June 25, 1999

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) wants fast-track authority for the upcoming round of international trade talks in Seattle, WA, and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) believes a priority for the round is settling the dispute over agricultural biotech products.

Lugar urged the Clinton Administration to make fast track authority a priority. Clinton "must have fast track negotiating authority," he said. "The thought that these agreements could be amended by each member of the Senate indefinitely is daunting and may make it impossible for other countries to take serious many of the arguments" U.S. negotiators make.

Both Harkin and Lugar stressed the importance of resolving problems other countries have with biotechnology and its effect on agriculture. "This is an entirely new technology and an increasingly important one." Many of the new varieties of corn, soybeans, cotton and other products have been approved for use in the United States and are an increasingly large part of the production mix. The implication is that they must be accepted by other countries as imports.

Harkin said the European Union's refusal to accept products from certain varieties of genetically modified corn "illustrated how disruptive disagreement son regulating and approving biotechnology can be. Clearly there is an urgent need to find agreement on rational, scientifically sound systems for regulating and approving agricultural biotechnology products The development of new products is only going to increase and at an ever rapid rate."