John Block Reports from Washington

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by Monsanto, and John Deere. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary—

As a farmer, we understand that if you have something that doesn’t work, you fix it. It will just cost you money if you ignore the problem. Somehow, the federal government doesn’t seem to understand that common sense fact.

The Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) law was first passed in 2002. Canada and Mexico have been challenging the law now for 13 years. The World Trade Organization just this week ruled it to be a violation of U.S. international trade obligations. We are a member of the WTO and therefore should live within the rules. That is our obligation, and we expect other countries to do the same.

This week, for the third time, the WTO ruled against us. That ruling gives Canada and Mexico the legal right to retaliate. Canada already has a list of proposed restrictions which will result in a dramatic cut in our exports to Canada and Mexico. That is serious. Canada and Mexico are our number 1 and 2 export markets. Besides, they are our closest neighbors.

Senator Pat Roberts (KS) had this to say: “If Congress doesn’t act swiftly, retaliation will wreak havoc on the U.S. economy.” I think we should be aware that if we don’t fix this law, it will cost us millions of dollars in ag exports as well as other exports.

The law today requires that a calf born in Canada, if shipped to the U.S., would see that meat label read “Born in Canada, raised and slaughtered in U.S.” Can you imagine the cost and confusion that can cause? What about the Montana farmer that imported Canadian calves and mixed his own U.S. calves with the Canadian calves? By law, he would have to keep track of them and market them separately. The U.S. processing plant would have to process them separately. That’s the only way to make sure that Canadian label was on the Canadian steak.

Consumers say they have the right to know where that animal has been. Why? It isn’t worth the hassle. USDA just released new study results that point out the COOL labeling policy costs consumers nearly 8 billion dollars over 10 years.

We don’t need to try and change COOL. We’ve tried that before. COOL isn’t cool. Get rid of it.

If you would like to review my radio shows going back more than 20 years, just go on-line to www.johnblockreports.com. Have a great weekend.

Until next week, I am John Block from Washington, D.C.