[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 140 (Friday, October 28, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12043-S12045]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN LABELING
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue over
which I am outraged, the continued delay of mandatory country-of-origin
labeling and the manner in which this issue has continually been
addressed.
Mandatory country-of-origin labeling was authorized in the 2002 farm
bill and signed into law by this President. This program is widely
supported not only by about 85 percent of our Nation's consumers but
also overwhelmingly by our Nation's producers.
This program is not only a consumer right-to-know issue, it is a
valuable marketing tool for ranchers and farmers.
During consideration of the fiscal year 2004 Agriculture
appropriations measure, the Senate passed a sense of the Senate
supporting mandatory country-of-origin labeling, or COOL. The House
version of the spending measure included a 1-year delay for meat and
meat products.
During closed door consideration of the omnibus spending measure, the
Republican House leadership was successful in inserting a 2-year delay
for all commodities covered under the mandatory COOL Program with the
exception of fish and shellfish.
This secretive, closed-door process was outrageous at that time. The
omnibus package was settled behind closed doors, with no input from
COOL supporters.
Then, in the fiscal year 2006 Agriculture appropriations bill, the
House version included, once again, a 1-year delay for meat and meat
products covered under mandatory COOL.
The Senate, speaking in support of a mandatory program, included $3.1
million for an audit-based compliance program to cover implementation
costs. I repeat, a $3.1 million appropriations for implementation.
This small spending level, which was requested by the Bush
administration for program implementation, only served to show how
grossly the Department of Agriculture overestimated implementation
costs for COOL.
On Tuesday evening, House Republican Chairman Bonilla convened a
conference committee on which I serve, meeting on the most recent
agricultural spending measure.
For those of us who expected an open discussion on outstanding items,
we were sorely and entirely mistaken.
The chairman recessed that meeting subject to the call of the Chair
without ever discussing COOL or indicating when we would reconvene.
Instead of an open discussion on this outstanding item, instead of
any up-or-down public vote, the chairman simply modified,
singlehandedly, language on the final report to include a 2-year
delay--behind closed doors yet again, pushing back mandatory
implementation, this time until September 30, 2008.
Let me repeat: The Senate Agriculture appropriations bill contained
no delay in country-of-origin labeling; in fact, it included funding
for implementation.
The House Agriculture appropriations bill called for a 1-year delay.
That happened behind closed doors without the benefit of debate,
without the benefit of a vote. The chairman actually inserted language
calling for a 2-year delay, kicking this program over into the next
farm bill, essentially a do-over on the last 2002 farm bill in which we
initially made the law of the land country-of-origin labeling for meat
and meat products.
This is truly outrageous. It is the purpose of a conference committee
to discuss outstanding items in an open manner, not to change policy in
back-room deals, in closed-door discussions in the dead of the night.
What happened on Wednesday was an incredibly corrupt process that
failed the American public and failed the political process of our
Nation. The chairman chose not to address COOL simply because he knew
he would lose. It was easier to address this item behind closed doors
and avoid any vote because of the broad bipartisan support in the
Senate that this program enjoys.
It is because of the 2-year delay and the appalling process by which
this open item was considered that I refused--I refused--to sign the
conference report. It is because of this wrong doing that I will also
vote against the conference report when it is considered by the full
Senate.
Not only was the process by which this outstanding issue was
considered absolutely corrupt, this delay yet again takes another stab
at rewriting our farm bill. The farm bill, when signed into law, did
not indicate an implementation date of September 30, 2008, for
mandatory COOL. It specifically stated September 30, 2004.
In order to change this implementation date and rewrite farm bill
policy, the majority leadership has had to hold two closed-door
conferences to achieve its back-room goals.
The farm bill is a contract with rural America that needs to be
honored--not modified, changed, not destroyed in closed, back-door
dealings during the night.
The most recent debacle with COOL is yet another illustration of how
House congressional leadership is failing rural America.
The Bush administration advocates stripping in excess of $3 billion
from this farm bill during the budget reconciliation process, weakening
the essential safety net that we need, that our Nation needs to foster
economic development in rural America, especially in time of weak
commodity prices.
The President advocated reducing commodity payments and leaving
producers in the cold. The President insisted last year that $3 billion
be cannibalized from the Conservation Security Program to fund a 2003-
2004 either/or agriculture assistance disaster package.
[[Page S12044]]
I find this is wrong, considering the pending Doha WTO negotiations
and this administration's platform on gutting programs.
All of these reductions were supported by the President despite the
fact that the farm bill has come in at $14 billion under the projected
costs. Agriculture has already paid enough.
The administration advocated closing over 700 Farm Service Agency
offices nationwide, including 24 percent of the offices in my home
State of South Dakota. I know that other States also were subject to
even larger percentage cuts of offices. Not only would the
administration scrap or limit farm bill programs, the plan is it would
make it more difficult for the producer to obtain information about the
farm bill programs that are available, leaving producers too often to
fend for themselves.
The administration has yet to issue disaster payments from over 1
year ago. Producers in my home State of South Dakota are still waiting
for Livestock Assistance Program payments and the American Indian
Livestock Feed Program payment. Even on the few payments that were
issued, interest was not calculated properly, prompting a redo on parts
of those payments.
Families have made financial decisions around this financial
obligation. Congress did its part in passing the disaster package last
year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's computer software glitch
excuse, quite frankly, wore thin many months ago.
These delayed payments are especially unacceptable considering that
USDA already had a process for getting money to producers. The USDA
selected a crucial agriculture disaster package to use, frankly, as a
guinea pig for a new untested computer software program.
The USDA and President Bush, even after opening our markets to
Canadian beef, opening the market to a tidal wave of Canadian beef and
cattle, would propose to open our borders to Japanese beef even before
we can secure that export market.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the agriculture
spending measure but sent a strong message to this administration that
the Department of Agriculture should not allow Japanese beef into the
United States until Japan allows beef into that nation.
A group of 21 Senators in a bipartisan fashion also introduced a bill
this week that would impose economic sanctions on Japanese beef unless
Japan opens their borders to American beef.
American producers continue to lose $3.14 billion a year while the
Japan market stays closed, and the administration has yet to open
Japan's borders to American beef.
This is another example of a flawed trade agenda that fails to work
for the domestic U.S. agricultural producer.
I continue to hear from ranchers and farmers in South Dakota who are
tired of seeing unrealized promises in these trade deals. We buy the
Japanese cars, we buy the Japanese electronics, but Japan has yet to
comply with WTO, and Japan hast yet to comply with scientific standards
in accepting the safest and highest quality beef in the world from the
United States.
The Department of Agriculture is not making certain our farmers can
stay in the fold. The administration is undermining our family farmers
at too many turns. The most recent action on mandatory country-of-
origin labeling and the closed-door consideration that prompted this
move is utterly unacceptable. The USDA worked with a majority of
Members of Congress to delay mandatory COOL behind closed doors. The
USDA's actions are just simply strong examples of how wrong the
administration has been on too many agricultural issues.
The Department of Agriculture, it seems to me, is responsive
primarily to the packing and processing industry, the large
agribusiness conglomerates, instead of the family farmer and the family
rancher.
I simply believe that our rural communities and agricultural
producers can do better. I believe that America can do better than this
backward, behind-closed-doors, in-the-dead-of-night process that has
taken over this year's Agriculture appropriations conference report.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was a member of the conference that the
Senator from South Dakota just described. I, too, refused to sign the
conference report this week. I think when Senator Johnson uses the term
``outrage,'' it is a very appropriate word to describe what happened in
that conference. That conference recessed at the call of the Chair. We
never reconvened. And behind closed doors with some secret deal, the
majority party decided to hear the siren call of the big packing houses
and others, and they extended by 2 years the effective date of the time
when the American people would finally figure out, by labels, where the
meat they were eating would come from.
The reason I think this meat labeling is important, we label
everything. We label T-shirts, shoes, shirts. Name it, we label it. Go
to the grocery store, see what is labeled. Everything on the shelf is
labeled. But then pick up a piece of meat and figure out if we know
where it came from.
I held up a piece of steak on the Senate floor one day and said: I
defy anyone to tell me where this came from. Then I read a report from
an inspector who went to a plant in Mexico, inspected the plant--this
is a plant shipping meat to this country. He said there were carcasses
hanging in unrefrigerated rooms, with feces smeared on the carcasses,
all ready to be thrown in the hopper to be cut up and the meat sent to
American consumers. That is what he found, one inspection. By the way,
they closed that plant. Then it changed its name, changed its
ownership, reopened, and has never again been inspected.
That is why when one asks the question, How do you like your steak,
the answer ought to be, I like my steak from places where it is healthy
meat. We do not know where the healthy meat comes from unless we see a
label to be able to determine where that meat comes from. That is why
the Senator from South Dakota and I and others have fought so
aggressively to get this meat-labeling law in place. It is now the law
of the land. We have people making secret deals behind closed doors to
try to shut it down, to prevent it from ever being implemented. That is
what happened this week. That is why I refused to sign the conference
report as well. I appreciate the effort of the Senator from South
Dakota. There are about half a dozen of us who would not sign the
conference report because this was an arrogant approach to make a
secret deal behind closed doors that injures the consumers of this
country. We should not put up with it.
Mr. JOHNSON. If I may ask a question of my colleague and my friend
from North Dakota, does it not seem to the Senator that part of the
reason we have lost essentially our entire export market for beef in
America is in part because even countries that want to buy American
beef, that understand we have the safest, highest quality beef in the
world, are not confident that we are, in fact, selling them American
beef? Their fear is that this may be Canadian, it may be Mexican, it
may be Argentine. Who knows where this beef comes from in the United
States because we are one of the few industrialized democracies in the
world that do not have country-of-origin labeling in place for meat.
That undermines the integrity of our sales abroad and further
complicates our recapture of these lost export markets.
Does the Senator see that as one of the contributing factors to our
loss of export market?
Mr. DORGAN. I do not think there is any question but that is the
case. We do not have labeling of this meat; other countries do. So we
have a homogenization of all kinds of meat that comes into this
country, gets mixed here and there and everywhere.
The Senator from South Dakota said something very important. Our
farmers and ranchers in this country raise beef, meat. We raise a
healthy supply of meat. We inspect it. We have the healthiest supply of
meat anywhere in the world. I think the lack of having country-of-
origin labeling on the meat that is sold in this country hurts all of
us. It hurts our consumers as they consume. It also hurts us in our
ability to get into foreign markets, as my colleague has just
described.
Once again, the big interests get the attention around here behind
closed doors, outside of the view of the public. So we come out with
legislation now
[[Page S12045]]
that says, well, not only is there a law that requires country-of-
origin labeling, we will not allow that law to take effect. It has been
in place for some while. We will extend for 2 years the excuse to allow
the Department of Agriculture not to put it in effect. It is, as the
Senator has used the term, an outrage. It is the wrong way for this
Congress to legislate.
I thank the Senator from South Dakota for yielding.
Mr. JOHNSON. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Isakson). The Senator yields back.
The Senator from North Dakota.
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