Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2685, Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2016, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2393, Country of Origin Labeling Amendments Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington for
yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this rule and the underlying
legislation to repeal country of origin labeling for meat products, and
I believe this effort is long past due.

I thank the chairman of the Rules Committee for bringing this rule to
the floor, and I appreciate Agriculture Committee Chairman Conaway's
expeditious response to the WTO's final ruling that sets the table for
a huge hit to America's struggling economy.

Not only has COOL been a costly burden on our Nation's meat industry
for more than a decade, but now massive retaliatory tariffs from Canada
and Mexico will inflict pain on a vast amount of U.S. industries and
jobs.

At a time when American GDP is actually shrinking, and U.S. farmers
and manufacturers are desperately seeking export markets, the worst
thing we can do is allow this policy to damage our ability to get
American-made to market.

COOL represents yet another failed government mandate imposing heavy
costs on private sector industry for no defensible purpose. While the
primary goal of COOL is to give American-grown meat a competitive
advantage, the result has been exactly the opposite.

Even the Department of Agriculture agrees that COOL has actually
negatively impacted the industry that it was supposed to benefit. As a
direct result of this policy, we have not only seen sharp increases in
the cost of marketing and selling beef and pork, but looming trade
retaliation is already costing American industries that contract for
future delivery of goods into these export markets.

If we allow these retaliatory tariffs to go forward, our Nation's
businesses will experience billions of dollars of market loss, which
will kill jobs, harm our U.S. competitiveness, and have a long-term
negative impact on America's economic health.

Fortunately, today we have a chance to end the harmful impact of this
policy. I urge all of my colleagues to support this rule and the
underlying legislation to repeal COOL once and for all.

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