House hands COOL repeal to Senate, where it faces greater scrutiny
Three weeks after an adverse WTO ruling, the House sent to the Senate a bill to repeal the law that requires packages of beef, pork and chicken sold in grocery stores to say where the animals were born, raised and slaughtered. Advocates of the so-called country-of-origin labels (COOL), routed in the House on a 300-131 rollcall, hope the Senate will stop the stampede to repeal.
Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts said he was taking suggestions “for alternatives that meet our trade obligations” and “repeal remains the surest way to protect the American economy from retaliatory tariffs. We can sit here and let this happen. Or we can move. Let’s get a move on.” Switching to a “product of North America” label is not acceptable to Canada and Mexico, said a Senate Agriculture Committee statement.
“Repeal is not the answer,” said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the top-ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Committee. “I plan on working with my Senate colleagues to develop legislation that ensures consumers have information about where their food comes from while also meeting out international trade obligations.”
Over the years, COOL has been more popular in the Senate than the House. As an example, Senate negotiators rejected a House attempt to end COOL during drafting of the final version of the 2014 farm law.
Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said the House vote was “a positive step” but “the only way for the United States to avoid billions in retaliation by late summer is to ensure legislation repealing COOL passes the Senate and is signed by the president.”
The fruit of prairie populism, COOL was enacted as part of the 2002 farm law and became mandatory in 2009. The WTO repeatedly ruled that the mandatory labels discriminated against meat and livestock from Canada and Mexico; it rejected the final U.S. appeal of that ruling on May 18. Canada and Mexico say they will ask the WTO to approve $3.7 billion in retaliatory tariffs against U.S. manufactured and agricultural products unless COOL is revoked. Canada’s target list ranges from mattresses, office furniture and pipes to wine, meat and grain.
“Repeal is the only viable option before us to avoid this retaliation,” said Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway of Texas, the No. 1 cattle state. Added Georgia Democrat David Scott, “It is critical Congress take this corrective action and do so before the August recess.” Jim Costa, a California Democrat, said retaliatory tariffs could double the price of California wine in Canada and cost his state $1 billion.
Collin Peterson, the Democratic leader on the Agriculture Committee, said repeal is a “premature reaction” when the WTO dispute process has months to run. The repeal bill “is not giving people time to look at this and figure out what is a reasonable solution,” he said. The National Farmers Union, a longtime supporter, urged the Senate “to avoid the rush to judgment … and work with COOL supporters on a viable alternative that will finally bring this long process to closure.”
Meatpackers and food companies opposed COOL from the start as an expensive, bookkeeping headache and have fought for years to get rid of it. House-Senate negotiators wrote COOL into the 2002 farm law over another goal of populist farm groups, a ban on ownership of cattle and hogs by meatpackers. Backers such as Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur said COOL is part of a consumers’ right to know and has broad support in opinion polls. “We’re back to ‘The Jungle,'” said Kaptur, invoking the 1906 meatpacking expose by Upton Sinclair. “They want to hide the origin.”
Canada is scheduled to present its case for retaliation to WTO later this month. The NFU says neither Canada nor Mexico suffered any damage from COOL, so the United States should challenge them to prove it. The WTO also allows time for consultations among nations over how to comply with its rulings. It could be months before retaliation is authorized, says NFU.
Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro said the debate of COOL was a vivid warning about the potential reach of pacts such as the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. “Beware of the road you go down today,” said DeLauro. “No area of U.S. law is safe.”