Joint Resolution on Disapproval

JOINT RESOLUTION ON DISAPPROVAL

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the resolution that comes before us disapproving the actions of the Department of Agriculture on the importation of Canadian beef into the United States. But in doing so, I do not denigrate the efforts that are being made to have a debate on a legitimate public policy issue, but to put it in context.

First, from the standpoint of my chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee with jurisdiction over international trade, I think this is something for which we have developed policies over the last couple decades, where we have worked very hard to see that several rights can be preserved.

One, probably basic to this debate, is obviously the sovereign right of any country to make sure that it does not in any way allow products into the country that would in any way hurt the health and safety of the consumers of that particular country. I think every trade agreement takes that into consideration.

Within the last 10 or 15 years, we have worked very hard and have included in our trade agreements rules concerning sanitary and phytosanitary measures. These rules require that science, as opposed to political science, be the basis upon which we base decisions as to whether a product is safe to enter the U.S. market.

So I hope during this debate that we keep in mind that we do have commitments to rely on science when making determinations as to whether products are safe. Hopefully, each country respects that.

Particularly the United States, being a leader in the rule of law in international trade, ought to do that. But we expect every country that comes under the WTO to do exactly the same, and the same holds with other trade agreements. We also, of course, reserve the right to make sure our food is safe.

For the debate we are in now, I hope we remember that if it had not been for mad cow disease in Canada, there would never be any such discussion before the Senate because over a long period of time we had imports of beef from Canada, and we have been exporting our red meat and other food products to Canada. So if we had not had mad cow disease in Canada, then we would not be debating this issue.

So when it gets to the issue of whether mad cow disease is an issue with Canadian beef coming into the country, then let's remember that decision ought to be made strictly on the sound science of whether that meat is safe. If we are going to make a political decision in place of a scientific decision as to whether Canadian beef should come into the country, then, of course, our purity in international trade is going to be questioned by other countries.

The second point is that, during this very same period of time when we have been having this problem with Canada as to whether their meat is safe to come into the country, we have also been trying to negotiate with the Japanese because we had one mad cow case and the Japanese and other countries are not taking our beef. We have been working over the last several months to get Japan to take our beef based upon the principle that we are following the sanitary and phytosanitary rules, on a scientific basis, for making sure our meat is safe for the Japanese consumers. We do not want to get ourselves into a position where we are going to ignore the science of the safety of meat in Canada versus--

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I will finish one sentence, if I could.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. I am happy to yield the Senator an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. GRASSLEY. We do not want to get ourselves in a position of having the Japanese say to us our meat is not safe even though it is shown to be safe based on sound science. Since we want our beef to go to Japan because it is safe, then, obviously, if meat is safe coming in from Canada, it has to be received as well.

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