AFF Sentinel Vol.6#7

Latest on mCOOL: We'll Give You Something to Bawl About

My father rarely injected verbal commentary into our upbringing but when he did, it was short and pithy. A classic to us youngsters blubbering after mild admonishment from mom: "Quit your bawling or I'll give you something to bawl about."

That's one thing to toddlers discovering behavioral limits. It's quite another to businesses and international trading partners. But that seems to be the message from USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week to packers, the meat industry and international trading partners.

Vilsack's official position is that the much rehashed mCOOL Final Rule will go into effect on March 16. The rest of his message, however, seemed unprecedented. If packers - and the rest of the production chain -- adhere to the letter of the regulation promulgated under the law, they will have something to bawl about. If the industry doesn't adhere to the secretary's voluntary requests - which to many eyes asks for whole categories of tracking and disclosure not authorized in the law -- he will give them something to bawl about. The law, after all, was even titled "Country of Origin" not "Track Each Piece of Meat At Multiple Stops From Birth to Slaughter." As if returning to a strict legal interpretation wouldn't be drastic enough, Vilsack wants more than law or regulation has ever mentioned.

The genesis of the events is a subject of much international speculation. Our guess is that in keeping with the administration's blitzkrieg-on-all- fronts approach to its first weeks in office, a top priority was an early visit to a foreign country. Canada was close, relatively easy to handle for security logistics and unlikely to present prickly politics. Thus the late January announcement that the first foreign visit would be Feb. 19 in Canada. In the whirlwind of cramming the "Stimulus" bill through Congress, dealing with the Detroit auto industry, spinning appointments complicated by tax scofflaws and questionable income sources, signing the "Stimulus" bill in Denver, the mortgage program in Phoenix and preparing for Canada, a light bulb went off in someone's head.

Weren't the Canadians angry with us for promising to re-negotiate NAFTA during the campaign? Couldn't we go to Mexico instead? Told the Mexicans were just as peeved as the Canadians, that dodge was scratched. As the team began choreographing a Trade Tap dance for Obama to perform in Ottawa, someone whispered to those working on topics the Canadians would bring up: something about mCOOL and cattle and pigs. Oh really. Well, if USDA's Final Rule is on hold and we are planning on tightening beyond the Final Rule, we have to tell the Canadians that. How peeved will they be? Surely, not. You think so? Well, let's send Vilsack out to parley. If he gets shot full of holes, then we'll think of something else.

That may be how Sec. Vilsack got sent out two days before Obama's Canadian visit to warn the packers - and the international community - that USDA was planning yet another mCOOL overhaul. Negative reaction on both sides of the border was instant and vociferous. Vilsack's news conference was cancelled. The official letter to the packers was delayed - some say when the letter raised eyebrows among government legal beagles. Obama put on his pro-trade Top Hat and no mention was made of mCOOL in Ottawa.

Another theory: Obama's inner circle had no idea what Vilsack was planning until the last minute and hurriedly squelched Vilsack's announcement to put off unpleasantness. One Canadian writer who subscribes to this theory is Leslie Campbell, Embassy magazine. His theory as to why is disturbing.

"It is clear, though, that the U.S. livestock industry and their mostly Democratic backers are winning the COOL battle, seemingly with Obama's implicit approval," Campbell wrote.* At least some in Canada evidently hear too much liberal, union and R-CALF bluster and not the livestock industry majority who favor free trade. Some Canadian non-livestock industry observers view mCOOL as a "sneak attack" as Campbell described it, sanctioned by the U.S. livestock industry. To them, mCOOL is a reminder that Americans do not mind Canadians sending oil and electricity to America but reciprocity was not assured.

However it happened, the incident underlines the initial unpredictability of the new administration on issues critical to the meat industry. Input from the entire production chain is critical. Hopefully, the administration will get organized, populated and familiar with key important issues soon.

Many thought Vilsack would sit on his letter for awhile and reconsider. He did not. Lots of response is brewing. That's next.

*"Obama's Trip One-Hit Wonder or Start of Canadian Re-Branding?" 2/25/09

Email your comments to the author

{mos_sb_discuss:08}