Fortunately, when it comes to meat and poultry, I have the really wonderful situation of having producers and processors that produce and process a very high-quality product.
I never would have believed as a candidate for the U.S. Senate that the U.S. government could buy GM without a hearing, with no vote, yes or no. There are billions and billions of dollars at stake here.
In this day and age when we do so much business in foreign trade, we need the ability to identify trace an animal very quickly, identifying where it came from - where it has been, and where it is at today.
One of the things that I always say about bioterrorism, whether it's ourselves at the federal level, folks at the state level, or folks in the private industry, we've done many great things, especially since 9/11.
Our job is to ensure that meat and poultry products are safe, wholesome, accurately labeled for the benefit of the American consumers, and to make sure that they are in compliance with all federal laws.
Science is the international language, so when we are able to convince countries that good decision-making for human health and animal health is based upon science, that's a real success story for us.
The big producer is going to figure out how to deal with whatever the rules are, but the little guy who is running a few hundred units or maybe feeding 1,500 cattle a year, how will they ever comply with these requirements?
