[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 199 (Tuesday, November 16, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8226-S8227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Meatpacking Industry

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, as the meatpacking industry became 
increasingly concentrated in the 1990s, fewer animals were sold through 
negotiated purchases--or, you could say, you could call that cash 
purchases or you could call it the spot market.
  In the 1990s, we saw increased use of alternative marketing 
arrangements that were not publicly disclosed under voluntary 
reporting. Livestock producers knew that these arrangements were not 
allowing them to get a fair market price for their livestock going to 
slaughter so they called for livestock mandatory reporting, also known 
as LMR. This new law would apply to packers who purchase livestock, 
process them, and market the meat.
  When the livestock mandatory reporting legislation was first 
considered in 1998, it unfortunately didn't get very far. I want to 
read for you an article from March of 1999 because it is going to have 
some relationship to a similar issue that we hope to get before 
Congress before the end of the year, and that is a bipartisan piece of 
legislation I am referring to.
  I want to read an article from March 1999, from the Southern 
Livestock Review. That article is entitled ``How Campaign Money, 
Republican Lobbyists Killed Mandatory Price Reporting.'' I am going to 
read that article into the Record in its entirety, only I will not read 
names. I will refer to former Senators as Senator 1, 2, and 3, and I 
will refer to lobbyists' names as Lobbyist 1 and Lobbyist 2.

[[Page S8227]]

  My point is to remind my fellow Senators today not to be blindsided 
again by the American Meat Institute, like happened in 1998 to kill 
legislation back then, because I don't want a similar thing to happen 
with what some of us Senators are proposing this year. This is 
important because Senator Fischer and I are soon to introduce 
legislation to update livestock price transparency.
  Now, I will read. This is a long reading.

       How Campaign Money, Republican Lobbyists Killed Mandatory 
     Price Reporting:
       In the heat of last October's upcoming election and 
     Congress' hurry-get-out-of-town legislating, the draft of a 
     massive $4 billion farm bailout bill--which included federal 
     relief for cash-strapped farmers and mandatory public price 
     reporting in livestock markets--was in place as congressmen 
     and senators flew home for a weekend of campaigning.
       When the lawmakers returned the following Monday, however, 
     mandatory livestock price reporting was virtually gutted, 
     butchered by well-connected Republican lobbyists and huge 
     sums of political action campaign money from the meatpacker-
     backed American Meat Institute.
       How this deboning occurred is an object lesson in how 
     private money often thwarts public will and why solid, 
     sensible farm policy often dies at the hands of craven 
     politicians and legions of lobbyists.
       In July 1998, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-SD, put 
     mandatory price reporting in livestock markets into what was 
     then a modest $500 million farm drought relief bill. Daschle, 
     responding to years of complaints from his state ranchers 
     over meatpacker concentration, didn't ask for the moon. All 
     he wanted was a one-year experimental program that required 
     meatpackers to publicly disclose the prices they paid when 
     buying livestock from producers.

  But as the ag economy continued to skid in late summer, the bill's 
cost escalated and so did the warning over what the bill would include. 
Daschle's price reporting request also came under attack from the AMI, 
the meatpacker lobby in Washington. Packers viewed the idea as costly--
estimated by USDA at $60 million per--and unnecessary.
  Yet as momentum picked up for an even bigger farm relief bill, 
mandatory price reporting opponents like AMI sensed Daschle's efforts 
would be adopted as the ``save-the-farm'' rhetoric built after Labor 
Day.

       To shoot down Daschle's plan, AMI hastily bought some 
     bazookas. In early September, AMI hired [Lobbyist No. 1] . . 
     . a member of one of Washington's most powerful Republican 
     lobbying firms.
       For an extra pop, reported the October 25, 1998 Washington 
     Post, AMI also hired two other Republican leaders-turned-
     lobbyists, [Lobbyist No. 2] and [Lobbyist No. 3]. . . .
       Now plugged into the Republican power grid, AMI turned on 
     the juice. During the 1998 election cycle, AMI doled out 
     $198,473 in political action committee money raised from 
     executives of member firms like Cargill's Excel, ConAgra's 
     Monfort, Kraft's Oscar Myer, Premium Standard Farms, Farmland 
     Industries, and Smithfield Foods. Most of the money went to 
     Republican candidates.
       In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a 
     nonpartisan campaign watchdog group, $165,973 or 84% of AMI's 
     1997-98 PAC cash landed in Republican campaign coffers. House 
     Republican candidates got $114,973 of the meatpacker lard; 
     Senate Republicans got $51,000.
       But as the crucial October legislative deadline approached, 
     mandatory price reporting was still alive in the farm bailout 
     bill's final draft. Then AMI lobbyists and money began to get 
     traction.
       The lobbyists, in particular [Lobbyist No. 1], a longtime 
     pal of fellow Mississippians--and Republican Senators--
     [Senator No. 1] and [Senator No. 2] got the price reporting 
     legislation pulled from that ag bill. Senate Democrats and a 
     few of their farm state Republican colleagues were furious.
       Daschle struck back. With [Senator No. 2's] blessing, he 
     folded mandatory price reporting into the even bigger $520 
     billion omnibus 1999 Budget Bill that was still hanging fire. 
     Two days later, it too was gutted by Republicans into a 
     meaningless ``confidential one-year government investigation, 
     during which livestock prices would not be disclosed'' by the 
     packers, according to the Washington Post.
       Sources say [Lobbyist No. 1] buddy [Senator No. 1] wielded 
     the knife. As chairman of the Senate Ag Appropriations 
     Subcommittee, [Senator No. 1] refused to fund any new price 
     reporting effort as part of the bailout bill, thus killing it 
     there. Later, at the behest of [Lobbyist No. 1], [Lobbyist 
     No. 2], and [Lobbyist No. 3], [Senator No. 1] neutered 
     mandatory price reporting in the Budget Bill by keeping any 
     information gained through it ``confidential.''
       Now the National Pork Producers Council, a past opponent of 
     mandatory price reporting, the American Farm Bureau, the 
     National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and Secretary of 
     Agriculture Dan Glickman are calling for publicly disclosed, 
     mandatory price reporting legislation from Congress.
       An AMI spokesman said the group will fight the new effort, 
     but didn't know if [Lobbyists 1, 2, or 3] would carry water 
     for the packers in 1999. Yet, he adds, referring to [Lobbyist 
     No. 1], ``He served our purposes well last year.''
       No kidding. But the meatpackers paid assassins--[Lobbyist 
     No. 1] and his Republican pals--stuck a knife in the back of 
     every livestock producer in America last fall. And it's still 
     there.

  Now, that is the end of my reading of the March 1999 article by Alan 
Guebert in the Southern Livestock Review.
  So you see, many of the same hurdles that we went through in `98 are 
the hurdles that we are facing now with making needed cattle market 
reforms.
  The same high-powered and well-connected lobbyists who work for the 
Big Four meat processors are still the same high-powered and well-
connected lobbyists who are lobbying against the market reforms of 
today. Those reforms are being proposed by a bipartisan group of 
Senators and will soon be introduced.
  But I have got news for you. The special interests of the meat 
packers don't have a vote in the U.S. Senate.
  Last week, Senators Fischer, Tester, Wyden, and I announced a 
framework to increase price discovery and transparency in the cattle 
market.
  You will never guess who, once again, is fighting this commonsense 
legislation--the very same group that I referred to as AMI, the 
American Meat Institute, now called the North American Meat Institute; 
that same group that, in the 1990s--or--yeah, the 1990s--was against 
the livestock mandatory reporting legislation has come out against the 
independent cattle producers again today.
  See, these powerful corporations are against any reform that would 
give independent producers more leverage in negotiating a fair price 
for their cattle.
  In 1998, South Dakotan Tom Daschle led the charge against these big 
meat packers. And while the livestock mandatory reporting was stalled 
in 1998, in 1999, Senator Daschle was able to get that across the 
finish line. And it is still law, but it isn't a perfect piece of 
legislation, and our proposals ought to improve it dramatically.
  Now we have Senators, farmers, consumers from all over the country 
who want to see reforms. Livestock farmers are losing money, consumers 
are paying record high prices for beef, and meat packers are making 
record profits.
  Now, I am sharing this story today to show that even changes that we 
now view as common sense were once opposed by the meat industry. We 
still have time this year to make real market reforms that will help 
independent producers stay in the cattle business.
  I urge my colleagues to support a piece of legislation that we have 
entitled Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act and support 
independent cattle producers.
  I hope you will join Senator Fischer, this Senator, Senator Tester, 
and Senator Wyden and several other Senators in the last 24 hours that 
have joined this effort.
  These reforms are long overdue, and we can't let these special 
interest groups, like the North American Meat Institute, stop this 
important legislation like I just described for you how they stopped it 
in 1998. And thank God Senator Daschle didn't give up, because the next 
year he eventually got it done.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.