Reality of Mandatory Labeling Law Sets In

Faced with the reality of actually imposing mandatory labeling regulations on cattle producers across America, the President of R-CALF USA (United Stockgrowers of America) conceded that the final labeling regulation will likely mirror the proposed rules and that correcting the problems in the labeling law may take legislative changes, according to a recent radio interview with R-Calf’s president.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) says it’s clear that the beef industry is in agreement that there are significant problems with the underlying law.

The R-CALF president stated in the interview that “Understand that probably the preliminary rules are gonna look very much like the final rules, so if there are significant problems with what USDA is doing, your effort might be better spent in legislating change and I think we’ve found that out as we went along.” 

The industry is also in agreement that legislative changes are needed to correct the law as evidenced by the very same announcement when the R-CALF president notified members and supporters that “We’re probably going to work on some legislation.” 

There could be no clearer evidence that there are problems with this law than when the leadership of R-CALF makes such a comment, says NCBA.  Congress should take the time to review this law before it causes extreme damage and hardship to the livelihood of cattle producers.

There is no need to play chicken with producers’ pocketbooks, continues NCBA.   With the entire industry stating that the country of origin labeling law needs changes, the Senate should give cattle producers the opportunity to develop the consensus needed to develop a program that works for producers. 

The House of Representatives took the step needed to give producers and Congress time to better understand the implications of this law.  Now that USDA has released the proposed rule that demonstrates the severe costs of mandatory country of origin labeling law—as predicted by both the Clinton and Bush administrations—the Senate should take the same responsible step as the House and give producers and Congress time to better evaluate and consider the needed changes to this law.

NCBA calls on Senators to vote NO on the Daschle-Johnson Sense of the Senate Resolution.  To do otherwise is to give a green light to implementing a costly law that R-CALF now agrees needs to be changed.