EDITORIAL: Let states have more power to regulate meat processing

What is it they say about roads paved with good intentions? 

For about 50 years now, most of the meat we buy and sell in America is regulated by the federal government. You can slaughter any livestock you own and eat all the meat you get from it, but if you want to sell the meat, federal regulations come into play. 

The intention of the laws was to make meat safer for people to eat, but like so much the federal government does, even when the intent is sound, the outcomes are full of unintended consequences. 

In order for a meat processor to sell across state lines, its facilities need to be federally inspected. State-inspected facilities can only sell within Wyoming, which greatly limits their markets and therefore, their potential revenues. This creates barriers for new local butchers to set up shop, and so it’s not surprising they sometimes take orders months in advance.

It’s even more expensive for a facility to comply with the requirements of federal inspection, which opens up the facility to interstate markets. 

For this reason, smaller slaughterhouses that meet these requirements are exceedingly scarce. In a state that boasts 1.3 million cattle, Wyoming only has two federally inspected facilities that slaughter cattle, and both of them have come online only in the past few years. 

According to a Wyoming Business Council study released in February, the total estimated annual slaughtering capacity for state and federally inspected facilities in the state is about 21,000 animals. Federally inspected facilities account for about a third of that. Only about 10% of the state’s total meat processing capacity is in the Big Horn Basin. 

Federal law requires that state regulations be at least as strict as the federal ones, so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that state-inspected facilities can’t sell across state lines. 

With the paucity of local meat processing, cattle ranchers are largely at the mercy of four large conglomerates, which process 80% of all beef in America. At a time when beef prices are soaring at the supermarket, processors are paying less than ever. 

In May, attorney generals in Wyoming and 10 other states asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the four big meatpackers for predatory pricing. Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, it’s treating a symptom of a much wider problem. So long as federal regulations make it cost-prohibitive to invest in local processing, the big four meatpackers are going to control most of the market in this country. 

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., introduced the Expanding Markets for State-Inspected Meat Processors Act of 2020, which would allow state-inspected facilities to sell meat across state lines. If passed, it would not only expand the markets available to existing local meatpackers, it would encourage investment in new ones. 

This would create jobs, bring down meat prices and create a lot more competition against the big meat packers, without making our meat any less safe for consumers. 

The federal government needs to relax its grip on meat processing and put more oversight in the hands of the state. The free market will do the rest. 

POWELL TRIBUNE

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Warns Sequester Could Force Meat Plants To Shut Down For Two Weeks

The U.S. Agriculture Department would furlough up to one-third of its workers if automatic spending cuts take effect at the end of the month, the agency warned, with effects ranging from a two-week shutdown of meat plants to summertime closure of hundreds of national forest campgrounds. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack described the impact of the cuts, amounting to $2 billion, in a letter that warned "these furloughs and other actions would severely disrupt our ability to provide a broad range of public services." USDA released a copy of the letter on Tuesday. Vilsack reiterated the prospect of "a nationwide shutdown of meat and poultry plants during a furlough of (meat) inspection personnel" for "as much as 15 days of lost production, costing over $10 billion in production losses."  Meat packers and processors cannot sell beef, pork, lamb and poultry meat without the USDA inspection seal. Inspection of meat for export or import also would stop during a furlough, said USDA. The industry has appealed to USDA to find ways to avoid a disruptive shutdown. Vilsack did not say how soon furloughs might occur. An aide said she had no additional information. Vilsack assured USDA employees in early February they would get at least 30 days' notice if they were being furloughed. "Should sequestration occur, we would likely need to implement furloughs impacting about a third of our workforce, as well as other actions," Vilsack wrote in the letter to Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, head of the Senate Appropriations Committee. USDA has roughly 100,000 employees, down by 4,000 in two years. Up to 600,000 low-income women and infants could be cut from the so-called WIC program that provides supplemental food and nutrition education if the budget cuts last for the rest of this fiscal year, according to the letter. Current enrollment is nearly 9 million pregnant women, new mothers and their children...more

Why would Vilsack highlight meat inspection over the WIC program?  Because he knows the meat and livestock industry will have more influence with Republicans than those receiving food and nutrition education.

Other cuts, Vilsack said, could include:

-Closure of 670 of the Forest Service's 19,000 recreation sites, such as campgrounds, picnic areas and trailheads, in the national forests and shorter hours at visitor centers. "This would largely occur during the peak use seasons in spring and summer," said USDA. The Forest Service would reduce its law enforcement force by 35 workers to 707 officers.

We could do with a little less picknicking on federal land and the reduction in law enforcement is an absolutely positive event.

But, oh horrors, the worst is yet to come:

-A work pause on the Census of Agriculture. "Data will become incomplete and will not be statistically sound for publication," said USDA.

Guess you'll have to figure out something else to do with the time you would have spent filling out those lovely gov't forms. 

And all this hand-wringing is over a 1.2 percent cut in the budget.  As I've posted before:

...according to Congressional Budget Office figures, the cuts amount to only 1.2 percent of 2013 spending, which is enough to keep the government running for about 4.5 days. More pointedly, the CBO estimates that with the sequester in place, federal spending will be $3.553 trillion in 2013. With the $44 billion in sequester cuts removed, federal spending would rise to $3.597 trillion, which includes a little over $1 trillion in borrowed money, i.e., debt

Will be interesting to see how the Obama administration will implement the sequester.  Will they protect the health and safety of the public or will they selectively cut in areas aimed at bringing the Republicans to their knees?

Obama’s ‘Sudden, Harsh, Arbitrary’ Sequester Only 1.2 Percent of 2013 Spending

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama described the upcoming sequestration cuts as “sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts,” claiming they would “devastate” important government functions and cost “hundreds of thousands of jobs.” However, according to Congressional Budget Office figures, the cuts amount to only 1.2 percent of 2013 spending, which is enough to keep the government running for about 4.5 days. More pointedly, the CBO estimates that with the sequester in place, federal spending will be $3.553 trillion in 2013. With the $44 billion in sequester cuts removed, federal spending would rise to $3.597 trillion, which includes a little over $1 trillion in borrowed money, i.e., debt...more

And that's going to cause them to shut down meat inspection? 

AMI President Tells Vilsack USDA Has Legal Obligation to Provide Meat Inspection Even Under Sequestration

    AMI President J. Patrick Boyle today wrote Agriculture Secretary Vilsack reminding him of USDA’s legal obligations to provide meat inspection even under sequestration.  Boyle sent the letter in response to comments made by USDA to media that sequestration would result in an across-the-board furlough of as much as 15 days for all Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) employees, including inspectors.
     In the comments, USDA also said that production will shut down for that time period, impacting approximately 6,290 establishments nationwide and costing roughly over $10 billion in production losses. USDA further told reporters that industry workers would experience over $400 million in lost wages and that consumers would experience limited meat and poultry supplies and potentially higher prices.
    “We agree with the assessment that furloughing inspectors would have a profound, indeed devastating, effect on meat and poultry companies, their employees, and consumers, not to mention the producers who raise the cattle, hogs, lamb, and poultry processed in those facilities,” Boyle said.  “AMI respectfully disagrees with the Department’s assertion is that, in the event of sequestration, the furloughs referenced are necessary and legal.  The Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act (the Acts) impose many obligations on the inspected industry, which we strive to meet.  Those Acts, also however, impose an obligation on the Department – to provide inspection services.”
    Boyle noted that a significant percentage of the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) budget goes to personnel salaries, but not all of those funds are used to pay the inspectors necessary to allow establishments to operate.
    “ Rather than impose across the board furloughs that will lead to plant closures, it is incumbent upon the Department to examine the options available to it, e.g., suspending certain non-essential programs and furloughing non-essential personnel within the 13 different offices (only one of which involves inspectors in plant) that make up FSIS,” he wrote.
   “Such an approach would enable FSIS to meet its obligations under a sequestration scenario and satisfy its statutory obligation to provide inspection pursuant to the Acts,” he concluded.  “By doing so the Department would avoid inflicting unnecessary hardship on the more than 500,000 people who work in the meat and poultry industry and the more than one million livestock and poultry producers whose livelihoods also depend on those plants operating, and would also disruption of supplies to the 95 percent of Americans who make meat and poultry a nutritious part of their diets. Press Release

Two observations

° This demonstrates the livestock industry's huge entanglement with the feds, and

° This is another attempt by the Obama adm. to get the R's in the House to back down on sequestration