Thad Cochran

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. The Senator is correct. Senator Brown is on the floor and has modified his amendment substantially.

Mr. COCHRAN. I yield myself the remainder of the time. It is clear from the evidence that this is an effort to protect California poultry producers from competition from outside the State. There is no doubt about it. Somebody asked me a while ago, they said, ``I do not understand this. Are we being told that if something is frozen that it is not fresh?'' The point is, the Food Safety and Inspection Service has concluded, somehow, that fresh is the opposite of frozen. Fresh is the opposite of stale or unfit for consumption or something that does not taste good. The fact of the matter is, this poultry is being sold in California that is being processed in Mississippi or Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, Delaware--Senator Biden talked about his industry there. We would not be able to see our poultry processors ship any poultry into the California market because of this rule. The rule as promulgated is that it has to be at no less than 26 degrees, flat 26, no variance, no exceptions. Think about a truck going across the country to California and you have to maintain that exactness. There is going to be a patrol of inspectors waiting on you from California to see if you have met these strict rules? They need to reexamine it. The amendment says no funds will be used to enforce this regulation until they review it. That is what we insist upon.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time under the agreement as I may consume. The debate about special grants and research projects for agriculture is not a new debate. There have been differences of opinion about how much should be allocated for basic research, how much should be in applied research, whether the Agriculture Research Service Federal laboratories ought to do it all, whether State land-grant universities and the experiment stations attached to them should do some of the research and, if so, how much? What is the role of State government in all of this? Do they have an obligation to participate? Are matching funds to be required in every instance for research and the construction of research facilities? There are a lot of different issues involved in the agriculture research portion of this bill. We have tried to carefully review the requests this committee has received from Members of Congress, from outside groups, from others--the administration in its budget request. We have considered their suggestions to try to have a careful and thoughtful balance among all of these competing interests and to do it in a way that safeguards the interests of the taxpayers that their dollars not be wasted. There is no question that this bill is loyal to the responsibility of assuring that these dollars are invested to benefit American agriculture. They are not boondoggles. They are not pork barrel projects with no merit. As a matter of fact, many studies have documented the substantial public benefits which result from these investments in agriculture research. We need to maintain our technological advantage in American production agriculture to help ensure that our farmers can continue to operate profitably and protect the soil and water resources we have that are in many cases very fragile. And so we have a lot at stake in how these dollars are spent. We want them to be spent correctly. The debate really is in some instances not on whether the research ought to be done but who does it and who decides who does it. This argument about peer review is suggesting that those who are the self- styled and self-anointed experts decide. As Members of the Congress we have the responsibility of ensuring the careful and frugal expenditure of public taxpayer dollars so we are directly accountable and answerable to the public for any appropriation of funds along these lines that we approve. I am not ready to delegate the responsibility that the people of my State of Mississippi have entrusted in me to come here and help ensure that our State's interests, our State agriculture interests are taken into account in the research decisions that are made. I am not going to delegate to some fancy group of scientists in some other State the authority to decide where the tax dollars that are paid by Mississippians are spent in agriculture research. I am not sure they will always come down on the side of the agriculture interests that we have in our region. So I wish to continue to play a role in it, and to do that we have to continue to exercise our responsibilities as Members of the Congress to determine how our tax dollars are spent. That is what this bill does. It gives our colleagues and this Senate, a voice in where these dollars go and for what they are spent. The argument for competitive peer-review grants versus special grants, in my opinion, focuses on who is going to make the decisions regarding the allocation of Federal funds among competing legitimate demands. There is competition between the experiment stations, land-grant institutions, and other institutions. It has been suggested that since each system has strengths and weaknesses, the arguments about the merits of the system should be cast in terms of the relative mix rather than their absolute merit. But we think we have done a good job. Mr. President, $707 million for basic and applied research in this bill will be conducted at Federal laboratories, $40.7 million will go to special grants, and $99.5 million will go to competitive grants through the National Research Initiative. We think special grants play an important role because they address special local and regional needs. The authority for these special grants is spelled out in the law, Public Law 86-106. This authority provides that grants may be awarded to State agriculture experiment stations, land-grant colleges, universities, and other qualified institutions for the purposes of facilitating or expanding ongoing State-Federal food agriculture research programs. Those who argue against these special research grants suggest that just because they are recommended by Members of Congress they have no merit or not as much as if they had been recommended by somebody else. I disagree with that. And so I think this is based on an erroneous assumption. The Senate ought to reject the amendment. I argue strongly for Senators to oppose the amendment offered by the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, there will be no further votes this evening. However, Senators who intend to offer amendments must remain this evening to debate those amendments, and any rollcall votes ordered with respect to the amendments would occur beginning at 9:45 a.m., in a stacked sequence. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I modify the request to include the right of the Senator from North Dakota to modify his amendment to show a different offset on tomorrow.

Mr. COCHRAN. I respect the suggestion. I have no problem including that in this agreement if the Senator would like to insert that in this agreement.

Mr. COCHRAN. I am not agreeing to support the amendment, that is what I am saying.

Mr. COCHRAN. That accurately reflects my assurance and the understanding I would be happy to have with the Senator.

Mr. COCHRAN. I do not think it is necessary with that understanding.

Mr. COCHRAN. I think the Senator could be assured we would not arbitrarily refuse such a request.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, USDA's own study, conducted by the Agricultural Research Service, demonstrated that consumers cannot detect any quality differences between poultry chilled to 26 degrees and poultry chilled to lower temperatures. The Food Safety and Inspection Service based its rule on assertions generated through a well orchestrated public relations campaign by those who would benefit from this new rule. In effect, the agency is saying that although it cannot control temperatures under ideal conditions in a laboratory, the poultry industry must not let their products reach a temperature just 1 degree under 26 or the products will be declared out of compliance and mislabeled. I urge Senators to vote against the California Senators' motion to table.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, how much time remains on each side?

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden].

Mr. COCHRAN. I am happy to yield the distinguished Senator 8 minutes, Mr. President.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am happy to yield time to my distinguished friend and colleague from Alabama [Mr. Heflin]. How much time would the Senator request, 5 minutes? Ten minutes?

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the distinguished Senator has completed her statement at this moment, I will be happy to yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers].

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield such time as the distinguished Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor] would like to have on this issue.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I was prepared to yield some time to the distinguished Senators from Arkansas. I am going to let them decide which one goes first.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Faircloth].

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I am happy to respond. The Appropriations Committee has been questioning witnesses from the administration on this issue for some time. I can remember 2 years ago, the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers] was chairman of this subcommittee. At our regular hearing on the budget request this came up. We have talked about it. It is not a new issue. The issue is not whether we want to ensure that these food products are safe and healthy and do not in any way jeopardize human health because there is no question about that. This does not in any way put at risk any consumers. All we are saying, as the distinguished Senator from Mississippi so eloquently put it--we are asking for time to review this in the Committee on Agriculture, for example, on which the Senator has served. We have not had hearings, as Senator Lott pointed out. And the Agriculture Committee, that has jurisdiction over this legislation, ought to look at it and ought to have an opportunity to be heard in some official way, in my view, as controversial and as far-reaching and as unfair as many say this is; that it is protectionist regulation and that the administration has simply ignored some of the facts about how this poultry industry does business and what is used, in terms of chilling, to protect consumers, really.

Mr. COCHRAN. I thought the Senate would benefit, Mr. President--I will reclaim my time--from a point of view which apparently is a thoughtful point of view by someone who is a recently retired university professor in the subject of food and nutrition. Mr. President, I want to yield to my distinguished colleague from Mississippi such time as he may require. Exhibit 1 Northridge, CA, April 21, 1995. Senator Thad Cochran, Chairman, Appropriations Committee, USDA, Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Cochran: I am interested in the frozen/fresh chicken controversy. I have recently retired as a University Professor of Food and Nutrition. As a consumer, I find little difference in the frozen and unfrozen chicken with regard to the state of thawing. The only chickens which are completely thawed, regardless of state of origin, are, for the most part, those on periodic price reduction sales. It has been my experience that wholly thawed at purchase chickens are often those which have been in storage the longest. These frequently have less flavor. I prefer partially frozen (that is, not totally thawed) chicken when I purchase chicken, as chicken fat develops rancidity rather quickly. There are local differences in color of fat preferences by consumers and California chickens have a generally more yellow colored fat than southern chickens. If a chicken is going to sit 3 or 4 days between harvest and sale, it would probably be preferable that it be frozen, no matter the point of origin. It would be unfortunate if partially frozen chicken could not be sold at a regular price. Sincerely, Ann R. Stasch.

Mr. COCHRAN. I know it is a big State.

Mr. COCHRAN. I have the right to the floor now, but I do intend to yield to a Senator, as the Senator from California has yielded to a Senator on her side. It was my intention to yield to a Senator on our side, but I will be glad to yield to my colleague for a question.

Mr. COCHRAN. I will be happy to yield for a question. I have other Senators I want to yield to for purposes of----

Mr. COCHRAN. It is from Dr. Ann R. Stasch, who lives, according to the return address, in Northridge, CA. She writes it to me, Senator Thad Cochran, ``Chair,'' she says, ``of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.'' Dear Senator Cochran: I am interested in the frozen/fresh chicken controversy. This is a handwritten letter. This is a handwritten letter. I have recently retired as a University Professor of Food and Nutrition. As a consumer, I find little difference in the frozen and unfrozen chicken with regard to the state of thawing. The only chickens which are completely thawed, regardless of state of origin, are, for the most part, those on periodic price reduction sales. It has been my experience that wholly thawed at purchase chickens are often those which have been in storage the longest. These frequently have less flavor. I prefer partially frozen (that is, not totally thawed) chicken when I purchase chicken, as chicken fat develops rancidity rather quickly. There are local differences in color of fat preferences by consumers and California chickens have a generally more yellow colored fat than southern chickens. If a chicken is going to sit 3 or 4 days between harvest and sale, it would probably be preferable that it be frozen, no matter the point of origin. It would be unfortunate if partially frozen chicken could not be sold at a regular price. Sincerely, Ann R. Stasch.