Country of Origin Labeling Passes 2005 Legislature!

• Read a letter to the editor about the COOL bill

The Story of HB 406

On Wednesday April 13, 2005, the Montana House gave final approval to HB 406, the Montana Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) Act. The bill was shortly thereafter signed into law by long time COOL supporter, Governor Brian Schweitzer. It had taken three sessions and six years to get the job done.

HB 406, sponsored by Rep. Bob Bergren (D-Havre) and Senate President Jon Tester (D-Big Sandy), will require that meat sold in Montana be labeled as to its country of origin, starting September 2006. The bill will also allow Montana ranchers to label their products as "Made in Montana" to give consumers the opportunity to buy high quality Montana-raised beef, lamb, pork, and poultry. This bill will give a boost to and add value to Montana agriculture.

Along the way HB 406 experienced all the high drama that makes politics both the best, and worst of times: The saga began in the House Agriculture Committee where a standing room only crowd gathered to speak for the bill, including Cottonwood Resource Council member Diane Clayton. The bill had many supporters including CRC, Northern Plains Resource Council, Montana Cattleman's Association (MCA) and R-CALF. It was opposed by Montana Retailers Association and National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA). The bill passed out of the Agriculture Committee on February 18 with a 12 to 8 vote. It was a promising beginning.

But once the bill hit the House floor, Rep. Jim Peterson (R-Buffalo), past Vice President of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, the Montana affiliate of the NCBA, attached a lethal amendment that would require Montana to seek an opinion from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the state's legal authority to adopt labeling. A negative opinion from USDA would in effect then kill the bill. The bill was suddenly in trouble. This was a bad amendment, but even pro-COOL representatives voted "yes" just to keep the bill alive. HB 406, with the Peterson Amendment, passed out of the House on March 17 on an 81 to 16 vote.

The bill was then sent to the Senate where we hoped to get the Peterson Amendment dumped.  Accordingly, Northern Plains and CRC members swung into action to support hard working, incredible Northern Plains lobbyists Michele Reinhart and Cody Ferguson. Shirley Layne, Susan Metcalf, and Patty Agnew -- aided by Governor Schweitzer and Montana Department of Agriculture Director Nancy Peterson -- donned aprons with pro- COOL slogans to pass out trays of Montana meatballs, Montana wheat buns, Montana honey with plenty of COOL facts. After being inundated by e-mails, calls, faxes and meatballs, the Senate Agriculture Committee stripped the Peterson Amendment from HB 406 and sent it onto the Senate Floor by a 5 to 4 vote. Things were looking up.

On April 6 a motion by Senator Keith Bales (R-Otter) to reconsider the Peterson Amendment on the Senate Floor failed on a 22 to 28 vote, and the bill passed out of the Senate as amended. But Montana honey and grains had also been deleted, so the HB 406 that returned to the House was now solely about Montana meat.

We hoped we had the votes to finally win once the bill got back to the  House, but just in case, Bizz Green, Shirley Layne and Patty Agnew made dozens and dozens of cookies in the shape of cows with COOL written across them -- ready ammo for the final lobbying effort.

On the evening of April 11, we got the call that the House would vote the next day. Bizz and Patty drove to Helena early the next morning, and along with Michele and Cody pursued representatives with COOL cookies and COOL facts right up to the vote. Unbeknownst to us, the Republicans were planning a caucus, again lead by Rep. Peterson, to kill the bill.

We sat stunned as we watched every Republican representative vote "no" on the bill. Our bill was going down and would be finished right now. But THEN Representative Jack Ross (R-Absarokee), who is also the representative for Sweet Grass County's precinct #5 which includes the Agnew Ranch, swung over to the "yes" column and saved the bill by ONE vote with a 51 to 49 tally! When interviewed by the Billings Gazette, Rep. Ross said, "I told those girls I'd vote "yes" for them and I keep my word, even though they probably didn't even vote for me in the election."

On April 13, dozens of trays of cookies with anti-COOL logos, provided by the clearly out gunned Montana Retailers Association, were not enough to steady the course of the representatives, now under extreme pressure from CRC, Northern Plains, MCA, R-CALF and the intimidating COOL cow cookies.  Rep. Peterson held a meeting releasing his caucus members, telling them it was not worth jeopardizing their reelection campaigns. When the final vote was taken, even Rep. Peterson voted with the majority as the bill passed the House floor with an 80 to 20 vote! Immediately, flowers were delivered to a stunned Rep. Ross on the House floor for the phenomenal act of courage he had shown in breaking ranks with his party, single handedly saving the bill the day before. Rep. Ross said "Yesterday was a pretty lonely day, but today things are looking good again. Thanks for the flowers. You didn't have to do it. No one's ever sent me flowers."

In the end, every Sweet Grass County representative and senator ended up voting for COOL with the exception of Senator John Esp (R-Big Timber). We thanked them all in an ad in the Big Timber Pioneer the day after the vote, with special thanks to our hero Jack Ross.

 ** This is what we learned: Northern Plains Resource Council is an amazing group that works tirelessly on our behalf in Helena. They do the heavy lifting every day of the Legislative session, making lobbying for those of us that show up easy, fun and unbelievably effective. E-mails, calls and faxes are effective but it seems that when a bill is in trouble its the bodies that count and legislators pay attention to that.

And, finally, if constituents don't bother to remind the legislators who they work for, over and over and over (they have short attention spans) the lobbyists who are there daily, wining, dining, schmoozing and outnumbering the legislators 5 to 1, will have their ears and write our bills. So, in the next legislature, read the bills and get your butts up to Helena.

By Patty Agnew