John Thune: “I rise, too, on behalf of South Dakota's cattle producers to voice my support for country-of-origin labeling and also to…”

“I rise, too, on behalf of South Dakota's cattle producers to voice my support for country-of-origin labeling and also to express my profound disappointment in the tactics that were employed to derail country-of-origin labeling in the bill under consideration this evening. I have been a supporter of mandatory country-of-origin labeling since first being elected to the House of Representatives in 1996. I offered the country-of-origin labeling amendment in the House Agricultural Committee 2002 farm bill deliberations. Figuratively speaking, that was a bloody battle. Anyone who was in the room will tell you we spent 4 hours fighting over this issue about whether to include country-of- origin labeling in the 2002 farm bill. The truth of the matter is, even though at that particular point in the process we were not able to get included in the House farm bill, we were later on, when the bill went into conference with the Senate, the Senate adopted a provision, and we were able to retain that provision. So when the 2002 farm bill conference report was reported to the floor of the House and the Senate, it included mandatory country-of-origin labeling. It was passed overwhelmingly by the House and the Senate, put on the President's desk and signed into law. In fact, it was signed into law by the President back on May 13, 2002.…”