Thank you very much for attending today on short notice.
Each of you qualified your remarks by comparing yourself to the others who were about to speak or spoke before you.
The questions I ask will probably be the lightest, given that I'm, along with Mr. Hoback, the newest member to the committee with the least experience in agriculture. So just think about the following questions that will proceed from mine after I ask, and it is about COOL.
Mr. Nilsson, I should tell you that Mr. Shipley, Mr. Miller, and I had an opportunity to meet with Collin Peterson, who is the chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, when we were in Washington. We raised the issue of a reduction of $100 a head for the purchase of Canadian cattle. And the reason for this that's been given to Canadian cattlemen is the application of the COOL rules and the need to segregate cattle.
I can tell you clearly, unless Mr. Shipley or Mr. Miller had a different perception, that Congressman Peterson said that we were being basically hoodwinked, that it was an excuse to drive down the cost of cattle. And frankly, at this point, unless you have some overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we're inclined to believe that.
Having said that, however, you will have an opportunity to explain. My question is, isn't it true that U.S. packers already segregate animals of different ages for specific markets, and so how is segregating Canadian and U.S. animals different from segregating animals of different ages? And we want to know what specific changes to the lines of production U.S. packers have to do in order to segregate Canadian livestock that would cause a reduction of $100 a head in cattle in the price.
That's the easy question. The others will ask more difficult ones.