of food stamps from other factors affecting observed levels of nutrition? (2) Will the data for different demographic groups suggest clear policies for targeting food stamp outreach efforts? (3) Would it be possible to project the demographic findings regarding nutritional deficiency of your present sample to geographic areas by use of census data? What would be the probability range of such projections? (4) If such projection is not feasible, what would it cost to expand the sample to a county level on some sort of cycling basis, such as once every five years? Would the county level be sufficiently homogeneous to indicate geographic priorities for outreach efforts? Thank you for your cooperation. We look forward to discussing further the policy uses of your new survey. With best regards, Sincerely, LAWTON CHILES, Chairman. Hon. LAWTON CHILES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, HEALTH RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION, Rockville, Md., May 9, 1975. Chairman, Subcommittee on Federal Spending Practices, Efficiency, and Open Government, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR CHILES: Thank you for your letter of April 25 asking several specific questions about the information collected in the first Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES I) and about the future potential of this program. I will reiterate your questions and answer them as well as I can in the order asked: (1) How well will you be able to separate the impact of food stamps from other factors affecting observed levels of nutrition? This is a complex but very relevant and important question to which I cannot give a brief answer. First, let me note that the HANES program had as a primary purpose the assessment of the nutritional status of the United States population, and the survey design reflects that purpose. Since it was not designed with the purpose of evaluating the impact of food stamp programs, it will not yield any truly definitive assessment of that impact. Nevertheless, we hope this survey may provide some data relevant to this question. In addition to measurements of various indicators of the level of nutrition and identification of food stamp program participants at the time of the survey contact, the HANES I data included information on a number of sociodemographic factors thought relevant to nutritional status. The principal such factor was total family income, but also included. were data on education, employment status, occupation, ethnic group, and certain indexes of the quality of housing. No data were collected on some other factors, such as for example, knowledge of food and nutrition (except as total education might be regarded as a very crude surrogate for this item). The health examination provides data on certain clinical findings which might be expected to affect nutritional status, or, in some cases, to affect the measures taken to indicate nutritional status. Thus, we hope to be able to take some account of some but not all of the relevant factors. There are many problems in doing this. At this early stage of analysis it is not possible to predict how well we will be able to separate out impact of food stamps. Preliminary analysis even before all final data were available has identified some problems that cannot be completely resolved with the data collected in this first survey. This first analysis indicated, for example, that many of the persons included among the "poor" (as defined by a "Poverty Index Ratio" below 1) did not appear by our measure to be inadequately nourished. Other cutting points and other characteristics besides reported income will have to be used to identify those poor who demonstrate benefit from the food stamp program. We are addressing this and similar problems in further analysis of the HANES I data. The Bureau of the Census has established that many of the |