Robert Bennett

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. There has been no objection to this amendment raised on this side. I ask now for a voice vote.

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I understand that I had 5 minutes allocated to me under the unanimous consent agreement. I am prepared to yield that back and proceed to a vote. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, half an hour evenly divided.

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. Mr. President, at the request of the majority leader, I would like to have Senator Domenici recognized for a short colloquy and Senator Warner recognized for a short announcement.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and request that the time for the quorum call be charged equally to both sides.

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

Mr. BENNETT. I ask unanimous consent that we resume consideration of H.R. 2673.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, in an effort to establish a glidepath for us to bring this particular airplane in for a landing, in consultation with the assistant Democratic leader, I intend to offer a unanimous consent request that would set a time agreement for the debate on the country-of-origin labeling amendment. It would be my intention, once that time has expired, that we would turn to the amendment the Senator from North Dakota and the Senator from Montana wish to offer. At that time, I would be prepared to attach a time agreement to their offering of that amendment, as well as offering a time agreement to attach to the amendment to be offered by the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy. As far as I know, those are the only three amendments remaining that would require a rollcall vote. So I say to the Senator from North Dakota, I would ask him to support my unanimous consent request that I will now propound, with the commitment on my part that as soon as the time has expired on the country-of-origin labeling amendment, we would then go to his amendment. I think the appropriate thing would be for him to offer his amendment at that time and then go directly into debate of that amendment. With that explanation, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 4:30 this afternoon be equally divided for debate on the Daschle amendment No. 2078; provided, that at 4:30 the amendment be temporarily set aside and a vote occur in relation to the amendment at a time to be determined by the majority leader, after consultation with the Democratic leader; provided further, that no amendments be in order to the amendment prior to the vote.

Mr. BENNETT. When Senator Harkin arrives--we have been saving time for him--I ask if the Senator from North Dakota would summarize his statement at that point and allow Senator Harkin to make his comments on the Daschle amendment, after which we could then return to the Dorgan amendment.

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

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

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, it is my understanding that all time has been yielded. We are, therefore, ready to vote. Vote on Amendment No. 2119

Mr. BENNETT. I appreciate my colleague bringing this matter to my attention. I agree with my colleague that this is a vital international food aid program that provides much needed humanitarian assistance and increases school enrollment. Thus, I pledge to the Senator from Kansas that I will work in conference to secure the House level of $56.8 million.

Mr. BENNETT. I have nothing further to say. Initiative For Future Agriculture and Food Systems

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. Mr. President, with the motion to table having failed, I ask for a voice vote on the underlying amendment.

Mr. BENNETT. The Senator is correct.

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. That is correct, so that anyone who wished to speak would have to get the permission of Senator Dorgan, and that 30 minutes might be interrupted by Senator Harkin's presentation, but the full 30 would be under the control of the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. BENNETT. Then I have some perfecting amendments and then final passage.

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. I am told that approximately 63 million tons of topsoil erodes from cropland in the Great Lakes basin each year, reducing agricultural productivity. I am willing to address this problem.