Thomas Daschle: “I want to talk today about several agricultural issues. First, last week, I met with John Stewart and Bill Fielding.…”

“I want to talk today about several agricultural issues. First, last week, I met with John Stewart and Bill Fielding. They run a company called Creekstone Farms that sells premium Black Angus beef cattle. Creekstone had a good marketing idea: In the wake of the mad cow scare, Creekstone thought that one way to re-open the Japanese markets, which had accounted for 28 percent of our Nation's beef exports, would be to privately test all of their cattle for BSE, or mad cow disease, at no cost to the taxpayers. The Japanese markets have been closed for several months, but they have said that they would re-open their markets for Creekstone's beef. Creekstone has built a top-notch laboratory at their headquarters in Kansas, and they have hired several full-time animal health experts. But they wanted to do this the right way, so they asked USDA to support them in their efforts. The Department actually said "no." They said Creekstone could not test. You see, USDA doesn't want to set a precedent that all beef needs to be tested.”