Saturday, June 14, 1975 THE MICHIGAN DAILY
USDA to revamp
food stamp plan
under court ruling
Pnae Three
WASHINGTON (A)-The Agri-
culture Department is working
on a new special food stamp
menu which sources said yes-
terday might help meet a court
order directing the government
to put more bounce in poor peo-
ple's diets.
"It's one p o s s i b le option
among some others," one offi-
cial said, asking not to be
identified. "But -it seems to be
in line with what the court is
talking about."
The U.S. Court of Appeals
ruled Thursday that the present
formula for setting food stamp
allowances to 19.6 million Amer-
icans did not provide nutritional-
ly adequate diets for all.
MEANWHILE, department of-
ficials declined public comment
on the court order until it had
been reviewed by government
lawyers and food stamp policy-
makers.
For years. USDA has used an
"economy" level diet as the
basis for determining how many
food stamps needy families get
per month. The economy plan
is the skimpiest of four food
budgets designed by the depart-
ment to accommodate different
income groups.
The court gave the USDA 120
days to draw up a new plan for
food stamp users but allowed
the current system to remain in
effect because of "the critical
importance of the allotment reg-
ulations to the functioning of
the entire food stamp program."
ONE DEPARTMENT source
said the special food stamp plan
has been in the works many
months but that it might take
another three to five months
before it is finally approved.
The court order, however, might
speed up that process, the
source said.
The food stamp program has
mushroomed by 5.9 million per-
sons the past year partly be-
cause of the recession and un-
employment. It is expected to
cost about $5 billion for the fis-
cal year to end June 30. That
is about $1 billion more than
planners had figured.
If the economy recovers, the
USDA says food stamp enroll-
ment might level off in 1975-76
at around 21 million persons.
Even so, costs could climb to
$6.5 billion or more next fiscal
year, officials said.
FOOD STAMP recipients are
qualified if they meet certain
income requirements. Those on
welfare are automatically elig-
ible but nonwelfare persons with
low income must be certified
by local agencies before they
can get the coupons.
Depending on incomes and
household sizes, families can
get monthly allocations of food
stamps by buying pre-fixed
amounts and then get additional
coupons free as bonuses.
For example, a family of four
.with an adjusted net income of
$150 a month now buys $41 worth
of stamps and receives $113
worth of free coupons. That
gives the family $154 worth of
stamps to spend for food.
BEGINNING July 1, as part
of a semiannual adjustment re-
quired by law, the same fam-
ily's allocation will rise to $162
for buying $41 worth of stamps.
Apart from the court order,
the Ford administration was di-
rected by Congress earlier this
year to submit a plan by June
30 for improving the food stamp
program.
As drafted by the USDA and
submitted to the White House
where it is still under review,
the plan includes more emphasis
on the needs of the poorest peo-
ple, particularly the elderly, re-
tired workers and those with
large families.
CONGRESS, meanwhile, has
a number of proposals in the
mill, including a measure ap-
proved this week by the Senate
which would permit 30-day
aittomatic certification of peo-
ple who say they need food
stamps and are eligible.
The bill, offered by Sen. Rob-
ert Dole (R-Kan.), is aimed at
eliminating long lines and much
of the red tape associated with
food stamp applications and cer-
tification. T h e administration
opposes it.
Tastes great!
For young entrepreneurs there's always a way to make money in the sunomer. In Milwaukee
yesterday these kids organized a booming business selling Kool-Aid and had no lack of cus-
tomers.
OVER 400 EXPECTED:
U.S. to take in Chilean p
except 'Communists and
W A S H I N G T 0 N UP)
The United States will accept
as political refugees a limited
number of Chileans either jailed
in Chile or living in Exile in
Peru, the State Department an-
nounced yesterday. The depart-
ment advanced the plan several
months ago but officials said
there was resistance from im-
migration authorities a n d
Eleven Viet refugees kept
in isolated Florida trailer
from some congressional lead-
ers.
But State Department assur-
ances that Communists and
terrorists would not be allow-
ed in the country convinced
skeptics that the plan posed no
security risks.
The last hurdle was cleared
Thursday at a closed session of
the Senate Judiciary Committee
when Chairman James East-
land, (D-Miss.), said he would
go along.
Testifying at the hearing
were William Rogers, assistant
secretary of state for inter-
American affairs, and Leonard
Chapman, commissioner of the
Immigration and Naturalization
Service.
STATE Department spokes-
man Robert Funseth told ;a
news conference yesterday that
the immigration service will
consider persons recommended
isoners-
terrorists'
by the State Department for
refugee status on a case - by -
case basis.
Under the original tan, some
400 Chileans and their depend-
ents were to be allowed admis-
sion. Official sources were
unable to say whether this num-
ber is still the target.
In Santiago, Chile, the U. S.
Embassy referred all queries to-
Washington but it reportedly
had received a lengthy cable of
instructions Thursday on the re-
fugee plan.
Roberto Kozak, director in
Chile of the Inter-governmental
Committee for European Migra-
tion (CIME), said his group
would arrange to transfer Chi-
lean prisoners accepted by the
United States. He said the pro-
ject had been under discussion
for some months and involved
about 400 Chileans and their de-
pendents.
ORLANDO, Fla. ()-A new life in-America for
11 Vietnamese refugees began with their being
stranded in a sweltering two-bedroom mobile
home without electricity, r u n n in g water, or
plumbing. It was located in the middle of an
isolated orange grove. Among the refugees was
a 23-day-old baby.
Their sponsor, gray-haired Mary Kenny, said
she gave the refugees a .22-caliber rifle when
they arrived and told them to shoot at intruders.
She also said that hardship was part of the
American pioneer spirit.
"IN VIETNAM I was never afraid in the war,"
said Nguyen Phuc Bao Duc, a former Vietnamese
army lieutenant colonel who lost his left leg and
left arm in the war. "But here I am very afraid
all the time."
"I stay here 12 days. Now I want to go back
to Eglin Air Force Base refugee camp. If we
know the way, we walk to the airport."
The refugees, members of two families, were
moved to an Orlando hotel Thursday night after
the Orlando Sentinel Star and the Red Cross
learned of their plight.
KENNY TOLD the Sentinel she had hoped the
refugees, all Saigon urban dwellers, would share-
crop hay and oranges on -the 20-acre site near
Ocoee,.about 11 miles west of Orlando. Their rent,
would be $166 a month.
She called the affair "a big mistake" and
agreed the refugees should -return to Eglin.
Kenny blamed the problem on volunteer agencies
at Eglin and a tenant who refused to move out
of a trailer so that one of the refugee famiilies
could move in.
But the tenant, J. R. Blatchford, 67, denied
he was asked to leave and said he had been hired
as a "kind of watchman for the place."
DUC, HIS WIFE, 6-year-old daughter and 55-
year-old aunt arrived at the trailer May 31. The
next night, Nguyen Hong Giap, 48, his wife, their
two young children and his 62-year-old mother-
in-law, his sister-in-law and her baby, born at
Eglin, arrived at the orange grove.
The trailer contained two beds and the children
slept on the floor. The nearest water was more
than a mile away. Because of the 90 degree
temperatures dropping to the mid 70s at night,
the children became feverish. I
Otto Van Schaick, who leases the land to Kenny
and Derry Sampen,. who lives a mile away, said
they had been delivering milk cartons of water
to the trailer.
Of the Spartan facilities in the trailer, Kenny
said: "If these are the kind of 'people who are
going to do this country any good, they've got
to have the pioneer spirit."
Officials said they would try to resettle the
family in the Orlando area.
EPA claims-city'
air fairly clean
By STEPHEN SELBST oxidants and nitrogen oxide.
Special To The taily Sulphur dioxide is emitted
WASHINGTON - Residents from coal burning factories.
may disagree, but the Environ- Petrochemical oxidants (smog)
mental Protection A g e onr y are caused when hydrocarbons
(EPA) thinks the city of Ann from refineries and cars com-
Arbor has relatively clean air. bine with sunlight.
The South Central Michigan Particulates are composed of
Region, of which Ann Arbor is soot, smoke and dust, while
a part, exceeds federal stand- carbon monoxide results from
ards for only one of the five automobile, truck and bus ex-
major air pollutants, according hausts. Nitrogen dioxide is the
to the EPA. afterwastesof internal combus-
AIR IN the Ann Arbor area t ion engines.
has more sulphur dioxide than THE EPA sets the primary
the EPA allows, but complies standards to protect public
with standards for particulars, health.
carbon monoxide, petrochemical See EPA, Page 9