Voluntary COOL bill moves to full House; Senate opposition
likely
July 26, 2004
Meatingplace.com
Bill McDowell
http://www.meatingplace.com/
The House Agriculture Committee has approved a bill that, if passed, will make
the country-of-origin labeling for meat, seafood and produce voluntary.
H.R. 4576, sponsored by Representatives Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Charles
Stenholm (D-Texas), would replace the controversial mandate slated to go into
effect September 2006 with a voluntary, flexible system.
The bill was approved by voice vote during a markup of the bill July 22, and now
moves to the House floor for full consideration.
Mandatory country-of-origin labeling was included in the 2002 Farm Bill. The law
was originally slated for September 30, 2004, implementation, but lawmakers
approved a two-year delay last year. USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service last
year estimated that the cost of the implementing and maintaining the system
would be $3.9 billion, $2.4 billion of which would be borne by the U.S. meat
industry.
The American Meat Institute was quick to endorse the bill. "Repeal of the
mandatory labeling law will put choices back into the hands of consumers and
will give producers, processors and retailers the flexibility to provide country
of origin labeling if their customers see value in the added cost," said
AMI President and CEO Patrick Boyle. "Otherwise, mandatory
country-of-origin labeling is nothing more than a cumbersome government dictate
that replaces affordable
food on the table with needless bureaucratic red tape and extra costs for
consumer."
"We commend Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Minority Member Stenholm - and
all the members of the Agriculture Committee -- for their leadership and common
sense approach to this issue," Boyle said. "We look forward to House
consideration and passage of the bill and believe that it will put the market
and consumers who drive the market in charge."
However, R-CALF USA, a group of western cattle producers that has aggressively
supported mandatory COOL, said HR 4576 would be short lived and accused its
sponsors of buckling to heavy lobbying by packers, processors and retailers that
oppose COOL.
"Country-of-origin labeling (COOL) has always been met with resistance by
the House Ag Committee, primarily because of the intense lobbying pressures
applied by the nation's largest meat packers and meat processors, but when it
goes to the full floor, this Goodlatte-Stenholm bill will be examined from a
more objective point of view," said Danni Beer, COOL committee chair for
R-CALF USA. "We must not forget that while the House Ag Committee rejected
COOL during the 2002 Farm Bill debate, it was the full House that overwhelmingly
supported Congresswoman Mary Bono's (R-Calif.) COOL legislation and included it
in the Farm Bill," she added.
Beer also said the bill faces an uphill battle in the Senate. "Certain
meatpackers, processors and retailers have lined up in
support of the Goodlatte-Stenholm bill, and it was to be expected," Beer
said. "These groups lost the fight back in 2002 over mandatory COOL, and
it's in their financial interests to prevent COOL's implementation for as long
as possible, or to at least try to weaken the original COOL language as much as
they can."