Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Then consumers can find out. If they want to purchase nongenetically engineered products, there are companies out there that are going to provide them. I think this doesn't get to where a lot of people want to get, but it gets us a long ways down the road. It will be able to define what this means and put in place a workable solution that I think people should support. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1599.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 2647, the Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2015. This is a bipartisan piece of legislation that will address some of the burdensome regulations that have arisen from legal challenges and help get our forests actively managed the way we need. For some time now we have been concerned about efforts undertaken by extreme environmental groups to twist laws to their liking. The so- called sue and settle strategy has led to policy changes decided by activists and bureaucrats. These policy changes often ignore congressional intent and fail to take into account constituent input and real facts on the ground. Additionally, this means a less transparent and less accountable regulatory process. H.R. 2647 will simplify forest management activities, thereby reducing some of this bad behavior. The bill also includes an important budgetary fix to help address the rising cost of wildfires. Just this year, the wildfires have burned hundreds of thousands of acres and caused millions of dollars of damage. H.R. 2647 will allow access for our land management agencies to the resources they need to fight wildfires without having to rob their other accounts. The current practice of fire borrowing leads to taking away resources from productively managing our forests to keep them healthy and less prone to fire. This bill would end this practice and ensure that agencies have access to the needed resources to fight wildfire disasters all year. Again, this is much-needed, bipartisan legislation that addresses many of the issues currently impacting forest management. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2647, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Schrader).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I don't believe I have any additional speakers. I could yield time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania if he wishes.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania to finish out.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to this bill. H.R. 2393 is a premature reaction to the WTO ruling against the U.S. country of origin labeling, or COOL, law. Rather than taking the time to find a workable solution, the committee passed a repeal just 2 days after the WTO issued a ruling. We understand that this needs to be dealt with. My problem with this whole process is that it just is not giving people enough time to look at this and figure out what is a reasonable solution. Most other countries have labeling. The American people want to know where their ag products come from. If we repealed this on meat, we wouldn't be able to know where meat comes from, but we would be able to know where your carrots, lettuce, and all these other things come from. They all have mandatory country of origin labeling. We understand that this needed to be worked on, and we understand that we can't get into a situation with the retaliation, but this is a rush to judgment that is not necessary because this retaliation process is going to take a while. We had the Step 2 cotton case. It went 2 or 3 years before it got resolved; this is going to go faster, but the first thing that has to happen is they have to figure out what the damage is. That is going to take them a while, a month or two, and then they are going to have to have an arbitration panel to get everybody to agree that that is exactly what it is. So this Canadian claim that there are $3 billion in economic losses due to COOL is ridiculous and is based on unsubstantiated and not publicly available data. The U.S. studies, using USDA data, have found little, if any, economic harm. As I said, more than 60 other countries, including Canada, have their own version of COOL. In fact, Canada has a host of protectionist agriculture laws in place that damage the U.S. dairy, poultry, and egg sectors. The Canadian system puts U.S. products at a disadvantage every day. And yet, the Canadians take issue when we try to give consumers additional information on where their meat comes from, claiming it disadvantages Canadian producers. Additionally, consumers are demanding more and more information about where their food comes from and how it is produced. The WTO has repeatedly ruled that COOL is a legitimate goal. Rather than abandon our efforts to provide consumers with this information, we need to have the time so we will be able to find a reasonable solution to work this out without WTO sanctions. I believe it can be done, and it can be done in fairly short order. So, as I said, my biggest problem is that this bill is premature. I urge my colleagues to oppose it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree).

Mr. PETERSON. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. PETERSON. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Schrader).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, I don't think anybody on our side wants to have retaliation, but, again, we believe this is premature right at this moment. We don't know how much damages are going to be found, if any. We just feel that repeal is not where we are going to end up and where we should end up. We understand this needs to be fixed, but I think there is another way to do it short of repeal. At this point, because of that, I encourage people to vote against the bill. I kind of understand where this is going, but, as it gets over to the Senate, we will figure out a way to work through this so that we end up not having any retaliation. We still have a system where people can figure out where their food is coming from. It would be ironic, if this repeal would happen to get through the Senate and signed by the President, you wouldn't be able to find out where your chicken or beef or pork came from, as I said earlier, but you will be able to find out where all the other ag products come from, which I think most consumers would see as kind of ridiculous. I encourage my colleagues to oppose the measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.