US Industry Pushes Back Against Voluntary COOL Proposal
U.S. agriculture producers hit back at a congressional draft plan to revise country-of-origin labeling law to give voluntary authority to label meat muscle cuts during a Senate Agriculture Committee COOL hearing on June 25, arguing the new approach would put the U.S. at risk of costly retaliatory tariffs in the coming months. Agriculture ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., floated the draft proposal the day before (here).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The Stabenow draft is the first COOL legislation to surface in the Senate this Congress. The legislation strikes mandatory labeling requirements for beef and pork, and allows retailers to label products “as exclusively having United States country of origin.” Stabenow touted the bill as WTO-compliant. The legislation “will help us find a solution that benefits American consumers and agriculture while also finding a pathway forward between the United States and our neighbors to the north and south,” said Stabenow in opening remarks.
The World Trade Organization handed Canada and Mexico, the two complainants, a final victory in the dispute in mid-May (see 1505180018). Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz recently said Canada aims to retaliate with roughly $2.5 billion in tariff hikes on U.S. exports by the end of this summer (see 1505180018).
The looming retaliation is far too significant a risk to push forward with an alternative version of the existing COOL law, said industry witnesses. “The first order must be repeal just so we’re sure we’re not going to get retaliated against,” said Jim Trezise, president of New York Wine & Grape Foundation, one of the witnesses at the hearing. Retaliatory tariffs are expected to target "U.S. meat, dairy, wine, distilled beverages, baked goods, furniture, steel, mattresses, jewelry and other goods," Republican leadership on the Agriculture Committee said in announcing the hearing (see 1506230052). The House repealed COOL on June 10 (see 1506100067). Industry representatives have long-expected the Senate to be a much more difficult challenge for repeal (see 1505270016).
U.S. Cattlemen’s Association executive officer Leo McDonnell gave the lone testimony in support of the draft proposal, arguing it’s a “commonsense” middle-ground position. “Through a voluntary program, we ask that this label be maintained and not commingled with other product originating in Canada and Mexico," said McDonnell. “The assurance provided by stipulating a product labeled as a “Product of the U.S.” is truly that, is a basic right deserving of both consumers and those in the industry, from the cow-calf producer to the meat market owner. Through providing certainty on a voluntary label, the U.S. cattle industry is honoring a right that should inherently be given.”
Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group that supports COOL, said the revised legislation is likely to hit the same problems in Geneva. “A voluntary labeling scheme that primarily allows meatpackers to choose whether or not to affix a ‘born and raised in America’ label would present nearly identical WTO problems as a mandatory label, but with few of the benefits,” said the group in a statement. “The long struggle to require basic information on food labels has made it clear that we cannot allow the meatpacking, food processing and grocery retail industries to determine what to disclose to consumers. More Americans are demanding to know more about what is in their food and where it comes from, but Senator Stabenow’s proposal lets Big Ag decide whether or not they will tell us what we are feeding our families.”
The responsibility to avert retaliation now rests squarely on the Senate, said Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, at the hearing. “The Senate must act prior to the WTO’s authorization of retaliation,” said Roberts. “The WTO stove is hot, and we don’t want to touch it.”