United States Cattlemen's Association
Working Tirelessly for U.S. Ranchers
Year in Review
A little over a year ago, rumblings from Congress swirled around a legislative plan to "marry" or combine mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) with a mandatory animal identification system (ID). USCA staff immediately went to work in addressing this, and brought in ranchers to inform Congress of the negative ramifications of these actions. The plans to legislatively combine COOL and ID were shelved and cattle producers continued their business minus the worry of dealing with a new law mandating ID. Now it appears that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is once again trying to combine the two, and USCA is riding point to prevent it.
The opponents of COOL hatched a plan to weaken COOL during summer work on the Farm Bill. When the House Agriculture Committee began marking up various titles of the Farm Bill, a fight to ward off an amendment to gut COOL broke out. USCA worked with COOL allies including the National Farmers Union to lobby key House members and in the 11th hour COOL was preserved. At last, the identity of the U.S. cattle producer will stand out all the way to the market shelf and importers will finally have to face the reality of consumers' ability to choose to buy American.
Throughout the years, Congressional support for COOL has mattered very little to USDA as the agency did its best to impede progress on implementing a workable COOL law. With this in mind, USCA went to work with House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and created a timeline that based the availability of USDA operating funds on its progress on writing COOL regulations. Congress passed an appropriations bill that placed this timeline into effect, and USDA was finally corralled into advancing a law that, despite being on the books for years, had not received the proper attention from USDA.
If the multinational corporations and importers lived in a perfect world, ranchers would give up being involved in the political process, close up shop, and go home. USCA believes the best defence is a full time offense. A perfect example of this is the USDA's work to quietly introduce and implement a regulation that would allow increased meat imports from Argentina despite Argentina's known foot and mouth disease (FMD) problem. USCA took the lead in defeating the USDA's attempts.
We began work with a coalition, known as the America Task Force Argentina (ATFA), and have spent the past four months highlighting the bad acts carried out by Argentina. Argentina has cost taxpayers and U.S. businesses billions by turning its back on repaying loans. Plus this is a nation that sides against rural America in the WTO. Why then would USDA reward them by allowing them to be the first country to increase meat imports despite its FMD problem? USCA and ATFA took part in a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington DC highlighting these issues. USCA and AFTA are committed to working with Capitol Hill to oppose and defeat this rule.
The Farm Bill is reaching its final stages and contains provisions that, for the first time a Livestock Title. This title was a specific goal for USCA. USCA worked to include several provisions, including an amendment to limit packer ownership of cattle and the creation of an office of special counsel that would be charged with investigating and enforcing antitrust laws. Unfortunately, these provisions were not included. However, USCA was successful in working with other like-minded groups to ensure the Livestock Title included the following provisions:
- Language that enables producers to decline to be bound by an arbitration clause in a livestock or poultry contract.
- Language that enables a producer to settle a dispute in the federal judicial district where he or she lives rather than where the company headquarters is located.
- Language that clarifies and implements country of origin labeling of meat, fruits and vegetables, peanuts, pecans and macadamia nuts (targeted implementation date is September 30, 2008).
- Language that improves oversight of USDA's enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act requiring the agency to provide an annual compliance report detailing the number and length of time spent on investigations of potential violations of the act.
- Language that allows state inspected meat to be shipped across state lines.
Although the Livestock Title in the Farm Bill falls short of providing the proper measures to ensure transparency in the marketplace, USCA is pleased with the progress made. USCA has a fulltime presence in Washington, DC and has already received strategic advice to advance several pieces of long-awaited and much-needed legislation. USCA is on Capitol Hill working the conference rooms and working to level the playing field for U.S. cattle producers.
USCA is the only national cattlemen's association that is requesting signatures to build support for legislation that would enable beef checkoff dollars to promote U.S. beef. COOL is coming, but in order to make it work cattle producers need to market their label. USCA will not quit until this is a reality. You can join the effort. Log on to www.uscattlemen.org and download a beef checkoff sheet and start signing up your fellow producers, neighbors and area businesses to help build support to promote your product.
With a budget smaller than most state organizations and a membership of a few dedicated producers, USCA has achieved real results. The first push relied heavily on volunteer hours and dollars from a handful of people. USCA has proven that for very little cost success can be achieved in the conference rooms. However, every day there is a new challenge and a new issue and we need continued support to be there with your message. Now is the time to pull together. USCA is united because of YOU. It's the cattlemen's association doing the job so you can focus on your work at home! It's your UNITED STATES CATTLEMEN'S ASSOCIATION. Join today by calling 202-870-3867 or logging on to www.uscattlemen.org.
Good Neighbor Committee
P.O. Box 155 - La Salle, CO 80645
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