Posted on 03/04/2005 8:57:30 AM PST by BigSkyFreeper
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Thursday to overturn the Bush administration's decision to allow Canadian cattle into the country again nearly two years after they were banned because of mad cow disease.
The White House said Bush would veto the measure if it ever reaches his desk, warning that continuing to refuse Canadian beef would damage efforts to persuade other countries to buy U.S. beef.
The Senate's 52-46 vote was to reject the Agriculture Department's decision to begin resuming imports of Canadian cows under 30 months of age beginning next week. A similar measure has been introduced in the House, but leaders there have scheduled no vote on it.
"They've got mad cow disease," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "Now the question is, should we run the risk of opening our border to livestock imports from Canada, when the evidence demonstrates clearly they're not enforcing their regulations to reduce the risk to them and to us?"
Agriculture officials had planned to reopen the border next Monday. However, U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings granted a temporary injunction Wednesday that was sought by Western ranchers seeking to keep the ban in place.
Western ranchers saw near-record cattle prices last year and want to protect those prices by refusing Canadian cattle.
U.S. meatpackers, however, say their inability to buy Canadian cattle has cost their industry more than $1.7 billion, forcing layoffs and idling production.
The United States banned cattle and beef shipments from Canada after mad cow disease turned up in an Alberta cow in May 2003.
Some imports of Canadian boneless beef are now shipped to the United States, but the border reopening would have expanded what is allowed.
The brain-wasting disease was confirmed in two more Alberta cows last month, and the lone U.S. cow to test positive for mad cow disease also came from Canada.
Senate debate centered on how negotiations with Japan and other countries would be affected by allowing Canadian cattle shipments. Japan, a market once worth $1.5 billion to U.S. beef producers, has not lifted the ban it imposed after the U.S. cow's infection was confirmed in 2003.
"Be careful what you ask for. We will take a giant step backward in our efforts to reopen markets to Japan, or for that matter, anywhere, if we vote today to approve this resolution," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said failure to reopen the border "would impede our efforts to reopen foreign markets to U.S. beef."
Foes of the border reopening said the opposite is true.
"Somehow you're going to give Japan confidence by allowing Canadian cattle to come into this country on the heels of four examples of mad cow disease in Canada? I don't think so," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.
Dorgan pointed out Americans bought about $75 billion more in Japanese goods than the United States sold to Japan last year.
Many lawmakers are calling for trade sanctions that would make it more difficult for the Japanese to sell their goods to the United States. Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and nearly three dozen other House members on Thursday introduced a measure calling for retaliation if Japan's beef ban continues.
"They stand to lose much more than the United States," Moran said.
The Agriculture Department had planned to allow Canadian cattle younger than 30 months of age and a wider array of meat from younger animals. The infection level is believed to rise with age.
Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. People who eat tissue tainted with BSE can contract a degenerative, fatal brain disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Protectionism.
Who suffers?
Meat consumers, that's who.
Who benefits?
The Socialist Farmers, of course.
Canada, our big retarded step brother to the north.
Mad Cow disease doesn't even make my top five reasons for not importing ANYTHING from Canada.
The only good Canadian is a Canadian FReeper (and we may have to stage a rescue operation for them).
"You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in. I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being"
Bush would do the decent thing by vetoing this legislation. The U.S. cattle and beef industry can and often times is it's own worst enemy.
Anyone have the rundown of votes? I want to know who voted yea and nay.
Finding Mad Car Disease would also help.
This is the softwood lumber issue all over again, and I predict that the results are going to be the same. Keeping this ban on Canadian cattle in place is going to destroy the U.S. meatpacking industry in the long run. The reason these meatpackers have historically imported Canadian cattle is two-fold: 1) the Canadian cattle has usually been cheaper (especially when the Canadian dollar was much weaker than it is now), and 2) the U.S. has much more meatpacking plant capacity than Canada.
With this ban in place on the shipment of live cattle across the border, Canadian ranchers and western Canadian governments have started working together to streamline the process to secure approvals for new meatpacking plants north of the border. When these plants come on line, the U.S. ban on Canadian cattle is going to be meaningless -- because Canadian cattle will be processed in Canadian plants instead of U.S. plants, then shipped to the U.S. for final consumption.
So the end result will be that the influence of the U.S. cattle industry is eventually going to drive the U.S. meatpackers out of business.
Boo-hoo for big bad Tyson!
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