34 



be named. Under the law they should be from every State on the 

 border, Governors and local officials, lay people, academic people. 

 Certainly this is an opportunity to begin the process. 



Also as my friend, the distinguished chairman of the Science 

 Committee, remembers, we provided legislation in the Initiative for 

 the Americas which is on the books to create a Center for North 

 American Studies which we hope would be related to all of the as- 

 pects of North America, but geared more to agriculture. It provides 

 for a possible consortium of universities and colleges. That's also 

 available. 



Unfortunately, all of this entails funding. Hopefully with your 

 help and that of Mr. Panetta and all of the members here, we 

 might fund it. There's also a little bit of money to be gotten from 

 the merchandise transfer fee — which we probably need to visit 

 some more. We don't have to reopen NAFTA; it's there but; no one 

 has noticed it. Every organization on the border supports retaining 

 it. Mexico has a similar one. Ours goes to the general Treasury, 

 Mexico's goes to their customs, and the Secretary for environmental 

 concerns in Mexico is agreeable that on the Mexican side those 

 moneys should be devoted in part to environmental and infrastruc- 

 ture needs on the Mexican side. 



We do hope that you avail yourself of existing law with the Good 

 Neighbor Environmental Board. It is an excellent opportunity for 

 the President to put in people of his choosing from along the bor- 

 der. This is true also for the Center for North American Studies, 

 so that we may coordinate some of the existing law in relation to 

 research and development, because the best is yet to come in re- 

 search as far as agriculture is concerned, Mr. Ambassador. 



We will now pick up some of the members that have come back, 

 if you have questions. 



Mr. Dooley. 



Mr. Dooley. Thank you. 



Mr. Ambassador, I just thank you for coming by. I also want to 

 state that a lot of us who are representing the agricultural commu- 

 nity are concerned with some of the budgetary cuts that are pro- 

 posed in the Agriculture Committee which basically will result in 

 going from $21 billion down to $10 billion. It's certainly going to 

 challenge the industry, but I think it's a challenge which we accept. 



But what I think is absolutely necessary when we move down 

 this path is that our farmers can compete with farmers in any 

 other country in the world, but we have to have fair access to mar- 

 kets. While a lot of us who are representing the industry are going 

 to support the reductions and the change in some of the farm pro- 

 grams, if we don't get the solid support from this administration 

 on breaking down unfair trade barriers and opening markets to us, 

 it's inevitably going to lead to widespread bankruptcy in the farm 

 sector. 



I applaud the administration's stand in some of your recent com- 

 ments on NAFTA, because that's the future for the agricultural in- 

 dustry, the international marketplace. We are dealing in the inter- 

 national marketplace, and hopefully you will be very diligent in 

 pursuing some of the obvious inequities and unfair barriers, be 

 they Japan, be they the EC, or perhaps when we look at some of 

 the side agreements that are going to be considered with NAFTA, 



