July 14, 2010

American Meat Institute prolongs comment period on new USDA laws

The American Meat Institute (AMI) wants more time to comment on proposed USDA Grain Inspection Packers & Stockyards Administration rules that will extend up to 120 days.

AMI's request was made in a June 30th letter to GIPSA Administrator J. Dudley Butler. The proposed rules were released for the statutory comment period on June 18th.  The law allows for a 60-day comment period which closes August 23. But AMI wants to triple this time period to 180 days.

OCM urges denial of the request. AMI is a lobbying organisation of the major meat processing corporations of the US. OCM is a nonprofit organisation devoted to market fairness for agriculture and consumer food products.

"The issues involved in these proposed rules are not new to AMI. They assuredly don't need six months to study them. Their views have been known for years; they're simply stalling," said OCM president Randy Stevenson.

OCM's Senior Economics Fellow Dr. Robert Taylor and General Counsel David Domina agreed that more time to study the rules is not necessary. "For AMI to invoke 'equity' as a reason to delay action is like the fox invoking hunger to be left guarding the henhouse," Taylor said.

"The rules do not change the statutory law at all and AMI's suggestion that the time to comment should be tripled is irresponsible. During the extended comment time, AMI's packer members will slaughter 12 million cattle, 35 million hogs, and 1.5 billion chickens. American livestock producers will get less and consumers will pay more as market power is wielded against both of them," he says.

"Given AMI's stance on these matters over the years, this request for a 120-day extension for further study should be seen for the stalling tactic that it is and dismissed out of hand by GIPSA," Fred Stokes, OCM Executive Director, remarked.