WASHINGTON, DC - Montana's Congressman, Denny Rehberg, denounced a House Agriculture Committee vote today that sought to denigrate Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) by making it a voluntary program. The Committee vote survived a Rehberg effort to reinstate the program’s mandatory requirement.

      "What the anti-COOL crowd did today will fail in the long run if this goofy bill ever gets a vote before Congress,” Rehberg, a member of the panel, asserted. “Reducing mandatory food labeling to voluntary labeling is a little like letting bank robbers go free on the condition that they can now volunteer not to knock off banks."

       As well as reasserting mandatory requirements in Country of Origin Labeling, Rehberg's substitute amendment would have moved up the date by one year for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to initiate the program.  Fully funded, and despite today's vote to strip mandatory requirements in the Committee, mandatory labeling is slated to begin in 2006.

       "Americans deserve a reasonable expectation that their government will protect the food supply. They thought we settled this with the Farm Bill in 2002," Rehberg added. "Mandatory labeling is about honesty, safety and trust, which is why I'll do everything I can to protect COOL from those who would corrupt this program.

       The 2002 Farm Bill required meat, fish and produce be labeled with their country of origin beginning September 30 of this year. Last year, COOL opponents failed to defund the program, but managed to stall the program's delay by two years.

       "America wants to know where the food on our tables is coming from. In fact, most of our trading partners across the globe already have their own labeling requirements, and they're all mandatory," Rehberg said. "This is going to happen, it's paid for, and COOL opponents need to face the inevitable."