Industries Asked to Corroborate on COOL

June 8, 2007 - Reps. Collin Peterson (Minn.) and Bob Goodlatte (Va.), House Agriculture Committee chair and ranking member, respectively, along with Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), ranking member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, issued letters to national organizations in the livestock and meat arenas officially requesting participation in and commitment to an industry stakeholder process to address country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for meat sold at retail.

The legislators believe "?there is an opportunity to refine the current law prior to its scheduled enactment on Sept. 30, 2008. Our intent is to utilize the input of key stakeholders in an effort to reach a solution, similar to the consensus-building process utilized to enact and subsequently reauthorize the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act of 1999."

The American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) is encouraged by comments from leadership that the law will be enacted as mandatory, and while ASI will participate in a stakeholder process, the prime issues will no doubt be the other species' concerns of ground product and live animal imports, things that are seldom issues in the lamb business.
Staff contact: Peter Orwick, ext. 33

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