050618 US House Delays Meat Origin Label LawJune 11, 2005Washington - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to support a delay for implementing a mandatory country-of-origin labeling law for meat that was included in the fiscal year 2006 agriculture spending bill. The original mandatory labeling law was approved by Congress in the 2002 Farm Bill but has yet to be implemented for beef, pork and lamb. That is currently scheduled to happen Sept. 30, 2006. But House appropriators included a provision to the spending bill that bars the U.S. Department of Agriculture from spending any money to make the necessary preparations, thus delaying implementation. Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, said earlier this month that the delay is aimed at giving more time to supporters of a bill to do away with mandatory labeling altogether by replacing it with a voluntary version. Rep. Dennis Rehberg, R-Mont., attempted Wednesday to add an amendment to the $100 billion FY 2006 agriculture spending bill that would have removed the delay. The House rejected Rehberg's amendment on a 240 to 187 vote. In House floor debate Wednesday, Bonilla warned that mandatory country-of-origin-labeling for meat would "present a nightmare to many producers of this country" by imposing "up to $1 billion in additional costs." The National Farmers Union, though, supports mandatory country-of-origin labeling. Dave Frederickson, the group's president, said in a recent statement: "The flood of imported food continues to enter the U.S. at record pace. Yet consumers have no way of distinguishing our high-quality U.S. produced food from lower-quality imports."
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