WASHINGTON, Aug. 11,
2013 – Government lawyers late Friday asked a U.S. District Court here to
refuse to issue an order blocking USDA’s implementation of mandatory
country-of-origin labeling. The judge set Aug. 27 to hear oral arguments on the
motion by the American Meat Institute and U.S., Mexican and Canadian
livestock producers to enjoin the COOL
rule.
U.S.
Department of Justice attorneys, representing Secretary of Agriculture Tom
Vilsack and Agricultural Marketing Service Administrator Anne Alonzo, argued
AMI and its allies have
failed to show that they are entitled to an emergency order.
The
brief, signed by Tamra Tyree Moore of DOJ’s civil division, contends that
USDA’s rule “was promulgated to provide consumers with accurate information
about the origin of certain meat products that they purchase and to comply with
a ruling by the World Trade Organization that the United States had acted
inconsistently with its international trade obligations.”
In filing for an injunction (see Agri-Pulse, July 31) the industry group contended that
implementation of the new COOL
standard could force U.S. packing plants and cattle feeders near the northern
and southern borders to close, would violated companies’ First Amendment speech
protection, exceed the authority granted USDA in the 2008 farm bill and offer “little
benefit to consumers while fundamentally altering the meat and poultry
industry.”
The
government reply asserts that the rule “is consistent not only with the text of
the statute but also Congress’s intent ‘to provide consumers with additional
information regarding the origin of’ fresh meat." AMI’s
“claim that the rule violates their First Amendment rights is baseless,” it
adds.
Industry
groups “have not shown that they will be irreparably harmed in the absence of
preliminary injunctive relief,” the government replied, “and their two month
delay in filing this motion undercuts their claim of irreparable injury.” The
brief describes industry’s “conclusory and speculative allegations of lost
profits” as insufficient to prove irreparable harm. It adds that the claims “are
undercut by the secretary’s own economic analysis of the impact of the rule.”
U.S.
District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson also is weighing a motion by the United
States Cattlemen’s Association, National Farmers Union, American Sheep Industry
Association and Consumer Federation of America to intervene “in order to
protect the interests of their members in the 2013 COOL
regulations and to defend the legitimacy of the regulations.” Their brief, also
filed Friday, contends that the industry arguments are “without legal or
factual merit.”
USCA,
NFU and ASI say their
farmer-rancher members “have a material interest in how the animals they tend
to will be identified when converted to meat products that reach consumers . .
. as consumers increasingly demand information on where the food they consume
is produced.”
The revised COOL
regulation is challenged by AMI, the
American Association of Meat Processors, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association,
Canadian Pork Council, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Pork
Producers Council, North American Meat Association, Southwest Meat Association
and Mexico’s
National Confederation of Livestock Organizations.
#30
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