I'll start on the concept of COOL. It certainly exists. It's both a plus and a minus. It's a plus to the extent that proponents of COOL are dissatisfied with the current regulations and would like to reopen the law and try to get some of the items that Secretary Vilsack has expressed preference for. But it's a curse because the COOL opponents are suffering from the same fatigue and are tired of waging that battle.
This battle began, for the first time, in 1996 on the House agriculture committee. It's a subject with which those members, your colleagues in the United States, are very familiar. There's just a real hesitancy to reopen it in any substantive way.
Frankly, even without the history behind the issue, the law has only been in effect for less than a year. We began compliance on October 1 of last year. I think it's probably not unreasonable to anticipate that the congressional oversight committee would like to monitor compliance for a period of time before they consider revising the underlying statute, whether that would be to expand it or contract it.
In terms of your WTO complaint, you're absolutely right, it's a time-consuming, frustrating process. The Canadian beef industry has experienced it not once or twice but thrice in terms of the EU hormone ban. We succeeded, as you know, on each of those occasions. And that's the interesting question that will arise, assuming that Canada and Mexico succeed in challenging COOL at the WTO. What will the response of the U.S. Congress be? Will it be a European Union response, whereby they just accept the retaliatory tariffs and move on? Or will they look at the underlying statute and the disruptions it has caused and correct the matter according to our international trade obligations?
We may not have a point to re-engage on COOL until that WTO process is completed.