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M-COOL and the puppet show

B

Ben Roberts

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 14, 2006
Messages
644
Location
Pomeroy, Washington
As of today 02/17/08, we still don't have a farm bill, but we will soon. As we get closer to spring planting season farmers need their(farm payment checks) for seed and fuel to put their crops in. Pressure, from farm districts will force a new farm bill to be signed. This is nothing new, multi-national corporations have used this strategy in the past, to manipulate and mold the farm bill into their way of business.

So now I ask why, was the M-COOL law attached to the 2002 farm bill puppet show. The farm bill, has many issues involved within it, and those issues can and are watered down from their original beginning, that they have little or no impact. Have the cattle producers of this country, forgotten, that it was the 1985 farm bill puppet show that created the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board, drafted by Joann Smith, then president of the National Cattlemen's Association. Then went on to be the first chairmen of the CBB in 1986, and was later elected to serve on IBP's board of directors, and still, sets on the board of Tyson Foods.

This is why I don't, and never will see the significance of M-COOL, there is just to much room in the law for manipulation. Why has R-CALF and USCA supported this law as part of the farm bill, when in the past history the farm bill has done nothing for the cattle producers of this country.

M-COOL, should have been a law introduced by a well organized cattlemen's group, to stand alone on its merits, then maybe it would have had some significance. Example, The Humane Society of the United States (a well organized group) filed to ban the slaughter of horses in the United States, and it's over. Where was R-CALF with their law suits, while The Humane Society of the United States, in reality has done more to reduce the income of ranchers across this nation, and now the same(well organized group) has stopped the slaughter, of a beef plant in California. Where is the NCBA and the CBB? It was this same (well organized group) in May of 2000 that filled charges, for violations of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act at the IBP plant in Pasco, Washington. The Beef Board's Issues Management program prepared background information and a factual response statement. The response statement was used when consumers called with questions regarding the issue. Your Check-Off-Dollars were used to put out IBP's fire then, why not now, or is it because the NCBA and the CBB only work for the multi-national packers?


Best Regards
Ben Roberts
 
HSUS is well organized. My senator's office told me that they received over 100 phone calls a day on the horse slaughter issue.
I beleive well organized groups (agriculture & consumer) did accomplish getting COOL in the 2002 farm bill, it was the fastest moving piece of legislation of the time. The leadership was also in place to make it happen. I don't beleive the language in the 2007 FB is watered down. Everything in it just clarifies congresses original intent.
Ben, I think you probably know the amount of money the multi-national food companies spend in Washington and on promotion of FTA's with beef producing countries.
Now I think the HSUS is comparable in the amount of influence in DC. As for CBB on the issue. I've seen their information and it is useful for producers to write their own letters to the editors and things like that.
I'm hoping that you are a member of one or more of the groups you mentioned and are working on these issues?

You mention that the farm bill has done nothing in the past for cattle producers. Agriculture in Washington is a side line issue at best to the urban controlled congress. Cattle producers need to take every opportunity available to promote legislation good for their industry, they don't come often.
 
Party like it's 1949
If the House and Senate can't agree on a Farm Bill by April 1, a nearly 50-year-old farm law will take effect.


(MEATPOULTRY.com, February 21, 2008)
by Steve Bjerklie

Keep your eye on March 1 and April 1. The first is the date when a new Farm Bill will finally be ready for the White House's approval. The second is the date when, lacking a new Farm Bill, the old 1949 farm budget law goes back into effect.

What hangs in the balance for the meat industry is whether or not mandatory country of origin labeling (mCOOL) will remain a key element in the Farm Bill. A mandatory labeling program was included in the 2002 Farm Bill but was never effected for the meat industry.

The House and Senate have already passed separate versions of the bill. The conference to compromise the two bills into a single piece of legislation acceptable to the White House has turned contentious, according to reports, over the matter of baselines budgeting. The challenge for Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.), the ranking minority member of the committee, as well as Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is to figure out a way to include the $6 billion a new bill would budget over the 2002 Farm Bill's budget without raising taxes, knowing that President Bush would veto any bill that used tax increases for the extra funding. Peterson and Goodlatte told reporters they had found a way to do just that, but farm organizations and lobbyists have complained the plan cuts too much from too many farm programs.

With so much focus on the $6 billion baseline, there's little hope mCOOL will suddenly disappear in the night. "Mandatory country of origin labeling will be implemented," stated Dave Ray, spokesman for the American Meat Institute, in an e-mail sent to MEAT&POULTRY. "There are provisions in the House bill and the Senate bill that would modify the 2002 statute."

Meanwhile, the Food Marketing Institute has complained that USDA's proposed user-fee plan for funding mCOOL "is outrageous." "It violates the government's own definition of 'user fees,' which are supposed to provide the user a clear benefit. USDA is pursuing a backdoor method to pay for a government regulation, costing the industry $9.6 million in 2009. The only good news is that this idea is opposed by just about everyone affected by COOL, including produce growers, meat producers and even the law's strongest proponents: the National Farmers Union and R-CALF," said John Motley, FMI's senior vice president of government and public affairs, in a statement, referring to the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, which has lobbied for an mCOOL program for several years. "This abusive amendment does not merit consideration by Congress."
 
Party like it's 1949
If the House and Senate can't agree on a Farm Bill by April 1, a nearly 50-year-old farm law will take effect.
Click to expand...

I had heard talk to that effect of going back to the 49 Farm Bill...Some were talking about trying to find the old 49 bill.....

Wouldn't it be a kick in the pants if with a world grain shortage- $20 wheat and $5+ corn- that the old bill had set acreages- and that you could only seed that set acreage to each type of crop :???:
I can't remember when those acreage limits went in- and they paid you not to produce- but it would be interesting :roll: :shock: :twisted:
 
Farm bill deal suddenly appears likely
Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:05 PM

by Peter Shinn

All of a sudden, a farm bill deal looks close at hand. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle confirm that Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders met Tuesday night and that the broad outlines of a farm bill agreement are coming together.

The deal would reportedly spend just under $10 billion over the Congressional Budget Baseline for farm programs and would fund it without increasing taxes. Nebraska Democratic Senator Ben Nelson said Wednesday the agreement should clear the way to farm bill passage this spring, if the Bush administration buys into the deal.

"Once you have at least the House and Senate agreeing on a number, hopefully there would be room then for agreement between conferees and the White House," Nelson observed.

But that's no sure thing. And South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune told Brownfield Wednesday, if there's a deal in place that most in Congress can live with, a Presidential farm bill veto could become irrelevant.

"If they don't agree to what the Senate and House are doing, then you're right, you're probably end up in a position of having to override a veto, which we will have the votes, I think, in the Senate to do," Thune said. "And the question would be if whether or not the House could get the votes to do that."

Nelson and Thune both suggested a House-Senate deal on the broad strokes of a farm bill could be announced as soon as Thursday. Thune added that the issue then becomes how quickly farm policy can be made to fit the available money, which he called "the hard part." That's why Thune said he believes another one-month extension of the 2002 farm bill is likely, which would put a new farm bill in place by mid-April.
 

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