Secretary Tom Vilsack and his team are embarking on one final push to pass several Packers and Stockyards rules before the current administration’s end.
Four proposed rules are already on the table, but the Ag Secretary says that a fifth is also in progress.
According to Vilsack, “The first two rules, the transparency rule that primarily in the poultry line, basically requiring more information from those that were doing business with the integrators. So that you know that you’re doing business with somebody that’s going to be able to do what they say they’re going to do. That rule is final. The market integrity rule, that basically said you can’t discriminate, you can’t retaliate. That rule is final. The poultry tournament rule, that basically tried to create a level playing field in a fair tournament system. The comment period ended on August 6th of this year, so we’re just in the process of reviewing those comments and the goal is to get that finalized before the end of the year. The fair competition rule and harm to competition, which is a big one, the comment period on that ends up this week... once that we’ll get all the comments, we’ll assemble them, we’ll analyze them, we’ll polish the rule up a little bit and then propose it, for final, and again the goal here is to try to get all this done before the end of this administration. "
Vilsack says that they are also still working towards a new fed cattle price discovery tool and hope that it too is publicized for consideration before the end of the year.
The National Chicken Council, however, is urging the USDA to drop its proposed fair and competitive livestock and poultry markets rule. Claiming in submitted comments that the rule would cause confusion and lead to stagger costs for the industry which would ultimately be passed down to consumers.
They believe that the rule would violate some of the agency’s authority and called it “vague and unworkable”
The Meat Insitute has also taken a firm stance against the proposal. Their COO, Mark Dopp says that changing the harm to competition standard requires congressional action.
