James M. Talent: “I rise also to talk a little bit about country-of-origin labeling. I guess I ought to tell the Senate, first, why I am…”

“I rise also to talk a little bit about country-of-origin labeling. I guess I ought to tell the Senate, first, why I am inflicting my opinions on this subject on the Senate. I have the honor of chairing the Subcommittee on Marketing, Inspection, and Product Promotion of the Agriculture Committee. I was not told, when I was given that assignment, that it included supervising the implementation of the country-of-origin labeling law, a law the Congress passed before I was here and on which I did not have an opportunity to express my opinion. I know feelings run high regarding that law. I have had the opportunity to study the issue, and I have tried, from the beginning, to be an honest broker in this whole process, just to try to see that this law--which was passed before I got here and which is part of the law now--is implemented in a way that accomplishes what it was originally intended to accomplish. In the course of doing that, I have, of course, read that statute. I have had a chance to talk to several of the Senators who were instrumental in writing it. It is pretty clear, from the statute, the gist of what the Congress intended. It is like reading an essay quickly; you sort of get the gist of it. The problem I will get to in a minute is, when you go into the details of it, a lot of it is rather vague. That is going to raise problems in the implementation unless we do something. But I think the gist of it is pretty clear.…”