Thomas Daschle: “I reiterate my thanks to the Senator from North Dakota because he has been right alongside those fighting from the very…”

“I reiterate my thanks to the Senator from North Dakota because he has been right alongside those fighting from the very first. I remember during the debate on the farm bill he was in the room as we began writing country-of-origin labeling. He was extremely helpful in ensuring we did the right thing in terms of the way the legislation initially was drafted. His point is well taken. Today, we see an unusual phenomenon. It is not often producers and consumers merge, coalesce, and form the coalition they have in support of public policy. But in this case, it is one of those occurrences. One hundred and sixty organizations, consumers, producers, virtually every good government organization that cares about nutritional issues and agricultural issues, food and production issues, have joined together to say the time has come for us to do this. We have to do it now in light of BSE, in particular. Let's get this job done. The international experts convened. They, too, said there are a lot of questions out there. We need to make sure we get the right answers to those questions. I am simply saying, as a result of yet another report, we have one more reason why country-of-origin labeling should be law today.”