The Cattlemen’s Capitol Concerns (CCC) is a weekly report from Washington, D.C., giving an up-to-date summary of top policy initiatives concerning the cattle industry; direct from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).

Trade Issues Take Spotlight During Meetings with Chinese President:  Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting the United States this week.  He met with President Bush at the White House April 20 to discuss, among other issues, ways to ease trade imbalances. Following last week’s meeting of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, China committed to reopening its market to U.S. beef exports and addressing a number of other trade concerns.  U.S. and Chinese officials have scheduled a technical discussion for mid-May to outline the terms upon which trade will resume. 

“In 2003, China was one of our top ten markets selling over 12,000 metric tons of beef valued at over $28 million,” says NCBA Chief Economist Gregg Doud.  “But what’s important to U.S. cattle producers is the huge potential that market holds.  With around 1.4 billion folks in China, including about 300 million middle class consumers, there is no other place on earth that holds the potential that China does for our export business."

Korean Talks Indicate Progress:  NCBA is encouraged by signals out of South Korea that indicate progress is being made toward resuming exports of U.S. beef to that country.  Korean officials are visiting the United States this week as part of their ongoing investigation into the case of BSE announced March 13 in an Alabama cow.  At issue is the ability to determine the exact age of the animal. Korea has agreed it will only re-impose a ban on U.S. beef when the disease is detected in cattle born after April 1998.  The Korean government has said they could resume U.S. beef imports as early as May, if the cow is determined to have been born before 1998.

ITC Hearing on Korea:  In related news, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) hosted a hearing April 20 on the U.S.-Republic of Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA).  In his testimony, Myron Brilliant, President of the U.S.-Korea Business Council said a free trade agreement with South Korea “should cover all trade in agriculture products, comprehensively, without exception.”

NCBA supports an FTA with Korea but insists remaining issues must be resolved, such as:

• Full re-opening of the South Korean market to U.S. boneless beef, bone-in beef, and variety meats,
• elimination of Korea’s extremely high tariffs on U.S. beef, and
• resolution of important sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) issues.

WTO Update:  Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) is leading a delegation of Congressional members in Geneva this week at meetings with officials involved in the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha round of negotiations. In a telephone conversation with reporters April 20, Moran said the April 30 deadline for resolving agricultural trade issues will likely slip due to a continuing disagreement between member countries on broad formulas to cut farm subsidies and tariffs. "It is clear to me that the April 30 deadline will come and go without significant agreement," said Moran.  NCBA agrees with Congressman Moran’s assessment and says the continued delay does not come as a surprise.  NCBA remains very concerned about the unwillingness of the European Union, Brazil and India officials to consider reasonable approaches to dealing with agriculture market access as well as non-agriculture trade priorities.

Rep. Moran is the Chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management. "The ability to sell our products around the world is vital to the success of America's farmers and ranchers," Moran said.

Japan Update:  Japan may be moving closer to resuming imports of U.S. beef, which have been suspended since January. At a meeting last month, officials from both Japan and the United States agreed on steps toward lifting the ban, and representatives of both governments are expected to meet in May to make a basic agreement on what needs to be done to lift the ban.   In media reports last week, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi voiced support for easing the ban. "Looking at the issue from the U.S. point of view, Americans eat beef every day, and they eat a lot more of it than the Japanese do, and it is safe," he said in the Lower House. "The United States is unhappy that Japanese are not eating beef that is so safe." Koizumi is scheduled to visit the United States in June.

Japan Confirms 25th BSE Case: Japan confirmed its 25th case of BSE this week.  Japanese health ministry officials confirmed April 19 that a five-year, 11-month-old female Holstein born in northern Japan tested positive for BSE.  The animal did not enter the food chain.  The cow was born in April 2000, before the 2001 implementation of Japan’s feed ban.

The United States put its feed ban in place in 1997.  To date, the United States has tested 690,118 targeted animals at highest risk for BSE as part of its Enhanced BSE Surveillance Program.  The United States has only seen three cases of BSE, all in animals born prior to the U.S. feed ban.

Canada Confirms Fifth Case of BSE: The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced April 16 that confirmatory testing on a cow they tested for BSE indicates the animal was positive for BSE. CFIA acknowledged the animal, a six-year-old registered dairy cow from British Columbia, developed BSE after the implementation of Canada’s feed ban, and CFIA says they are “conducting a thorough examination of potential sources of infection…collecting records of feed purchased by and used on the animal’s birth farm.” U.S. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns said Canadian officials have invited the United States to participate in the epidemiologic investigation.

Administration Staff Announcements:  President Bush announced April 18 the nomination of U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman to be White House budget director, replacing Joshua Bolten who was named White House chief of staff March 28. Portman spoke to NCBA members on March 28 as part of NCBA’s Spring Legislative Conference.  White House officials describe Portman as “a close confidant of Bush's” with broad experience in Washington.  Less than one year ago, Bush chose Portman, a Republican congressman from Ohio, to succeed Robert Zoellick as his top trade negotiator.  Replacing Portman will be Susan Schwab, the deputy trade representative, who Bush selected to move up to the top job.

European Union:  USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Service has issued a new USDA Export Verification Program for Specified Product Requirements of Non-Hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC) for the European Union. The new procedure, replacing the previous ARC 1013 procedure issued in October 2002, outlines the specified product requirements for cattle to qualify for the program. These requirements must be met through the implementation of a USDA Quality System Assessment (QSA) Program.  For more information visit http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsg/arc/nhtc.htm.  “These changes should make the program more workable and less onerous on cattle producers,” says NCBA Chief Economist Gregg Doud. NCBA continues to work with government and industry officials toward resolving other technical barriers to trade with the EU.

Coarse Particulate Matter:  NCBA submitted comments April 17 to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding proposed regulation of coarse particulate matter (“coarse PM”) under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) of the Clean Air Act.  Coarse particulate matter is fugitive dust such as the dust that is caused by tilling soil, cattle romping in feedlots, planting crops, harvesting crops, driving on dirt roads, spreading of nutrients on fields, outdoor storage of bulk materials, and feed mixing. 

In comments to the EPA, NCBA says: 

• Cattle operations already have in place sufficient dust control measures, many contained in air pollution control permits or approved by air pollution control agencies. 
• There is a tremendous lack of scientific evidence demonstrating that fugitive dust from cattle and other agriculture operations presents health risk.
• EPA has agreed that dust dominated from agriculture sources should be excluded from the standard at this time.
• Monitor data used as a basis for determining air quality is not representative of population true exposure.

NCBA’s extensive comments to EPA are posted at: http://hill.beef.org/coarseparticulatematter.

Death Tax:  A vote on repeal of the devastating Death Tax is scheduled in the Senate before Memorial Day recess.  Cattlemen can assist with this effort by contacting Senators and reminding them that the Death Tax forces real farming and ranching out of business when a family member dies.

• Senators will be at home on recess until April 24. This is the perfect time to contact them at their local offices.  Are they holding town hall meetings or attending other events in your community?  Talk to them about this issue in person!
• Mark your calendar for the “National Cattle Call to Kill the Death Tax” on Tuesday, May 9!  NCBA is coordinating a national call-in day for cattle producers to call their Senators to voice support for full and permanent repeal of the Death Tax.  Any Senator can be reached via the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or individual office numbers can be found at http://hill.beef.org/pdfs/109thSenateContacts.pdf.  For more information, contact Jenni Beck at jbeck@beef.org or (202) 347-0228.  Stay tuned for more information!
• Send letters to Senators by clicking on http://capwiz.com/beefusa. Detailed information and analysis on the issue is available as well.
• Producers are asked to submit their story to NCBA and take our 2006 Death Tax Survey at http://hill.beef.org/tax.  Nothing is more effective or memorable than hearing cattlemen’s personal stories about how the Death Tax has affected their family and their businesses! 

Beef Industry Safety Summit:  The Beef Industry Safety Summit is taking place this week in Jacksonville, Fla. April 18-20.  This is the industry’s fourth consecutive safety summit where participants discuss and develop industry-wide science-based strategies, research and “best practices” aimed at making beef even safer. From NCBA’s Washington office, Director of Food Policy Leah Wilkinson and Chief Economist Gregg Doud are attending and speaking on the summit program. The summits convene representatives from all cattle and beef industry segments including cattle production, fabrication, processing, retail and foodservice. 

FSIS Posts Calendar Year 2005 Microbiological Data on Web Site:  FSIS has posted on its web site calendar year (CY) 2005 microbiological data for E. coli O157:H7 in raw ground beef, Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) and Salmonella in ready-to-eat (RTE) products, and serotype data for Salmonella detected in raw meat and poultry products. The data shows that in 2005, the percent of samples that tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 was 0.173 percent. This is relatively unchanged from 2004, when the percent was 0.175. The objective of the microbiological testing program to detect E. coli O157:H7 in raw ground beef is to verify that industry's HACCP systems are working. The CY 2005 microbiological data is available on FSIS' Web site at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Science/Microbiology/index.asp.

Congressional Schedule:  Congress is out for Spring recess. They are scheduled to return to Washington on April 25.

Media Contact:
Tanya Augustson or Karen Batra at 202-347-0228; taugustson@beef.org or kbatra@beef.org