Nominee Vows to Reopen Doors to U.S. Beef

Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns, President Bush’s nominee to head the Department of Agriculture, told senators during his confirmation hearing Thursday that he would work aggressively to reopen the Japanese market to U.S. beef products.

Japan, which had been the largest foreign market for U.S. beef, was among about 40 countries that cut off imports in December 2003 after a cow in Washington state tested positive for mad cow disease.

“There is going to be no letup in our efforts to reopen Japan to our beef products,” Johanns told the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. “If there is one paramount reason I am anxious to get confirmed, it’s that priority.”

But he was noncommittal about the possibility of postponing the resumption of beef imports from Canada now that a second case of the illness, known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has been discovered there. The U.S. closed its borders to Canadian beef in May 2003 after a case of the disease was discovered in Alberta. Last month, the U.S. announced it would restart imports in March.

Johanns told the committee that he would work to “aggressively come up to speed on this” and to “work with the committee.... We need to do the right things.”

The committee voted unanimously to forward Johanns’ nomination to the full Senate, making the Republican governor the first of Bush’s second-term Cabinet nominees to make it through the first step of the confirmation process.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the committee’s chairman, said the panel would hold hearings on the Canadian beef issue sometime before March 7, when a rule allowing cows younger than 30 months to be imported from Canada is scheduled to take effect.

Younger animals are considered less likely to be infected with mad cow disease, which is believed to be transmitted when animals eat contaminated feed. If humans consume meat from ill cattle, they may develop a fatal brain-wasting ailment called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Some Democrats on the committee questioned the new rule because the government knew there was a new case of mad cow disease in an older cow in Canada when officials announced the change last month.

“You’ve got an extra burden on this,” said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) “The attempt to pull the wool over producers’ eyes does not help.”

Canada’s first case of mad cow disease was discovered in May 2003. The U.S. halted imports of Canadian cows and beef products, costing Canadian producers more than $4 billion in exports.

Seven months later, the first and only case of the disease in the U.S., in a cow imported from Canada, was discovered in Washington state. The USDA agreed to lift the ban on Canadian beef last month after determining that Canada was a “minimal risk country” for mad cow disease.

Johanns did not state his views on the Canadian import question, and Canadian media are reporting that Bush assured Prime Minister Paul Martin in a phone call last Friday that his administration was committed to reopening the border.

Johanns said he would resign as governor as soon as he was confirmed. In his opening statement, Johanns talked about growing up as the son of a dairy farmer, and how he would wake at sunrise to begin chores that often were not completed until after sundown. “I will always be a farmer’s son with an intense passion for agriculture,” he said.