August 21, 2006

 

USDA asks court to cut off lawsuit to ban Canadian cattle

 

 

The US Department of Agriculture is asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for a summary judgment to bar further proceedings on a renewed attempt by a US rancher group to stop the importation of Canadian cattle and beef into the US.

 

The USDA, in its latest motion filed this week, said no more briefs or arguments would be needed for the court to rule on the case.

 

R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America, the plaintiff, believes the government would like to muzzle the group that says it has new evidence to present showing that Canadian cattle and beef present a threat of spreading bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, to the US.

 

Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF, said Friday he believes this is a "make-work attempt" by the USDA to discourage his group from proceeding and preventing "its arguments ever seeing the light of day."

 

Canada just last month announced its seventh case of BSE in a 50-month-old dairy cow, born more than four years after Canada implemented cattle feed restrictions that were supposed to retard the spread of BSE. The Canadian feed ban, similar to the one in the US, prohibits the use of bovine material in cattle feed because infected feed is believed to be the primary means of spreading the disease among animals.

 

It was earlier legal actions by R-CALF that forced the USDA to postpone lifting a US ban on very young cattle and beef from those animals, but the USDA succeeded opening the border in July 2005.

 

Now, in an appeal, R-CALF is asking the court to shut down trade again. R-CALF is scheduled to file its first brief in the appeal on Sep 21.

 

It was the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down an injunction placed on the USDA, stopping it from allowing in Canadian cattle and beef.

 

But the situation has changed since then, with more Canadian discoveries of BSE cases in cattle born after Canada implemented its feed ban, R-CALF President Chuck Kiker said.

 

"Now that Canada has discovered infected cows born years after its feed ban began, it is clear that Canada should not have been classified as a Minimal Risk Region for BSE," Kiker said.

 

The latest Canadian BSE case prompted the USDA in July to withdraw a proposal to allow even more Canadian cattle into the US by opening the border to older animals. Now only cattle under 30 months old can be imported from Canada.

 

The US has found three case of BSE, the first of which is believed to have been born and raised in Canada before being shipped there.