Chuck Grassley: “So my colleagues are clear, once again to repeat, Senator Kohl and I listened very carefully to the concerns expressed…”

“So my colleagues are clear, once again to repeat, Senator Kohl and I listened very carefully to the concerns expressed by companies and groups that contacted us about S. 1759, the original Agriculture Competition Enhancement Act--we call that ACE for short-- and in response to those concerns, we made significant changes and elimination to the language which has been incorporated in this amendment. This amendment does not make any substantive changes in antitrust laws. I am going to address that a little more specifically because that is one of the things we have heard against this amendment. Maybe it would be an applicable criticism of the bill but not of this amendment. Also, there is no mandatory adoption of the task force recommendations on the guidelines to which I have referred. The constitutional issues raised have been taken care of and more contentious provisions have been eliminated. The bottom line is the concerns that were raised by certain companies, as well as the Justice Department and the FTC, about our previous iterations of the ACE bill have been taken care of in the amendment. The bottom line is, this amendment is very much an attempt to address everyone's concerns and to reach a fair compromise because I think we could have gone a lot further and been even a lot more aggressive in dealing with agricultural competition issues. I had a hard time convincing Senator Kohl we ought to make these changes, but he has agreed as well.”