Congress may vote this week to repeal the U.S. law that requires packages of meat to say where the animals were born, raised and slaughtered. The drive for repeal, at a standstill in the Senate since summer, was spurred into action after the WTO said Canada and Mexico could impose $1.01 billion a year in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. manufactured and agricultural goods, from mattresses, office furniture and pipes to wine, meat and grain.
Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts said he would “continue to look for all legislative opportunities to repeal COOL.” A committee member, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, told a farm meeting at Purdue University, “We’ll have country-of-origin labeling in the omnibus bill that should happen this week. We’re working to get it done immediately,” reported Brownfield Ag News. Donnelly was referring to the catch-all government funding bill that is due by Friday.
The ultimate goal of Canada and Mexico is repeal of mandatory labeling of beef and pork. “If the U.S. Senate does not take immediate action to repeal COOL for beef and pork, Canada will quickly take steps to retaliate,” said a Canadian statement that called three times for repeal. The WTO authorized $780 million (Canadian $1.054 billion) in retaliatory tariffs for Canada and $228 million for Mexico.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said negotiations on the omnibus spending bill may stretch to the end of the week. “Senior aides in both parties on both sides of the Rotunda have suggested the talks about how to deal with policy riders have not moved the ball forward much lately,” said Roll Call.
The National Chicken Council said it supported repeal of COOL because “chicken and fowl could be at the top of the list for retaliation.” The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said, “If the Senate does not act, U.S. beef exports will face a 100-percent tariff in these countries, severely diminishing about $2 billion of beef exports annually.”
Overwhelmed in the calls for repeal were arguments by consumer groups that COOL could be rewritten into a form that would pass WTO scrutiny, a step the USDA tried in 2013, or that a voluntary labeling plan could take the place of the mandatory labels. Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a sponsor of the voluntary label scheme, lamented, “This common-sense compromise was blocked in the Senate. However, I have always said I would not allow retaliation to take effect. It is critical that we work together to find a solution before the end of the year.”
The consumer group Food and Water Watch said the WTO ruling showed the danger of international trade agreements – “these international deals trump democracy itself” – and urged rejection of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. “Congress must require the Obama Administration to live up to its original campaign promise to protect mandatory COOL,” it said.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said lawmakers “could focus on provisions of COOL that actually created the retaliation without necessarily eliminating all aspects of COOL.” The USDA’s radio news service said Vilsack also expressed hope during an interview that Congress would keep voluntary labeling as an option.
On May 18, the WTO issued a final decision in the seven-year fight over COOL, saying the labeling requirement discouraged the import of cattle, hogs, beef and pork from Mexico and Canada, the two largest U.S. trade partners, because of the cost of segregating the imports so they could be labeled properly.
Meatpackers and food companies opposed COOL from the start as a bookkeeping and operational headache. The largest U.S. cattle and hog groups also opposed COOL. Consumer groups, ranchers in the northern Plains, and the National Farmers Union said the labels responded to consumers’ right to know about food. The largest U.S. farm group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, supported repeal as a step to prevent harm to U.S. producers, but also said, “We support the remaining COOL programs.”
The House passed HR 2393 by a landslide 300-131 rollcall on June 10. The bill repealed mandatory labeling of beef, pork and chicken. The WTO case did not involve chicken, but House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway said the chicken industry asked to be added to the bill.
Besides beef, pork and chicken, COOL applies to lamb, goat, venison, seafood, fruits and vegetables, peanuts, pecans, macadamia nuts and ginseng.
Four Canadian livestock groups said “the cumulative losses for the Canadian beef and pork sectors have been staggering.” They said the only acceptable U.S. action would be repeal of mandatory labeling.