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Mike Johanns will run
for Hagel's Nebraska Senate seat as the Republican candidate. Bob
Kerrey is likely to
resign his position as the president of the New School (in New York)
and run as the Democratic candidate. Both are former
governors. It should be a good show, with major highlights on
agriculture and trade.
Johanns has quite a record, and not a good one. Kerrey has been out
for a while, and will have to consider the current issues in ag and
trade anew.
As USDA Secretary, Johanns worked hard to oppose country of origin
labeling for meat, produce and seafood. Virtually everyone and
all farm groups support COOL in Nebraska. At the Johanns confirmation hearing
before the Senate in January 2005, he said he supports repealing mandatory Country-of-Origin labeling. In his own words:
On the first issue of COOL, let there be
no nuance. The Administration's position is voluntary, and that's the
position of this Secretary of Agriculture. That's about as
straightforward as I possibly can be on that.
As USDA Secretary, Johanns has been for every trade agreement
proposed. He speaks only of exports, never mentioning the imports
tanking our historic ag trade surplus. Here is what Johanns
said to the National Pork Producers Council yesterday.
So let me start with trade. We have, as you know, four trade
agreements that are queued up and ready to go—Peru, Canada, Colombia,
and South Korea. ... It's very, very important that we do everything we
can to get good information on the Hill so they can make a good
decision about the trade agreements, and my hope is: approve them, get
them to the finish line.
As USDA Secretary, Johanns worked very hard to bring Canadian cattle
into the U.S. after they discovered mad cow disease there. The
U.S. had never before allowed foreign cattle into our country when mad
cow disease was discovered.
As USDA Secretary, Johanns pushed the
effort to track every chicken and 4-H calf in the United States under
the National Animal ID System at huge cost to producers, even while
opposing labeling packages of meat as to country of origin. As USDA Secretary, Johanns has just propounded a rule to allow
cattle over 30 months of age into the U.S. The science said older
cattle are more likley to have BSE in communicable form. But USDA
says this is a North American Cattle Herd.
Yes, it will be an interesting race.
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