Political Quotes

“this amendment, on its face, looks as though the Senate is being asked to vote in favor of supporting the Department of Agriculture's standards for meat inspection that include the power to shut down a plant if it is found that the product being produced contains a contaminant. In the case in Dallas, TX, the Senator cites, it was salmonella. The plant operated by Supreme Beef in that area was shut down by the Department of Agriculture and, according to testimony in the case in Texas, it was shut down solely on the basis of the fact that the product being produced contained a prohibitive level of salmonella, or some salmonella. What the court said was that the Department of Agriculture wasn't given that kind of power by the Congress to impose regulations of that kind, and that to shut down a plant there had to be some connection between the operation of the plant and the presence of the salmonella in the product. In other words, if the plant was totally sanitary, obeyed every rule of law or regulation of the Department of Agriculture for safe and sanitary operation, just because of the test, the Department was without the power under the law to shut down the plant.”