Appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, 2006-- Conference Report

APPROPRIATIONS FOR AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2006--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - November 02, 2005)

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise, too, on behalf of South Dakota's cattle producers to voice my support for country-of-origin labeling and also to express my profound disappointment in the tactics that were employed to derail country-of-origin labeling in the bill under consideration this evening.

I have been a supporter of mandatory country-of-origin labeling since first being elected to the House of Representatives in 1996. I offered the country-of-origin labeling amendment in the House Agricultural Committee 2002 farm bill deliberations. Figuratively speaking, that was a bloody battle. Anyone who was in the room will tell you we spent 4 hours fighting over this issue about whether to include country-of-origin labeling in the 2002 farm bill. The truth of the matter is, even though at that particular point in the process we were not able to get included in the House farm bill, we were later on, when the bill went into conference with the Senate, the Senate adopted a provision, and we were able to retain that provision. So when the 2002 farm bill conference report was reported to the floor of the House and the Senate, it included mandatory country-of-origin labeling. It was passed overwhelmingly by the House and the Senate, put on the President's desk and signed into law. In fact, it was signed into law by the President back on May 13, 2002.

I assumed at that time that we had achieved a major victory for the ranchers that we represent, the cattle producers in places such as South Dakota and other areas of the country. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Even though country-of-origin labeling has been the law of the land since that day, it has been on the receiving end of an onslaught of attacks and delays. Where I come from, a deal is a deal. The Congress, the elected Representatives of the people of this country, through the 2002 farm bill, adopted a provision that would implement mandatory country-of-origin labeling. Under the 2002 farm bill, country-of-origin labeling was set to be implemented by September in 2004. The fiscal year 2004 agriculture appropriations bill--and at that time I was not in the Congress--delayed implementation until September of 2006. And now the conference report we have before the Senate today will delay it even further, until 2008.

It always ends up being done in the dark of night. As was noted earlier by several of my colleagues in the Senate, the House negotiators came to this process and walked away from the table, not even giving us an opportunity to debate this in the light of the day. It would be great to have the debate on the floor, but even in the conference there was not an opportunity for Members of the Senate to have their voices heard through a vote on that particular provision.

If you want to rewrite the 2002 farm bill, don't do it in a conference committee, for crying out loud. Let's do it in the light of day. Let's at least give the members in the conference committee an opportunity to vote up or down on this issue. I believe if the members of that conference committee had that opportunity, those in favor of country-of-origin labeling would have prevailed.

I have heard the arguments against mandatory country-of-origin labeling more times than I can count. While I respect my colleagues and their views, I disagree with those who oppose this program and wish to delay it to death.

My colleague from Texas suggested this is a bad thing, we cannot implement this. How do we know? We have not implemented it yet. We passed the law. The people's representatives of the Congress spoke out in favor and made it part of the 2002 farm bill. We have lots of people, naysayers, now saying it will never work. How do we know? It has never been implemented.

The deal we struck back in 2002, and the commitment we made to the producers of this country and to the consumers of this country, has now been derailed not once but twice. Literally, it is death by a thousand cuts to the producers across this country who believe the Congress had taken their side and made a commitment to implement this legislation.

My colleague from Texas--again, whose views on this I certainly respect--suggests we just have a voluntary system. The people who are opposed to doing this mandatory country-of-origin labeling, how do you expect them to come out and voluntarily say, we are going to do it. They are the very folks who are fighting, resisting, opposing, trying to delay and ultimately kill the country-of-origin labeling provision that was a part of the 2002 farm bill that ought to be the law of the land today.

Everything that we have in this country has a label on it. The tie I am wearing this evening says ``Made in China.'' The glasses, as I get older, I need for reading purposes, say ``Made in China.'' Even the holder for the glasses has a labeling on it. The pen I hold in my hand says ``Made in Japan.'' Literally everything we purchase in this country has a label. We know where things come from, where they originate. In the last farm bill, we even implemented for fish, for fruit and vegetables. Yet we do not want to know where the meat comes from that the consumers of this country consume on a daily basis? Does anybody understand or recognize the inconsistency in that argument?

It will not be very far from here that producers in this country will be forced to implement an animal ID system, and somehow we cannot implement a country-of-origin labeling system. Yet we are going to ask producers to trace the origin of those animals as a food safety precaution.

I argue, again, that country-of-origin labeling is an opportunity for our producers to differentiate their product from those products raised elsewhere in the world. We have the highest quality, and our producers are proud of what they raise in this country. They want to be able to differentiate it, but they are going to be required in the not-too-distant future, as a food safety measure, to implement an animal ID. We have a number of pilot programs underway across the country today. When one of those is adopted as some sort of a national standard, producers will be expected to trace the origin of those animals. The only question is, Who is going to pay for it?

It is a slap in the face to this Nation's livestock producers and consumers. This recent delay is unacceptable. It is unwarranted. Who loses? The livestock producers who grow and raise quality products in this country, who want an opportunity to market and differentiate their products, and ultimately, the consumers of this country who have a right to know where the meats they purchase, day in and day out for consumption by themselves and their families, comes from. Special interests have won out this day over the will of our producers, our consumers, and the elected representatives in the Senate. That is a sad day.

I will oppose this Agriculture appropriations conference report for that reason.

I yield back my remaining time.

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