Dive Summary:
- In a 76-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Ketanji B. Jackson rejected a preliminary injunction request from a group of meat packers who say the farm bill's stricter country-of-origin labeling mandates are harmful and expensive.
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture is set to implement the tougher rules, which require separate listing of where livestock was born, raised and slaughtered, in November.
- A coalition including the Canadian and Mexican cattle and pork industries and U.S. meat packers say the industry will lose at least $200 million preventing the "co-mingling" of animals purchased from different countries, and that "buy American" sentiment will also hurt the Canadian and Mexican producers.
From the article:
... Jackson emphasized that her job was not to determine whether the Agriculture Department’s new rule met international trade obligations. She wrote that the department was “stuck between a rock and a hard place” because country-of-origin labeling is the law mandated by Congress.
“In the absence of a legislative solution to what the WTO had identified as problematic, the agency had to attempt to bring COOL regulations into compliance with the international tribunal’s decision without running afoul of the COOL statute,” she explained. ...