Peterson offers to revisit COOL
Peterson sent meat industry officials a letter June 6 asking for their participation in "an industry stakeholder process" in revising COOL, but Harkin declined to sign the letter.
House Agriculture ranking member Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Senate Agriculture ranking member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., did sign the letter, which went out with three signatures and a blank line. The letter said, "We have heard from many producers that they see the current law and regulations as too burdensome from a record keeping perspective" and that other stakeholders have said "the law will interfere with some of the branded and value-added programs that have evolved quickly over the last few years." The letter also said that "there are complexities ensuring the origin of culled cows" while pork producers are worried about the labeling of meat from feeder animals from outside the U.S.
Up to the industry
Peterson said in an interview that his office would not organize the stakeholder process or chair any meetings, so it was up to industry to take advantage of the offer. Peterson said he did not know what to make of Harkin's unwillingness to sign the letter, but he had not discussed it with him. Peterson said the letter was a last-ditch attempt to try to make the law more workable. It is now scheduled to go into effect Sept. 30, 2008, although advocate think it should be moved up.
Peterson said he thinks there are serious problems with two provisions: One requires that to be labeled American, meat must come from animals "born, raised and slaughtered" in the U.S. That causes problems in Texas, where many cows are imported from Mexico, and in Minnesota, where piglets are imported from Canada. The second provision is labeling required for ground meat, since hamburger meat usually is combined from many sources, sometimes from many countries. Peterson noted that he had voted for country-of-origin labeling, but said labeling "is problematic for certain sectors.
Peterson added that he thinks some supporters of labeling up in my part of the world are "trying to repeal trade agreements. I'm not sure it is going to work." He also said his draft letter included a provision urging the industry to explore using mandatory animal identification as part of the labeling program, but he had to take out that provision to get the Republicans to sign.
Harkin won't signA Harkin spokeswoman said that "Sen. Harkin felt it was hard to read this letter as anything but opposition to how COOL was written in the 2002 farm bill" and declined to sign the letter. A Senate Democratic aide said that the letter appeared to be written to give the impression that "there is a majority to undo COOL" as the legislation is called in agricultural circles.
Bill Bullard, CEO of the Montana-based Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund-United Stockgrowers of America, said he had received the letter from Peterson's office. Bullard, who two weeks ago expressed disappointment that a subcommittee markup of the farm bill did not include measures to encourage competition among cattle buyers, said in a telephone interview, "This congressional suggestion that the country-of-origin labeling statute ought to be refined suggests that the meatpackers' undue influence remains considerable in Congress despite the new Congress that we had extremely high hopes for in terms of finally implementing COOL and aggressively pursing the reforms needed in our marketplace."
Bullard added, "We continue to be hopeful that the Congress will take measures to restore competition which includes immediate implementation of country-of-origin labeling. But we have not received any favorable signals from the House Agriculture Committee at this time. That doesn't detract us from continuing the process."
