President Obama signed into law five-year extensions of the export-grain inspection program and a program that requires meatpackers to report the purchase price of cattle, hogs and sheep, said the White House. Statutory authority for the programs was to lapse today. The Senate bundled both items into a single bill, HR 2051, and passed it last week. The House agreed to the combination bill on Monday.
The new law modifies the grain-inspection program to require the USDA to take immediate action if there is an interruption of inspection of grain at export terminals, either by dispatching federal inspectors or inspectors from state agencies empowered to do the job. The new language is a response to the 36-day lapse in Vancouver, Washington, during a labor dispute in 2014. The Washington State Agriculture Department, authorized by the USDA to carry out inspections, withdrew its inspectors on grounds it could not assure their safety. The USDA said it could not dispatch federal inspectors for the same reason.
The bill also expands the scope of the price-reporting system over hog and sheep transactions. The USDA reports twice a day on livestock sale prices. Deleted from the final version of the bill, due to Senate objections, was a provision to declare livestock price reporting as an essential government service that would continue during a federal shutdown. Meat inspection is ranked as an essential service.