Government argues against bid for court to block COOL
By Agri-Pulse staff
© Copyright Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2013 - Government lawyers late Friday asked a U.S.
District Court here to refuse to issue an order blocking USDA’s implementation
of mandatory country-of-origin labeling. The judge set Aug. 27 to hear oral
arguments on the motion by the American Meat Institute and U.S., Mexican and
Canadian livestock producers to enjoin the COOL rule. U.S. Department of Justice
attorneys, representing Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Agricultural
Marketing Service Administrator Anne Alonzo, argued AMI and its allies have
failed to show that they are entitled to an emergency order.
The brief, signed by Tamra Tyree Moore of DOJ’s civil division, contends
that USDA’s rule “was promulgated to provide consumers with accurate information
about the origin of certain meat products that they purchase and to comply with
a ruling by the World Trade Organization that the United States had acted
inconsistently with its international trade obligations.”
In filing for an injunction (see Agri-Pulse, July 31) the industry group
contended that implementation of the new COOL standard could force U.S. packing
plants and cattle feeders near the northern and southern borders to close, would
violated companies’ First Amendment speech protection, exceed the authority
granted USDA in the 2008 farm bill and offer “little benefit to consumers while
fundamentally altering the meat and poultry industry.”
The government reply asserts that the rule “is consistent not only with the
text of the statute but also Congress’s intent ‘to provide consumers with
additional information regarding the origin of’ fresh meat." AMI’s “claim that
the rule violates their First Amendment rights is baseless,” it adds.
Industry groups “have not shown that they will be irreparably harmed in the
absence of preliminary injunctive relief,” the government replied, “and their
two month delay in filing this motion undercuts their claim of irreparable
injury.” The brief describes industry’s “conclusory and speculative allegations
of lost profits” as insufficient to prove irreparable harm. It adds that the
claims “are undercut by the secretary’s own economic analysis of the impact of
the rule.”
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson also is weighing a motion by the
United States Cattlemen’s Association, National Farmers Union, American Sheep
Industry Association and Consumer Federation of America to intervene “in order
to protect the interests of their members in the 2013 COOL regulations and to
defend the legitimacy of the regulations.” Their brief, also filed Friday,
contends that the industry arguments are “without legal or factual merit.”
USCA, NFU and ASI say their farmer-rancher members “have a material
interest in how the animals they tend to will be identified when converted to
meat products that reach consumers . . . as consumers increasingly demand
information on where the food they consume is produced.”
The revised COOL regulation is challenged by AMI, the American Association
of Meat Processors, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Canadian Pork Council,
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Pork Producers Council, North
American Meat Association, Southwest Meat Association and Mexico’s National
Confederation of Livestock Organizations.
#30
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canrancher • a day ago −
The very idea that a group(NCBA) that portrays themselves as a voice for
American cattle producers is working tirelessly to undercut those same producers
is appalling. But this is the same group that hung American cattlemen out to dry
when a Canadian cow with BSE was declared to be "ours", thus crippling our
export markets from that date on. With "friends" like the NCBA, who needs
enemies?
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