MR. FRIEDMAN: Greetings. My name is Bruce Friedman. My company is Southern States Forwarding. My comments pertain to raw cotton exports. And first is primarily geared toward the State of Tennessee lifted off top but is very close to me. As a quarterly process on average 205 issue phytosanitary certificates a month and these are issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Texas Department of Agriculture. It would be awfully nice if we here in Tennessee were issued (inaudible) certificates. At 40 dollars apiece, 50 dollars apiece we pay to the federal government 25 (inaudible) Texas 9200 dollars a month, or 8000 dollars a which would be revenue to the State of Tennessee to more than offset than upset the cost of (inaudible.)

There is no great inspection called for this because all the warehouses are under USDA compliance and it would make it a cost benefit to you and a speed benefit to me.

Second point, for phytosanitary certificates are the rules. If cotton comes from an area free of the pink boll worm, why does it have to be fumigated. We have rules under excerpt that state that cotton might not need to be fumigated if it's going to Peru, but it's dependent upon an import permit from China or Peru or Pakistan, whatever that import permit states supersedes whatever we have in phytosanitary rules and regulations. If I'm trying to advise the seller what to do, I don't know exactly what's going to happen until active letter of credit has been opened and that import permit is finally issued. It's a barrier to trade that makes a seller afraid to sell if he finds out after the fact that it's going to be vacuum fumigated under federal inspections as compared to no fumigation at all.

I would also like to see whether we're importing or exporting cotton, if a bale is improperly depressed to 23 or 28 pounds per cubic foot, I would like to see the whole fumigation issue being thrown out. There is no way an animal can survive inside that kind of depression and if there's a boweevil outside the bale, it's going to be obvious when you're loading or unloading, which is expected, and at that point the individual USDA officer or warehouse can reject the load and have it sent for fumigation. There are USDA officers in the field who have suggested this to me and asked me to bring it up.

Finally, the last thing I would like to ask for is you to consider refunding step two program which will help exports in cotton. Lady and gentlemen, thank you for your time. Do you have any questions?

MR. SCHUMACHER: We'll be glad to please I know it's not -- we will look into the phytosanitary certificates. That does make a whole lot of sense. I will certainly bring it up to the planning board. We'll certainly have (inaudible) that issue. Thank you.