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OECD Breakfast Series with Ambassador Constance Morella: High Agricultural Support and the Doha Round Moderator: Representative Jim Kolbe US House of Representatives (R-AZ)

Presentation:
Ambassador Constance A. Morella
US Permanent Representative to the OECD

Stefan Tangermann
OECD Director of Agriculture

James Murphy Jr.
Assistant US Trade Representative for Agricultural Affairs

Gregg Young
USDA Director Multi-Lateral Trade Negotiations

The event took place on Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Room B-339, Rayburn House Office Building
9:00-10:00 AM Presentation, 8:30 AM Registration & Coffee

Event Description:

Ambassador Connie Morella, US Permanent Representative to the OECD, and Stefan Tangermann, OECD Director of Agriculture, highlight OECD analysis of agricultural subsidies in OECD countries, and discuss the changes necessary to reach a successful conclusion to the Doha Round negotiations.

Biographies:

Ambassador Constance A. Morella was appointed to serve as United States Permanent Representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2003. She is the first United States Ambassador to the OECD ever to have served in the United States Congress.  From 1987 until January 2003, Ambassador Morella represented Maryland’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ambassador Morella was elected to the Maryland General Assembly in 1978 and became the first woman member of the Assembly ever elected to the U.S. Congress.  A strong supporter of economic growth through free trade, Ambassador Morella was in the forefront in the Congress on matters of trade and foreign policy.

Representative Jim Kolbe is Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, Congressman Kolbe and oversees U.S. government expenditures on international aid and relief programs, international narcotics control, anti-terrorism and U.S. participation in multilateral financial institutions.  Representative Kolbe is the acknowledged Republican leader for free trade and open markets, an impassioned advocate of Social Security reform including the creation of personal accounts, a leader and proponent of immigration reform and strengthening border security, and a fierce proponent of smaller government, lower taxes and more individual responsibility.

Stefan Tangermann is Director of the Directorate for Food Agriculture and Fisheries at the OECD.  Mr Tangermann has acted as a professor of economics and agricultural economics for twenty-five years. His academic work has concentrated, among others, on the need and options for reforming agricultural policies in OECD countries, and on strengthening the rules for agricultural trade.  Having previously taught at the University of Frankfurt/Main, Mr Tangermann has been professor of agricultural economics at the University of Göttingen since 1980.  In addition, Mr Tangermann has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture in Germany since 1976.

James Murphy Jr. is responsible for overseeing agricultural affairs at USTR, a position he assumed in June 1997. His office coordinates U.S. agricultural trade policy among all government agencies that deal with trade. He also oversees agricultural issues in the negotiation of trade agreements with foreign governments. In his seventeen years at USTR, Mr. Murphy has served as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative representing Japan, Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. Mr. Murphy has also led the U.S. delegation to the trade committee before the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. From 1978-79 Murphy served as Deputy Director, Office of International Trade, at the Department of the Treasury.

Gregg Young assumed in September 2005 the position of Director of this division in the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of USDA, which oversees and provides analysis on all issues related to the agricultural negotiations in the World Trade Organization, and the agricultural work in the OECD.   Mr. Young returned from Geneva, Switzerland, where he had completed a four year tour at the U.S. Mission to the World Trade Organization (2001-2005).
Mr. Young began has career in the Foreign Agricultural Service working on dairy policies in the Dairy, Livestock and Poultry Division.  Thereafter, he served a three year tour in the Balkans and resided in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.  During that time (1988-1991) he primarily covered Romania and Bulgaria, which was facing the extremely political and economic challenging events.  From 1991 until 1995 he served in Hamburg, Germany as Director, U.S. Agricultural Trade Office.   Upon return to Washington D.C., he joined the trade policy program area, and coordinated in the Office of Food Safety and Technical Services sanitary and phytosanitary operations, particularly with regard to the WTO.  This included active participation in Codex policy formulation.  Mr. Young currently serves as the Chairperson for the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Committee, which he has held since April 2004. 
Gregg grew up in production agricultural in Colorado, where his family raised registered Hereford beef.  He obtained a Bachelor of Science in World Agriculture at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.  He later earned a Masters degree in (Diplom) in Agricultural Economics at the Universität Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany.