Robert Bennett

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Further, I ask unanimous consent that the time running on the Daschle amendment be set aside and reserved.

Mr. BENNETT. It would be my intention, when Senator Harkin arrives to speak on the Daschle amendment, to ask that the Senator from North Dakota summarize his remarks to allow the Senator from Iowa to speak. I ask if the Senator from North Dakota would agree to do that.

Mr. BENNETT. I am pleased to do so.

Mr. BENNETT. And that we now allow the Senator from North Dakota to proceed with his amendment.

Mr. BENNETT. The Senator from Utah is willing to yield back the remainder of the time in opposition to the Senator's amendment. We have an amendment that will be offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania on which it is my intention to have a voice vote and accept. We are getting the exact language, but it is my intention that the Senator from Pennsylvania be given 15 minutes. I would ask if Senator Harkin is still planning to come over to take his 15 minutes of debate on the Daschle amendment. If he is, that would mean we could vote on the Leahy amendment and the Daschle amendment and then on final passage around 5:30.

Mr. BENNETT. I thank the Senator for calling this to the committee's attention.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, last year Congress created the Public Television Station Digital Transition Grant Program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help public television continue broadcasting to rural America in the digital age. As with any first year program there are some fine points that need to be ironed out. I am concerned about potential inequities in the distribution of funds that may result from the grant competition. I support awarding grants to public television stations that provide a broadcast service to rural populations, regardless of the location of their main transmitter. If a public television station's digital transmitter serves less than 500,000 people it should be considered rural and automatically given the highest score for rurality. The Department's use of Per capital Income, PCI, as a factor in determining an applicant's score is appropriate. However, I encourage the Department to weight PCI by population. Unless a score is weighted by population, it may result in an inequitable score if a small portion of the coverage area reaches an enclave of higher income viewers. Highest priority should be given to rurality and critical need in scoring applications. The weighted PCI score should not exceed 15 percent of the total score. Furthermore, I believe that it would be beneficial for the Department to consult with public televisions stations through their national trade organization to assess the critical needs of the stations. Finally, I support the sue of funds for purchasing equipment necessary to allow local control over digital content and programming through the use of multicasting and datacasting technologies. I urge the Department to take the necessary steps to address these concerns. Mr. President, I would like to note in the Record some Utah projects that are important to reference as a Senate priority as we conference this bill with the House. It is important that report language be included noting an application that will be submitted to USDA for Rural Community Advancement Program funding and placing a priority upon its consideration. This RCAP application will be for potable water, fire protections, and waste water extensions in Wellsville, Utah. I also note the importance of providing Natural Resource Conservation Service dollars for ditch, canal, and irrigation improvements in Wellsville, UT, as well as watershed protection funding under Public Law 566 for piping and lining the Washington Fields Canal in the vicinity of St. George and Washington County, UT. The WFC provides water to 4800 acres of farmland and is currently in very poor condition. Given the significant growth in this area and the listing of two endangered species in the river system, this funding is important to save water that is currently wasted and that could augment stream flows not only for the community, but as needed for environmental and conservation purposes. Finally, I am supportive of several projects to bring drinking water to Kane County residents through the Kane County Water Conservancy District in southern Utah. These projects, including the Strawberry/ Movie Ranch, Meadow View Heights, and Johnson Canyon projects, are necessary because of the ongoing drought in Utah, the degraded existing water systems, and increased demand caused by development. These projects are of great value, and I hope that the USDA would seriously consider applications for loans and grants under the authorized program for water and waste disposal. The Johnson Canyon project, in particular, is of great importance to Kane County residents. Due to the severe drought and other factors, the well that supplies water to Johnson Canyon residents has shown a dramatic decrease in the drinking water quality, and individuals are now faced with installing reverse osmosis systems for their drinking water. In fact, because of the high level of total dissolved solids in the water, the well has become an inferior source, and the State of Utah recommends that an inferior source should not be allowed if a better source of water is available. The district has found higher quality water, and this project will allow development of this important resource.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I was interested to have one of the Senators point out that most Senators don't know anything about this because it was done in conference committee, and I certainly qualify as one who didn't know anything about it at the time the conference committee came to the floor. I have had a crash course in country of origin labeling since I became chairman. I have come to several conclusions, which I will share with the Senate. No. 1, the bill was very badly written. I don't think there is any question about that. The idea of having consumer information with respect to food is a perfectly legitimate idea. It does indeed fit the pattern of consumers, and I have no problem with it. But it is clear, as we get into the details of this, that the bill that originally required it is very badly written. It uses the phrase, for example, ``born, raised, and slaughtered in the United States.'' I ask this question: What if you only get two out of three of those? What does that do to you with respect to the piece of beef you are talking about? Suppose it was born in one country, fed in another, and slaughtered in a third? That is not likely, but it is entirely possible. And from which country does it come? You can say it is clearly not American beef if it was born in Canada, fed at feedlots in the U.S, and for some purpose, shipped to Mexico to be slaughtered, packed, and sent back. But what country is its country of origin? If you say it was born in Canada, it is Canadian. Why does the law say ``born, raised, and slaughtered''--those three categories--if only one matters? This is an interesting challenge because we have critters walking around on the range right now that were born somewhere prior to the passage of this law, and on which there are no records, which are going to end up in the food supply as hamburger or pot roast. Who is going to certify where they came from, with no records having been kept? That could be an argument for delaying the implementation of this legislation. Ultimately, I say with some facetiousness but some seriousness, we are talking about a situation where, in order to comply with the law, every animal has to have a birth certificate and a passport. The passport has to be stamped every time it crosses State lines. Someone called me and said: Bob, we have to pass this because there are all kinds of piglets being born in Canada and then being shipped to the United States. I find that they are shipped to the United States within days after their birth. They are born in Canada, but they are shipped here, truly as piglets, almost within days or weeks after birth, and then the entire processing takes place in the United States. These are American jobs, American facilities that are handling them. Do we say, because of their birth, they are Canadian, but because they are raised and slaughtered in the United States, does that make them naturalized American citizens or American pork, if you will? The law is badly written, and it clearly needs work or we would not be having this argument. Everyone I hear who opposes the Daschle amendment begins his statement by saying: I am in favor of country-of-origin labeling. But they are opposed to this particular legislation as it stands. One of the other things that is wrong with it, in my view, is the $10,000-per-violation provision. If I am running a supermarket, and someone says, here is some American beef, and I am potentially liable for a $10,000 violation for every single one of those hamburger patties because each sale is a separate circumstance, I am going to say to the producer: I will not take your beef unless you are prepared to indemnity me against any lawsuits that might come from the Trial Lawyers Association if some consumer activist comes in here and can prove that particular hamburger pattie originated in Canada. I am not going to run that risk. I think the Senator from Missouri was exactly right when he said the lawyers will be telling their corporate boards: Assume the worst and be as careful as you possibly can. Again, we have critters out there on the range that were born before the law was passed that are going to end up in the meat locker, and how are they going to be labeled? If they are mislabeled, there is a $10,000 fine for every pot roast that comes from those particular cows. I am not sure the House solution is the right solution. I am not prepared to go to conference saying I will stand with the House language, because I think there is an alternative that might well be worked out, and should be worked out in conference, to say this is how we buy a little more time to deal with the uncertainties we have here, and we hope give the authorizing committee the opportunity to take another bite at the apple and see if they cannot write a country-of- origin labeling law that makes more sense than the present one. But the Daschle amendment, by its nature, and by the debate and legislative history that is being laid down, is saying you enforce the law exactly as it stands, no changes. For that reason, I intend to vote against the Daschle amendment because I think there needs to be changes, and I think the debate demonstrates there needs to be changes. I hope the Daschle amendment is defeated. When we get to conference, I hope the House language is modified and we use the vehicle of the conference to try to prod the authorizing committee in the direction of rewriting the basic bill so it can become workable. One final example of how the statute is written that is unworkable, in my opinion, is that it prohibits the use of an identification mechanism to verify origin of the covered commodity. The Senator talked about putting an ear tag on the cow. That is illegal under this law. He is talking about the expense of it. It is the commonsense way to tag cattle. It is illegal, the way this thing is written. So, as I say, as I have become acquainted with the whole matter, coming to it completely fresh and completely uneducated as to the issues before I had to look at it, I find myself in favor of the argument that consumers should know from which country the food comes. I have no problem with that at all, but I am convinced the law, as presently written, was so hastily put together that it has serious problems that cannot be fixed by regulations from USDA. I think they are acting in good faith in the regulations they drafted. The question came up in the hearing when Secretary Veneman was asked: Why are you proposing such a cumbersome regulation? She said: Because we believe it complies with the law. She was asked: Whose interpretation tells you this complies with the law? She said: The United States Department of Justice. The lawyers in the Justice Department looked at the law and said you have to have these burdensome regulations. So I think there is a solution to this. I think we can work our way through it in time. There is time between now and November for us not to argue about should we implement the law as it stands, or should we prevent the law from going forward as it stands, but do what I think is the commonsense thing, which is simply rewrite the law. Based on all of the research and evidence that has gone into the drawing of the regulation, we can now do it with a little more leisure and more intelligence than was done the first time around. I yield the floor.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Idaho in opposition to the Daschle amendment.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask how much time would the Senator like?

Mr. BENNETT. Senator Cochran is in the cloakroom and will be coming on to the floor momentarily. I simply want to once again apologize to him for our inadvertence in leaving his amendment off the list. I appreciate the indulgence of Senators to have this additional 5 to 10 minutes for the opportunity to dispose of this particular amendment.

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I am happy to propound a unanimous consent agreement that there be 40 minutes equally divided devoted to the Leahy amendment with no second-degree amendments allowed.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I have no objection.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BENNETT. Could we enter into an agreement that the total time consumed on the Dorgan amendment, without allocation to one side or the other, would be 30 minutes under the control of Senator Dorgan?

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I appreciate the intent of the amendment my colleague from Vermont is offering. It is an attempt to ensure USDA will carry out mandatory conservation programs as Congress intended in the farm bill, as he has explained. However, the effect of the Leahy amendment would be to freeze the largest conservation program, the Conservation Reserve Program, until a permanent fix for the problem the Senator has outlined has been found. I am not a member of the authorizing committee, but I am told by many who are this was not the intent of Congress, that they are not anxious to have the Conservation Reserve Program frozen for any reason, for any purpose, so the Leahy amendment is opposed by many members of the authorizing committee, including its chairman, Senator Cochran. I asked Senator Cochran if he would be interested in speaking on this amendment, and he smiled and very graciously delegated that responsibility to me. I am grateful for the confidence, but I feel less equipped perhaps than the chairman himself might be. Nonetheless, the effect of the Leahy amendment would mean money would flow out of EQIP, WHIP, FRPP, and other programs to pay for the technical assistance for the Wetlands Reserve Program. Many members of the authorizing committee, along with conservation groups and farm groups, agree there is a problem, but not that there is a consensus as to how to solve the problem. The Senator from Vermont has offered one proposal. But as yet, within the authorizing committee, there is not a great deal of support for that proposal that I am aware of.

Mr. BENNETT. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BENNETT. The Senator is correct.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, we have come to final passage. May I take the opportunity once again to thank Senator Kohl and his staff for the cooperative way in which they have worked to get us to this point. I appreciate very much the support of all Senators. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BENNETT. I am happy to yield.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BENNETT. The amendment has been cleared on both sides. It was inadvertently left out of the other stack of amendments that were submitted. I ask that the amendment pass on a voice vote.

Robert Bennett

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