The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE NEED FOR COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN LABELING” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S174-S175 on Jan. 22, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE NEED FOR COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN LABELING
Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, I rise today to speak about country-of-
origin-labeling, an issue of critical importance to farmers, ranchers and the consumers in our great country.
Yet even as our country grapples with its first case of mad cow disease, the Republican leadership and special interest groups aligned with the packing industry celebrate the possible delay in the implementation of my country-of-origin labeling law.
Yes, country-of-origin labeling is the law. We voted on it and it was included in the last farm bill. Yet today I stand before you, concerned that an action in the dead of night by certain House members will sink this law, a law that is good for consumers of beef as well as producers of beef.
Country-of-origin-labeling will help American producers market their beef as the superior product we know that it to be. It will also help American producers choose a product they know is safe while avoiding foreign product produced without the safeguards provided by the United States Department of Agriculture.
Just a few weeks ago it was discovered that a cow from Canada was discovered with mad cow disease, yet consumers have no way to distinguish meat from a Canadian cow from meat from an American or Mexican cow.
As recent events have shown Americans still have confidence in American beef and we must give them the ability to choose that beef. This law is also critical to our ability to begin exporting beef to countries, such as Japan, that closed their border to our beef after the recent case of mad cow in Washington State. Forty-eight out of 57 of the United States' largest trading partners, including Japan, have country of origin labeling. Why can't we? I ask, why can't we?
It dismays me, that there are people opposed to this law. It will allow consumers to make their own decisions about food safety, a critical issue in today's world of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.
I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record an article written by Lee Pitts titled ``Who Killed COOL?''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Who Killed COOL?
(By Lee Pitts)
COOL has been universally praised by producer and consumer organizations alike. The overwhelming majority of farmers and ranchers supported it and COOL even had bipartisan support in Congress. So what went wrong? Who killed COOL?
Here's a Most Wanted list of the thieves who stole COOL from us and killed it in cold blood until COOL is deader than a can of Argentinean corned beef.
the man who would be king
To see who killed COOL just follow the money. And we can start right at the top. George Bush has been vehemently against COOL from the beginning. But one wonders why Bush would feel so passionate about legislation and use up political capital on something that will anger the very people who helped elect him in a very tight presidential race. Surely Bush must have had good reason to betray us? In fact, he had had millions of reasons. Plain and simple . . . Bush sold out to BIG business.
Remember this name: Tom Hicks. According to Forbes Magazine Mr. Hicks is the 350th richest man in America with an estimated net worth of $750 million. Hicks heads up a leveraged buyout outfit called Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst. One of their better deals was buying Dr Pepper and 7-Up for
$45 million and selling it after two years for $700 million. Hicks is also the man who made our current President a multimillionaire by buying the Texas Rangers from a group that included George W. In some circles Mr. Hicks is known as
``The man behind the throne at the White House.''
In May, 2002, Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst bought 54 percent interest, along with ConAgra, in Australia Meat Holdings, that country's largest meat processing company. Needless to say, the firm sends a lot of meat in this direction. Do you think Mr. Hicks' meat packing interests might have anything to do with Bush's concern about COOL? If Mr. Hicks calls Bush, I wonder, does he have any trouble getting through?
The Texas Cattle Feeders, no doubt, also leaned on their favorite son. The TCFA's members import thousands of Mexican steers every year into the U.S. where they would like to continue passing them off as domestics. Don't you find it interesting that the Representative who came up with the legislation to delay COOL for one year, Mr. Bonilla, was a Texas House member. In the Senate there was a similar attempt by Senator Cornryn. Surprise, surprise . . . Mr. Cornryn is from Texas too.
usda: United States department of ann
If you're looking for the killers of COOL you can take a line from Casablanca and, ``Round up the usual suspects.'' Ann Veneman and her cronies at the USDA surely are guilty. We all know by now that Veneman is a free trader, that's why she's currently trying to rewrite the rule book to reopen the border with Canada to live cattle. COOL could be an impediment to Veneman's vision of one global marketplace.
We shouldn't be surprised by Ann's actions, she's sold us out before. Like with mandatory price reporting. USDA officials said COOL is a bad idea because ``there is no definitive data available to quantitative the benefits of COOL.'' In one voluminous COOL report there was page after page of reasons why COOL is bad but there was not a single sentence suggesting a benefit. If one didn't know better, a casual observer might think the USDA was being biased. You think?
The USDA completely ignored a University of Florida study that outlined the many benefits of COOL. The USDA came up with cost estimates between $582 million and $3.9 billion but it was always the higher figure they quoted. The Florida study concluded that COOL would cost a fraction of that and said consumers would be given a choice and producers would benefit by increased demand for U.S. produced food. All good! At exactly the same time Veneman saw no benefits to COOL, Japan and Korea were making it clear they wanted only U.S. labeled beef. Also, at the same time a hepatitis outbreak was killing three people and sickening 259 in Georgia and 16 people in North Carolina. The feds aren't completely sure the same strain sickened 600 people in Pennsylvania in the Nation's biggest known outbreak of the disease. But they are sure it was Mexican onions that caused the outbreaks in Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Gosh, if only the onions were labeled so consumers could decide for themselves if they wanted to risk death by liver failure.
If she had bothered to look Veneman could have also seen at least one major benefit from COOL by looking northward to her Canadian buddies. They started labeling their beef after the Mad Cow scare and it paid off big time when Canadian consumers started eating more domestic beef to show their support for the domestic industry.
And how's this for irony: A couple days after killing COOL the feds announced they were launching a major initiative to track food imports for national security reasons!
the meat we eat
The food processing industry hates COOL because their business models are based on being able to buy product anywhere around the globe, wherever it is the cheapest. Then they have a U.S. inspection stamp placed on it and mix it in with domestic product. If you doubt that multinationals would have the breadbasket of the world turned into a beggar nation consider that 11.6% of beef eaten in the U.S. is imported, 40% of lamb, 16.6% of all vegetables, 23.1% of fresh and frozen fruit, and even 10% of wheat and wheat products. Talk about carrying coal to Newcastle!
Meat packers don't want COOL because it would diminish the profits they are making on cheap imports, like the obscene profits they are now making on Canadian boxed beef. COOL would derail this business model. So when COOL legislation passed all the hurdles and road blocks and looked like it would become a reality the packers were willing to resort to dirty politics in an effort to kill it.
First the packers said it would cost too much. What they should have said it would cost THEM too much if they had to start buying more U.S. beef because consumers were demanding it. We know exactly how much extra COOL will cost ranchers. You can currently get your calves verified as born and raised in the U.S. using a USDA approved process for 50 cents apiece. That's half of the beef checkoff buck. That doesn't seem like too much, does it?
Globalists hate COOL because it will build demand for U.S. products, exactly what they don't want. COOL would dampen their plans to outsource production to the cheapest supplier because the only place to get U.S. products is guess where? U.S.
the bottom line
Ann Veneman herself helped identify some of the culprits who killed COOL. She fingered the NCBA, the National Pork Producers Council and the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association as the groups responsible for blocking its implementation. Yes, the primary contractor for your checkoff dollars, an outfit that may not even exist without your beef bucks, the NCBA, stabbed you right in the back. Again.
In the 2004 election cycle so far, agribusiness interests have given President Bush $1.8 million--ten times as much as the next recipient. The NCBA is one of the top agribusiness contributors. They even gave Bush a cowboy hat at their convention.
After the Conference Committee derailed COOL the NCBA issued a press release saying, ``Congress carefully considered possible dangers of the law before delaying implementation for two years.'' Chandler Keys, NCBA's lobbyist said that mandatory labeling would damage trade relations with Mexico. (Although Mexico currently requires country of origin labeling of U.S. beef exports.) NCBA President Eric Davis said, ``Many producers were concerned that these mandatory regulations could have a negative effect on their bottom line.''
Leo McDonnell of R-CALF had a different viewpoint:
``Despite NCBA's claim that independent cattle producers do not want mandatory country of origin labeling, 76 U.S. cattle associations, representing 26 states and including 17 NCBA state affiliates, worked with R-CALIF USA to pass mandatory COOL in the 2002 Farm Bill.''
In every poll this reporter has seen an overwhelming majority of ranchers and consumers voice their support for COOL. Both the American Farm Bureau and the National Farmer's Union supported it. Even the NCBA admits it: ``What our members have told us through votes was they want a country-of-origin labeling program that is beneficial to both them and to the consumers,'' said Jim McAdams, a Texas cattleman and NCBA VP. The NCBA, after killing COOL, then had the audacity to announce it was launching plans to create a VOLUNTARY pilot country-of-origin labeling program that would differentiate U.S. meat products from foreign meat. Dun . . . we already have a voluntary program and it doesn't work.
According to Leo McDonnell the real bottom line is this:
``The interests of producers are being compromised by organizations purporting to represent producers, but who actually incorporate the financial interests of packers in their policies'' That's putting it nicely. Other response to the killing of COOL was swift and angry:
The New Mexico Stockgrowers had given the NCBA a couple chances to come around but COOL was the last straw. It exposed NCBA once and for all for what they really are: A mouthpiece for the Texas and Kansas cattle feeders and the Big Three packers. The stockgrowers recently voted to end their association with the NCBA because they no longer represent them. (I'd argue they never did.)
Fred Stokes of the The Organization of Competitive Markets said: ``Country-of-origin labeling has precipitated a war. Food producers and consumers are on one side with food cartels and their lackeys on the other. Regrettably, the leadership in our government has come down on the wrong side.''
NFU President Dave Frederickson said, ``This two-year delay is undoubtedly a tactic to make this widely popular law more vulnerable to repeal after the presidential elections. The delay will effectively kill COOL for meats, fruits and vegetables. Wild fish would be the only food item exempt from the delay, which should prove beneficial for salmon fishermen in Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens' state of Alaska. There is definitely something fishy about this process.''
``This is just another example of the White House and Republican leadership allowing their biggest corporate contributors to set policy,'' responded Presidential candidate Howard Dean. ``Since being elected, George Bush has consistently put the interests of corporate agribusiness ahead of family farmers and rural America.''
South Dakota Stockgrowers Assn. President Ken Knuppe said,
``This is a slap in the face to all of the cattle producers who've fought so hard for this legislation. It is clearly a political move, not an attempt to benefit producers or consumers.''
Perhaps Paul Ringling, President of the Montana Cattleman's Assn said it best: ``NCBA, packers and USDA have an unholy, incestuous alliance.''
Some say the battle over COOL is not yet lost. Although the House approved the Conference Committee report the Senate will vote on it on January 20. But Tom Harkin does not expect COOL to be in the final bill. ``They won't remove COOL . . . they just won't give it any money,'' says Harkin.
The only way to override the Conference Committee action is to defeat the omnibus spending bill which would also shut down the federal government. As tempting as that sounds . . . don't count on it happening.
If you must do something to voice your displeasure you could dial the phone number (202-456-1111) and give a tape recorder a piece of your mind. And you could quit any group that played a role in COOL's defeat. I've heard some people who are so upset they are going to refuse to pay the checkoff, seeing how it's unconstitutional anyway. For sure you should join R-CALF. As for Bush . . . if the next Presidential election is as close as the last one, Bush may have a lot more time to spend with his ``BIG Bidness'' buddies as a result of his COOLish behavior.
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