[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24177-24179]
[From the U.S. 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.
  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

[[Page 24178]]

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 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

[[Page 24179]]

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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