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Release No. 0166.04

**of**

**Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services J.B.
Penn's**

**Discussion Regarding Japan with the Press**

**Washington D.C.**

**April 26, 2004**

**UNDER SECRETARY J. B. PENN:** \"Let me say that I think all of you
know that we have had discussions with the Japanese concerning their
closing their market to our beef since December 23 or soon thereafter.
And we\'ve gone back and forth in those discussions. And so we got to
the point where we thought we could fruitfully have another set of
discussions last weekend, and we did. We took a delegation there, and I
think you\'ve seen on the website the members that went, so I won\'t
repeat that.\
\
\"And the Japanese government had a similar delegation, and I think it
made the point that this issue has become of interest to not only
agriculture and not only trade, but other parts of the government as
well. So we wanted to recognize that.\
\
\"We went into the discussions over the weekend without any
preconditions, and we did discuss all of the issues that we have. As you
know and as you\'ve widely reported, they have certain views on what
constitutes scientific amelioration measures and what needs to be done
to maintain food safety.\
\
\"And we have certain views on those same sorts of things. So we
discussed those issues.\
\
\"And we also, once again, explained all of the things that we have done
since December 23. And we talked about the epidemiological investigation
again and fully explained that. We talked about the actions that we have
taken in two main regards \-- that we have greatly strengthened the
barrier protecting human health\--that is, to make sure that none of the
infected tissue can get into the food supply.\
\
\"And that focuses on SRMs and animals over 30 months of age.\
\
\"And we talked about the barrier that we\'ve got to make sure that
there\'s no spread of this disease in the animal herd. And that\'s the
strengthening of the feed ban and the other things that we have done
that FDA has announced.\
\
\"And then we talked about our enhanced surveillance system and how we
have identified the high-risk population and how we\'re going to be
sampling a high proportion of the high risk population and how we think
that that\'s more than sufficient to detect the extent and prevalence of
the disease in the livestock herd if we have it.

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\"So after having aired our issues on both sides, we did come to an
agreement on a process on steps by which we believe we can get trade
resumed. And rather than this being an endless process, we decided on a
time frame that we felt was appropriate. So we are going to start the
process almost immediately, and we\'re going to try to end it then in
the summer.\
\
\"And during that period of time we\'re going to establish a technical
working group, and we\'re going to each side nominate to the other side
a certain number of technical experts. But we\'re going to try to have
the first meeting in May and then another meeting in June and then to
try to have a final meeting in July.\
\
\"Now Kenijiro Sausae from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Director
General there, is going to look over the process from the Japanese side,
and I\'m going to look over it from our side. And so at the end of July
we\'ll take the work of the working group, and then we\'ll review it,
and the Japanese side will review it.\
\
\"And ultimately this work goes to the Japanese Food Safety Commission
which is their independent third party group charged with food safety.
And so they will review and determine what, if any, changes need to be
made in the Japanese regulations.\
\
\"And that would involve testing and SRM removals and those sorts of
things. And then they are the ones who say to the other agencies in the
Japanese government, here are the regulations that need to be changed.\
\
\"So that\'s sort of the process that we\'ve got worked out.\
\
\"Now another thing that\'s very, very important is that we want this to
be an open and transparent process. We want to communicate the technical
discussions to consumers in Japan and to consumers here as well. But
it\'s very important that we establish a scientific basis for however we
go forward, and we want the Japanese consumers certainly to understand
that.\
\
\"We are going to be talking about with this technical group, the list
of topics that\'s in the little joint press statement in the website.
But it is, the definition of BSE and the various testing procedure, the
definition of SRMs, appropriate surveillance, feed regulations, risk
categorization, status of countries, and other issues including products
that can be safely traded\-- the risk categories for products and that
sort of thing.\
\
\"And I think that\'s it. I think that we\'ve got the process
established, and we\'re going to focus on the science and try to work
our way through this. And at the end of this process we would hope that
most of the beef trade resumes under conditions that the Japanese
consumers can certainly be assured of its safety just as our consumers
are assured of the safety of U.S. beef.\
\
\"So that\'s it.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"This is an obvious question, I guess. If I didn\'t ask
it, everybody else would. August?\"

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**PENN:** \"In the press release, we used 'summer' because we don\'t
want to say it\'s got to be done by a certain date and then you miss by
two days and then you guys would come back and say 'you missed your
deadline', you know. But, you know, when summer ends and \-- and so
we\'re shooting to use May, June, July, August to wrap this up.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Wrap it up by the end of August?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Again, end of summer.\"\
**\
QUESTION:** \"When you say \"wrap it up,\" meaning the consultations or
decision by the Japanese government on taking the first step to our
trade?\"\
**\
PENN:** \"Well, I think we want to try to get all of the working group
activities done by July, and then we want to make that information
available to the Japanese authorities just as quickly as we can
thereafter. And it will take them some time to of course review and
evaluate the information.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"So then it could be far beyond summer before trade
potentially resumes.\"\
\
**PENN:** \"My anticipation is that we\'re talking about summer.\"\
**\
QUESTION:** \"You\'re talking about resuming trade before fall\-- in
other words, before September?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Now, guys, just look at the press release, if you will. I
don\'t have it in front of me, but it says \"resumption of the
importation of both American and Japanese beef by some time around
summer.\" And that ambiguity is on purpose.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"There\'s a key thing in there \-- Japanese beef.\"\
\
**PENN**: \"Um-hum.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Well, they\'ve had a lot of cases of mad cow disease. So
is our approval or our lifting our, U.S. lifting the ban on Japanese
beef intrinsic to this deal?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"No. Now these are not linked because as you said they\'ve
had 10 or 11 or 12 cases. We\'ve had one case. They\'ve taken certain
amelioration measures; we\'ve taken certain amelioration measures. And
then out of all of that, you get a risk category for our country. And
then you resume trade based on the classification of the country as to
the risk.\"\
\
\"And so these are not linked. But we do have a process by which the
Japanese will make application to resume exports to the U.S. market, and
we\'ll go through the scientific regulatory process that we have. We\'ll
use sound science, and we\'ll come to a conclusion just as we\'re asking
them to do for resuming importation of our product.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"And had they raised that before, or was that a new
request?\"

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**PENN:** \"They have raised it before.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"And last, well a week or two ago you said you were
hoping there\'d be some \--\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Well, we are having these discussions, and I think the fact
that we\'re having scientific discussions, and the discussions are among
technical experts, exhibits considerable flexibility. I think they want
to learn as much as they can about this disease and all of the new
things that have developed over the past few years and about our
regulatory process and our measures, and we certainly want to learn all
we can on our side.\
\
\"So I think it\'s very beneficial to have the experts talking to each
other.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"There should be two questions here. Did they discuss
removal of SRMs from livestock feed? Let me just leave it and I\'ll ask
the next one.\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Well, there are no conditions for anything. I mean, we have
agreed to have discussions, and we\'re going to talk about SRMs and what
constitutes definitions of SRMs and what amelioration measures you take
and what kind of removal procedures you have for SRMs. We\'re going to
have our experts and their experts talk about all of those things.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Then secondly, two of the three things, actions they
have taken to enhance there have got a \[inaudible\] problem to them?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"No. But those are topics that we\'re going to discuss, and
we\'re going to explain more fully I\'m sure in the discussions what we
have done and then what the effectiveness of those measures are when
they\'re implemented.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Okay.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Minister Kamai today \--\
\
**PENN:** \"As I said, we have agreed to have these discussions and to
work through to the end of this process without any preconditions.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"So what did he say?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"I haven\'t seen his statement, but I saw a recent statement
in which he said, 100 percent testing or something equivalent. And I
think part of what we\'ll be discussing in these technical talks is, are
there different ways to get to the same level of consumer safety, to the
same assurance of a level of some consumer safety of beef?\"\
\
**QUESTION:** "Is there something equivalent?

**PENN:** "We didn't get into equivalent measures in our discussions
over the weekend. We just set up the framework whereby the experts will
sit and discuss these things.\"

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**QUESTION:** \"The 30-month age limit is key in North America, Canada,
U.S., here. I\'m going to assume when Japan agrees we want them to
accept beef from cattle under 30 months of age. But there\'s been all
this controversy about them finding \--\
\
\"Is that a key issue? Are they going to \--\"\
\
**PENN:** \"No. But it\'s a very good question because you\'re getting
to the very kinds of issues and how they are interlinked that the
experts are going to be discussing. When I\'m talking about us
discussing the definition of BSE and the kind of screening measures and
confirmatory tests you use, that\'s getting exactly to this question.\
\
\"The Japanese talk about 30 months because they claim to have found two
animals that had BSE under 30 months of age.\
\
\"Now, the main BSE testing laboratory in Weybridge, England, won\'t
confirm that those two animals had BSE because the Japanese used one
kind of test, and other people use another kind of test as the gold
standard. So we want to talk about which test should you use to
absolutely, positively say that you have a case of BSE.\
\
\"And we want to be able to agree on that rather than one country using
one kind of test and another country using another kind of test. Let\'s
agree on what we\'re going to say constitutes a case of BSE.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Is that in other words, harmonizing?\
\
**PENN:** \"Well, in that sense \--\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"I mean in general.\"\
\
**PENN:** \"No, no, in that sense we are moving to harmonize, and we do
that anyway. We have the guidelines from these international
standard-setting bodies which are the reference points. I mean, they\'re
the points of harmonization if you will.\
\
\"And under trade you\'ve got to have standards, especially for sanitary
and phytosanitary issues. And we\'re looking to, in animal trade, the
OIE; and in the plant trade we look to the International Plant
Protection Convention; and then processed food products we look to the
Codex. So those are the three standard-setting bodies that we hope will
provide standards that everybody will follow.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Did they give you any indication at all that they were
willing to back away from their current stands? Outside of the fact that
they agreed to talk about definitions. Did they give you any indication
that they would move away from their hard-line stance, for instance, on
testing all U.S. animals?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Well, the implication is that we discuss all of these
technical matters and we see where the received science is, and then we
think that their independent food safety commission will evaluate that
information and will render some opinion there.\"

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**QUESTION:** \"What animal ID? Did they raise \--\"\
\
**PENN:** \"No. That was not raised in our discussions on the
weekend.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"And previously have they?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Not to my recollection.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Just as a housekeeping thing, the name of the \--\"\
\
**PENN:** \"The exact spelling, it\'s S-A-S-A-E. But the first name and
the title are on the website in that joint press release. He\'s the
first name listed, and he\'s the director general in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"And the other guy is \-- our guy who will be \--\"\
\
PENN: \"Well, I\'m going to be the counterpart for our side, but that\'s
for the overall talks. Now the working group will be composed of experts
from the U.S. and from Japan, and then they\'ll have independent
meetings, and then they\'ll report to the two of us their results at the
end.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"And how many will it be, and who will they be?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"We don\'t know that yet. I mean, obviously I just got back
at 10:00 last night and just got here. But we want to, if this group is
going to have its first meeting in May we\'ve got to have that worked
out very quickly. So we\'re going to be talking about it, but it will be
people who have expertise of course in these issues. And we think it
will largely be made up of government experts. But we are not excluding
the possibility that we\'ll have somebody from outside government on
this.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"What role does Canada play in this? Presumably if U.S.
beef, they start buying U.S. beef, they\'d be more open to Canadian as
well. Is it something, is it solely a U.S. effort, or do you have
Canadians working on this too?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Well, of course we have constant discussions with our
Canadian counterparts. And as you know and as we\'ve said repeatedly,
we\'re trying to harmonize our regulations with Canadian regulations. So
if we are able to further reach clarification with the Japanese on
matters, then I would think that that would bode well for Canadian trade
as well.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Do you think there\'s \-- would you feel comfortable in
telling livestock producers that there is a possibility that they could
sell beef to Japan by fall?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Well, I would certainly say that that is our hope and
that\'s our expectation. But I have to say that these highly complex
discussions, and things can go awry along the way.\"\
\
**\"MS. HARRISON:** \"We need to wrap up so he can get ready for his
next meeting. Is there a last question?\"

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**QUESTION:** \"Did Creekstone come up?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"There was some discussion of having companies do 100 percent
testing for the Japanese market on a voluntary basis under a BEV type
program.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"And the outcome of that was?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"It was just discussion. I mean, we didn\'t \-- we of course
didn\'t go anywhere with that.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Can I ask a real quick -- Did the Japanese express
concern about live cattle coming into the U.S., and does that vary with
the Japanese? And have you heard the \--\"\
\
**PENN:** \"Okay. That\'s a three-part question. The answer to the first
question is, no. That didn\'t come up. And these matters are not linked
at all. I mean, the live cattle case is a U.S. regulatory process, and
that\'s not linked to Japan. And we\'ve not heard anything about the
cotton case. Not a word.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Let me just clarify that. So they\'re not worried, Japan
is not worried about Canadian live cattle coming into the U.S.?\"\
\
**PENN:** \"I can\'t speak for the Japanese and what they\'re worried
about. \"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Well, but they didn\'t express any great concern\--\"\
\
**PENN:** \"I answered his three-part question. It was not raised with
us. It wasn\'t a part of our discussion over the weekend.\"\
\
**QUESTION:** \"Okay, good. Thanks.\"