In the labyrinthine American congressional legislative system there are many ways that people can slip nasty surprises into the innards of otherwise-unrelated laws. That’s the way, if I recall correctly, that mandatory Country of Origin Labelling was made U.S. law: it was piggybacked onto other legislation.
To their credit, the U.S. National Pork Producers Council fought against COOL, considering it anathema to their general approach of opening markets and getting government interference out of the pork marketplace. And that’s why their officials keep an eagle eye on legislation on all sorts of things as they roll through the Washington process, looking for nasty surprises “lurking” in side corridors planning to infiltrate legislation and sneak into law.
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One of those “lurking” issues is an extension of COOL to meat from foreign hogs – such as Canadian hogs – that ends up being used in processed goods. The law now applies to straight meat cuts like ribs, chops and hams that are sold as chunks of meat. But the lower-value, leftover stuff that gets put into a million-and-one processed goods like wieners doesn’t have to be labelled on the finished product, which makes a lot of sense considering how many different elements are involved in processed foods.
But some dark interests out there seem to be trying to get COOL extended to any meat used in any way in the United States, NPPC officials said a few minutes ago at a press conference, and they don’t want to see any extension of COOL. So they’re going to keep a watch on whether any serious attempt is made to shove this little devil of a detail into any legislation that comes before Congress.
I was just talking to one of the NPPC board members who is involved in watching out for these “lurking” threats that haunt Washington, and from their perspective, COOL’s bad and any extension would be bad because it complicates their meat system and adds unnecessary cost. He noted that the idea of extending COOL is likely just an attempt to further harass U.S. packers who have learned to live with the present COOL rules so that they are more likely to totally avoid foreign pork.
It’s nice to see the NPPC still objects to COOL and agrees with the Canadian contention that our industry is really just an extension – a helpful one – to theirs. The Canadian argument rings a lot more true when an American producer organization with vested interests in the health of the industry supports its claims. But I’ve noted a lot of reluctance down here from American producers and people involved in the industry to accept that COOL has had a devastating effect on Canada’s industry – at least on southern Manitoba’s weanling industry. I’m not sure if it’s a sense of guilt or if they just think I’m BSing them, but whenever anyone asks how our industry is doing and I get around to mentioning COOL’s impact, I sense the walls of resistance going up and skepticism rising. I hope it’s a reaction to guilt arising from this nasty COOL legislation – no one likes to be put on the spot about something bad their country has done – and not truly a disbelief that it has had a terrible impact on their neighbor. If they’re going to hurt Canadian pig producers, they should at least own up to it.
