mr. chairman , i thank the chairman for yielding me this time . 
i would address it this way , that i am cool towards mandatory cool , not towards montana or my colleague from up there . 
we have a situation here where we have our cart ahead of our horse . 
we can not identify our meat until we can identify where it comes from . 
we have initiated a trace-back system for an animal id in this congress . 
that needs to be done first . 
i introduced that amendment in the committee on agriculture last year . 
identify where the livestock comes from first , then have the discussion about whether it is mandatory or whether it is going to be an option for our producers . 
and whether it is a benefit to us from an economic standpoint , a retail standpoint , that really needs to be looked at from the marketing perspective and the more voluntary perspective . 
but i say delay that until we know where these animals come from . 
we are going to get that done in this congress in the next couple of years , and then we can take a look at it from the perspective of what is the most legitimate approach . 
but right now we have our cart in front of our horse . 
