Subcommittee votes to delay meat labeling again

| Wednesday, May 18, 2005

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WASHINGTON — Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., blasted a House subcommittee's approval late Monday night of a spending bill that includes another delay for mandatory country-of-origin labeling for meat and meat products. 

Mandatory labeling, originally intended to go into effect in 2004, was delayed last year to 2006.

"Mandatory COOL is on the books and should be implemented by now," Herseth said in a news release. "Unfortunately, House Republican leadership is siding with corporate agriculture interests and against the interests of family ranchers in South Dakota and across the country."

The new COOL provision approved by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture would prevent the secretary of agriculture from spending any money in fiscal year 2006 to implement the food labeling rule that was originally signed into law as part of the 2002 Farm Bill. 

The language would delay the start of any preparation for COOL until October 2006, according to Herseth spokesman Russ Levsen. "It would certainly be many months to ramp up a system like that, in effect, delaying implementation until sometime in 2007."

The spending bill now moves to the full House Appropriations Committee for consideration next week.

"This further delay makes clear that congressional leadership sides with the multinational meatpackers over family ranchers," Herseth said. "COOL is good for producers, good for consumers and good for America, and it should be implemented now."

Herseth also criticized the bill's cuts to conservation programs, with funding reduced to $794 million, a $37 million cut compared with fiscal 2005.

Herseth is a member of the House Agriculture Committee and its Horticulture and Livestock Subcommittee.

The National Farmers Union also criticized the House subcommittee vote. "Delaying mandatory country-of-origin labeling for meat is yet another missed opportunity to promote U.S. products," NFU president Dave Frederickson said. "The flood of imported food continues to enter the United States at record pace. Yet consumers have no way of distinguishing our high-quality U.S.-produced food from lower-quality imports."

The South Dakota Farmers Union and the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association also support mandatory country of origin labeling.