Tim Johnson

America remains the only major industrialized society in the world that does not negotiate on behalf of its citizens a better price.

The country of origin labeling law gave USDA discretion to create an audit verification system, but not a mandatory system.

Would you agree that the law prohibits on-farm mandatory animal identification and does not permit third-party mandates by packers?

Would it not make sense to maintain the prohibition on Canadian livestock and meat exports into the United States until the United States can be comfortable that they have eliminated their backlog and that their inspection regime is…

I want to welcome Under Secretary Hawks, Under Secretary Bost, Under Secretary Murano today, as well as FDA Commissioner McClellan.

I hope that USDA keeps an open mind about finding a reasonable method to, in good faith, implement country of origin labeling.

And I would only conclude that among the things the law requires is that there not be third party verification requirements for every animal in the country.

The reason you are hearing that is because they are scared to death of extraordinarily bureaucratic, red-tape filled, expensive recordkeeping requirements that the packers are telling them USDA is going to require.

And that self-verification is indeed what we do in many other labeling circumstances, whether it is school lunch programs and all kinds of other things, Black Angus, you name it.

I think they support the concept of country of origin labeling, that our consumers deserve to know the origins of the products they feed their families.

There is a widely held and growing view across much of America that the Department of Agriculture is teaming up with the packers to sandbag country of origin labeling for meat.

$200 million would be eliminated from water and sewer grants to small communities.