Spending bill will repeal contentious meat labeling rules

Congress is taking steps to avert sanctions on more than $1 billion worth of U.S. goods from Mexico and Canada by repealing a country-of-origin labeling (COOL) rule in the massive omnibus spending bill released early Wednesday morning. 

Top House and Senate lawmakers were pushing to add the COOL repeal to a year-end spending bill after the World Trade Organization last week authorized Canada and Mexico to tax a wide variety of U.S. exports to cover the costs of implementing the Agriculture Department’s contentious meat labeling regulations.

{mosads}The WTO decision ramped up pressure on lawmakers to scrap the regulations or put U.S. businesses in jeopardy of paying much more to send their products to two of the nation’s biggest trading partners, ending a seven-year trade dispute.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway (R-Texas) said that by including the language in the omnibus package “we will be back in compliance with our WTO obligations, avoid more than $1 billion in retaliation from Canada and Mexico and prevent damages to our relationships with two of our top trade partners.”

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee who has consistently opposed the COOL rules, said that “for several years now, the writing has been on the wall that U.S. COOL requirements for meat were doomed at the WTO.”

“Since its inception, I have warned that retaliation was coming, and I’m pleased American agriculture and businesses will escape these tariffs,” Roberts said.

The move, which covers beef and pork, comes just in time — retaliation could have started as early as Friday.

“This is a victory for all U.S. agricultural products and a win-win for U.S. chicken producers and consumers,” Mike Brown, president of the National Chicken Council.

“When at the meat case, consumers seeking chicken made in the USA can continue to readily identify these products of American origin,” Brown said. 

Linda Dempsey, vice president of international economic affairs for the National Association of Manufacturers, said that “repeal of these COOL provisions is the only solution remaining that will protect U.S. manufacturing jobs, and we are relieved that this spending deal includes this essential provision.”

The Canadian government said it was pleased with the move and urged lawmakers to follow through.

The COOL rule, which requires labels on meat to show where livestock is born, raised and slaughtered, was first authorized in the 2002 and then amended in the 2008 farm bill.

The House voted 300-131 on June 10 to repeal COOL rules.

This post was updated at 2:55 p.m.