041005 Meat Association Attempts to Intervene in R-CALF Lawsuit

Billings, MT - The National Meat Association has made a counter-move hoping to checkmate the actions of R-CALF USA, a Montana-based cattlemen's association.

The NMA requested the United States District Court in Billings to grant intervenor status in the lawsuit R-CALF vs. USDA.

According to Rosemary Mucklow, NMA executive director, the NMA must file to intervene and become a type of "party to the lawsuit" in order to obtain the same updated information about ongoing case proceedings that R-CALF is privy to as plaintiff.

The National Meat Association represents more than 500 member companies that include meat packers and processors, equipment manufacturers and suppliers. By filing as intervenor, NMA hopes to stay ahead of the game and have the same legal insider access as R-CALF -- rulemaking status updates every 45 days and five days notice of the final rule publication.

The case stems from a lawsuit, filed in April by R-CALF USA, charging the U.S. Department of Agriculture with breaking its own rules. Since two cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy were discovered in Canada in May 2003, Canadian live cattle imports to the United States were halted. At the same time, federal laws were enacted to prohibit the imports of meat and other edible beef byproducts from Canada.

Then, adhering to protocol, the USDA announced in August 2003, it would accept import permits from Canada to allow boneless beef from cattle 30 months and younger to enter the United States. It is believed that BSE does not occur in animals in that age category. It is also thought that the disease is not found in muscle cuts, hence the boneless beef category is considered safe for human consumption.

However, in April 2004, the USDA, without notice or a public comment period, further relaxed restrictions on beef imports from Canada to allow all edible bovine meat products, including bone-in, ground meat and processed meat with no restrictions on the age of the cattle slaughtered.

In its legal brief, R-CALF said USDA's actions "represented a significant departure from the U.S. long-standing BSE prevention measures."

Mucklow, on the other hand, said NMA's members are suffering economic hardship due to decreased cattle numbers available for slaughter in the United States.

"Facilities must maintain certain slaughter levels in order to stay in business and are dependent on purchasing healthy animals from Canada" Mucklow said.

It is NMA's fear that once USDA completes the reinstated rule-making process and releases final rules governing Canadian beef imports, that R-CALF will continue to quibble with the agency's decision.

"In effect, R-CALF has stated in an August memo to its members, that once the rule is published, the USDA will still not have it right," Mucklow said.

Bill Bullard, R-CALF's chief executive officer, said it's premature to say if his organization will challenge the final rule or not.

"But it does depend on what USDA decides," he said.

"Our goal is to ensure the USDA maintains safety against BSE, and the NMA is interfering with our ability to do that," Bullard said. "They are concerned with the economic interests, and we are concerned with health and food-safety issues."

Nor is an insufficient supply of animals to U.S. slaughterhouses necessarily true, said Leo McDonnell, R-CALF president.

"With over 80% of the U.S. beef-export market shut down, there still are ample supplies of beef," he said. "Even though analysts have reported beef demand up 6%, live cattle prices have fallen to a point two weeks ago where producers were receiving less than they did one year ago. That shows a very ample supply of U.S. cattle."

Not good enough, Mucklow said.

"This is a business of consolidation," she said. "Larger processing plants are consolidating and now find themselves having to go farther and wider to get cattle. While they can afford to do so, the smaller plants cannot and may find themselves out of business."

Mucklow reported that lack of cattle supplies contributed to the closure of Iowa Quality Meats in Tama, Iowa.

Bullard, however, said details are unclear as to why the plant closed but more likely, it was due to the plant being under-capitalized.

"Beef that normally goes to Japan isn't going," he said. "U.S. beef supplies are backed up, not in shortage."

McDonnell said he believes NMA's actions to intervene ignore "long-standing BSE prevention measures in order to satisfy their appetite for economic control over U.S. live cattle prices."

"Producers and consumers in the United States are not going to tolerate such blatant and selfish actions," he said.

Mucklow disagrees. "If the situation continues as it is, it will cause irreparable harm to the industry," she said.

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