A U.S. District Court this week said alleged financial harm to U.S. beef producers was “fairly traceable” to the Department of Agriculture.
A lawsuit, filed by R-CALF USA, alleged that USDA was unlawfully allowing imported beef to be both sold to consumers without a country of origin label and sold to consumers with a “Product of USA” label, even if the animal from which the beef was derived was born, raised and slaughtered in a foreign country. The court did not side with R-CALF, but the organization says that recognizing producers are harmed USDA, “makes it even clearer that the Trump Administration and Congress must act now to protect them,” by reinstating COOL.
The court determined that the cattle producers were time-barred from prevailing in their case because the regulations that allowed the removal of COOL labels on imported beef was promulgated in 1989 and the statute of limitations expired in 1995. The court did not agree with the cattle producers that the clock should have been reset after the 2016 repeal of the COOL for beef.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting News Service.