In a disappointment for eaters across America, the House passed a bill repealing a previous U.S. law mandating that meat imported from other countries contain a label delineating the origin.
Congressman Ryan Zinke voted to repeal country of origin labeling or COOL for imported meat products like cuts of beef, ground pork or beef, and poultry.
Meat labels indicate to consumers in which country the animal was born, raised and slaughtered. With meat processed and imported from all over the world, consumers may soon have no right to know this morsel of food information.
House Speaker John Boehner said that unless Congress repeals our COOL laws, American exporters might be faced with billions in retaliatory tariffs.
National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson said that Canada and Mexico have yet to prove any monetary losses from U.S. meat labeling laws. That’s a forthcoming international dispute process. Supporters of meat labeling contend that over 60 countries have their own versions of COOL.
Referring to the stalled Trans-Pacific Partnership international trade agreement being fast-tracked through Congress, President Barak Obama earlier said that no trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.
Zinke voted to give Obama fast-track authorization to negotiate the TPP. Zinke supported a companion customs bill, which prohibits things like climate change initiatives in trade but also adds six additional people to oversee negotiations. On the same day, Zinke opposed the bill to provide aid to any displaced U.S. workers.
We’ll have to see what the U.S. Senate says about repealing U.S. meat labeling laws, but it previously gave fast-track authority to Obama without the House amendments.
Policymakers should focus just as much attention assuring that domestic meats and vegetables find hungry stateside consumers, as they do on the ever-expanding import and export of food.
The last Farm Bill, with its many small grower policy advancements, largely subsidizes those who export food. Policy makers appear eager to ship away to other nations much of the best that America grows and import plenty of meats and vegetables for domestic consumption.
Recently on our farm, we were fortunate to get rain when pea-sized hail pellets hit a mile down the road. I hope our luck holds; it hasn’t every growing season. The great outdoors has been unconventionally turbulent with record-breaking heat.
Temperatures hit 95 degrees and some vegetables simply bolted-to-seed. Every member of Congress working a shift in the field, versus their air-conditioned offices, would say 95 is hot for early June.
Alan Merrill with the Montana Farmers Union said that in wheat country, “you never used to start seeding in April.” Last week the farmers’ organization and the Montana Brewers Association scheduled a forum on changing climate, featuring Sen. Jon Tester and Montana Department of Agriculture director Ron de Yong.
Instead of dealing with big weather issues, Congress routinely chooses the expensive path of paying for select weather disasters like forest fires, crop killing droughts, fierce hailstorms, animal deaths, or rampant flooding.
Congress could help domestic farmers and American consumers by keeping COOL. Trade wars will continue, as countries like Canada move forward with bioengineered products like GMO apples or GMO salmon. There should be no mystery to where people’s food is grown.
Much of what Montana produces is exported with little added value beyond the modest farmer return. It makes little sense to import chicken parts from China if the idea was to help domestic farmers.
If the recent past is any indication of the future, the weather will become more turbulent and federal farm disaster aid will see escalating budgetary increases.
Only Congress is smart enough to subsidize crops like tobacco while subsidizing health insurance coverage. Congress should put more focus on promoting healthy domestic food to hungry Americans.
Mike (Uncommon Ground) Jopek and Dave (Closing Range) Skinner often fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to political and outdoor issues. Their columns alternate each week in the Flathead Beacon.