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LEGAL/REGULATORY NEWS
R-CALF may launch class-action lawsuit
by Pete Hisey on 4/13/2005 for Meatingplace.com
Bill Bullard, chief executive of Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, told Meatingplace.com that the organization may organize a class-action lawsuit against USDA on behalf of ranchers and smaller processors. The suit would charge that USDA wrongly deprived those ranchers and smaller processors of sales to overseas markets by refusing to allow them to test all cattle for export for bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
U.S. producers would have been able to maintain their share of the Japanese market if USDA had allowed the testing, he says.
"What was the harm in voluntary testing?" Bullard asked. "It was mutually beneficial (to the United States and Japan), but it wasn't in the big packers' interest." Bullard adds that R-CALF might ask smaller packers to join in the lawsuit.
The organization may also ask that a Senate committee look into allegations of favoritism at USDA, contending that the agency is filled with former beef industry figures who favor the interests of large ranchers and packers.
R-CALF may launch class-action lawsuit
by Pete Hisey on 4/13/2005 for Meatingplace.com
Bill Bullard, chief executive of Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, told Meatingplace.com that the organization may organize a class-action lawsuit against USDA on behalf of ranchers and smaller processors. The suit would charge that USDA wrongly deprived those ranchers and smaller processors of sales to overseas markets by refusing to allow them to test all cattle for export for bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
U.S. producers would have been able to maintain their share of the Japanese market if USDA had allowed the testing, he says.
"What was the harm in voluntary testing?" Bullard asked. "It was mutually beneficial (to the United States and Japan), but it wasn't in the big packers' interest." Bullard adds that R-CALF might ask smaller packers to join in the lawsuit.
The organization may also ask that a Senate committee look into allegations of favoritism at USDA, contending that the agency is filled with former beef industry figures who favor the interests of large ranchers and packers.