MR. PECK: It makes me nervous coming down here and watching you up there because I know -- I hope we fed you well last night because a full stomach helps with contentment. And I think that's what we're all talking about as we deal with trade issues, the fact that we have many different economies throughout the world that look at these issues differently, and a lot of it is based on the need for the full stomach.

But as we deal with that, there are some issues that you'll hear about today, but I think I can summarize in talking about we do have to have harmonization of regulations, grading, and standards. That's absolutely an issue that I know you've been working on, you've got to continue to work on, and we do have to have harmonization of drugs and chemicals. And we hope that will continue to be a top priority because the standards and harmonization of drugs and chemicals are an important issue to the producers. We can't have drug costs at the 20 percent or more below what we're paying for them and be competitive when our neighbors to the north are able to have that kind of competitive advantage.

And we need to look at and recognize regional, cross-boarder, disease-free statuses. The fact that we need to be able to move our products easily across our boarder to the north as they do across our border. And I know you've worked on that. Please continue to put that as a priority issue.

We've talked about producer subsidies in countries need to be able to encourage development in agriculture and safeguard rural communities. We can't continue to lose our rural communities. In the Uruguay Round, it was agreed that the support would be allowed when it was nontrade distorting. More work needs to be done in that issue, and I'm glad to hear that you are going to move forward in that and we continue to need that action.

European Union, what a phenomenal challenge we have. European Union allowed $8 billion for export subsidies in the year 2000, while the United States is limited to $600 million. Now, we understand, with those differentials, we're dealing with a lot of countries that form the European Union, we're dealing with a lot of states that form the United States. So we have to continue to have our strength of the United States' position to continue to deal with the European Union issues.

You'll hear from Herb Karst here in a few minutes, and Herb has been working on that with the National Barley Growers and as a producer for years and has some interesting tails to tell. So continued excessive use of export subsidies by the European Union erodes the competitiveness of, of course, our agriculture industry. But on top of that, they say they don't care, take us to task, but we're going to represent our emotionalism.

But it's in the press when it comes to talking about hormones, how Montana beef has all of this stuff that's injected, and the insides of our animals are falling out in feed lots. Now, I read an article that way and it was incredible that we would have a press that would play that kind of emotionalism and that kind of flamboyancy, that would stoop to those kind of things, and then you get to deal with that when you go sit at the negotiation table. So be strong and continue to work for the limitation of nontariff barriers.

Phytosanitary, sanitary issues are continuing to surge forward. We formed negotiating agreements, we work hard on that, and then who enforces it? So we hope that the Foreign Ag Service and Jim and Sharon and Susan can unite forces in making sure our US Department of Agriculture does have oversight and does enforce and promote information, not just transfer what a foreign country brings forward to us and say these are the standards moving into our country. But, actually, we'll look at those negotiations and say we can't continue to have you violate those and take a strong stance on behalf of the producers because it is too costly for individual producer groups to step forward with millions of dollars to come out of producers' pockets when they aren't making an equitable return on their investment. To move those issues forward, we've got to step forward and do that.

Biochemical issues, market access issues, we can go on down the list, you'll hear those issues today. We thank you very much for coming to Montana. We know you are the ones that are going to be involved in these negotiations and it's a privilege that you are here to listen to these concerns because you are going to be at the table working on them. So, thank you.

MR. NELSON: Panel, any questions or comments? Okay, well, thank you, again. We're going to take about a 10-minute break. There are refreshments at the door. The first two folks on the next panel are Herb Karst and Bill Gertz.