(Whereupon, a short recess in the was proceedings was taken.)

MR. NELSON: We will get started again. I will run through the panelists quickly. We have Senator Conrad Burns, followed by Robert Griffin, Chairman of the Grass Roots Ag Coalition; John Mott, Montana producer; Ray Raihl, and, again, I'm not sure about the pronunciation of that last name, Executive Committee Montana Feed Association; Jerry Sikorski, Chairman, Northern Plains Resource Council and also representing the Southeastern Montana Alliance; and this is a hard one, Klaas Tuininga, and that one I'm really not sure of either name on, so I might have goofed both of those up, Representative of the Schiller Institute; Greg Murphy, LaRouche Committee Representative; Don Taylor will be speaking instead of Helen Waller on behalf of the Campaign to Reclaim Rural America; Jim Schwarzt, Deputy of Director of the Wyoming Department of Agriculture; Dan Teigen representing the North Dakota Resource Council; Diana Adamson, The Montana Farmer; and Ray Gulick, who is a producer from up at Joplin. So, Senator Burns, thank you for joining us and take it away.

SENATOR BURNS: Thank you, Bruce. First of all, let me express my appreciation for the panel visiting Montana and listening to some folks out here. And I think what you've heard today -- I can imagine what you've heard, because it is the same thing I've heard as I have traveled this whole state.

Agriculture production level right now is probably in its worst shape as it's been since the Great Depression. We are actually selling our product below, if you take everything into consideration, and yet nothing is happening on the other end. And I would agree with some of my friends here that we haven't figured out a way to get more of the consumer dollar back down to the ranch, that's where it has to happen.

We talk about this great economy, and I will tell you it is not on the land. It is not on the land on any commodity, be it food production, fiber, oil, mining, not one commodity is making money. And that should concern each and every one of us because we are a commodity producing state and we are a commodity producing country. We have put so many rules, regulations, stupid and ignorant environmental laws, and things on a producer where we cannot compete with other countries who have none of those laws. And there is no way we're going to put those kinds of rules and regulations on our trading friends in foreign countries. We are not going to get that done.

So what I want to say here today is this: We are not very good at monitoring. No matter what kind of agreement you come to as the WTO or the GATT, we do not monitor very well, and we enforce worse. We have governmental agencies that will not talk to one another because they get into these silly little turf battles, just like Congress does, and we're just as bad on the hill as you all are downtown, and that's our problem. And when you go to the WTO, we want agriculture taken care of first before you settle any other of the intellectual properties, auto parts, and all this. But we have got to have some kind of settlement now.

We are dealing, how many negotiators will understand the marketing system of our foreign friends? And do those systems interoperate with our own? Do we interoperate with Canada? No, we don't. We don't even do it in the banking situation, and we sure don't as far as grain and livestock production is concerned. Have we normalized labels on pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Have we normalized grading on meats, grains? Have we normalized the transparency that should be in the market if it is a state-run marketing agency? Those are all the questions that you will have to ask, and let me tell you, I will be in Seattle with you. We're making our plans right now. But those are the questions, how well do you know their other systems and how well do you know our system? Because these systems have to interoperate.

And I want to tell you, and I'll give you a reason, there's a way to do it because I'll tell you I was in Regina, Canada. You know, I picked up the telephone and direct dialed my office, went ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, nothing happened. Because it didn't have to go through a bureaucrat.When I put my credit card down there to pay for that hotel bill, nothing happened. Because it didn't have to go through a bureaucrat. Systems have to interoperate. How well do you understand theirs and how well do you understand ours? And that's where the problem is.

So normalization of all those labels, and these are going to be tough, tough, tough negotiations. But that's the only place we can compete with the rest of the world, that they have to operate -- I refereed football for 20 years. You know what makes it a success? We all operate out of the same rule book. When I throw a flag on a kid for holding, I don't care if that kid come from a normal family, or no family, he was just holding and he gets 15 yards. And it doesn't say in the rule book any extenuating circumstances, it says holding. And that's the way we've got to be if we're going to be really good negotiators.

And thank you for coming. I'm sorry I went a little beyond my time, but I get pretty passionate about this. Thank you very much.