Senator expects labeling bill to pass

The controversial “Country of Origin” food labeling bill is expected to be debated in the U.S. Senate yet this week. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says we already seen the need for the bill.He says during the recent mad cow disease scare in Canada, two of the largest meat importers from the U.S., Korea and Japan, said they wanted verification that the meat was from the U.S. and not Canada. Harkin says the U.S. had a hard time providing the verification. A recent U-S-D-A report says the labeling will cost producers and manufacturers billions of dollars. Harkin, a democrat, agrees with his Republican counterpart Chuck Grassley, that those figures are overblown. He says they have a separate study that was done by the Congressional Budget Office that shows this is going to have minimal cost. Harkin says he expects the Senate to support the labeling bill, and expects the fight to come when it goes to conference committee to resolve differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill.