MARE CLARE JALONICK/The Associated Press | Posted: Saturday, July 21, 2007 7:00 pm
WASHINGTON — Shoppers are in the dark about where much of their food comes from despite a 5-year-old law requiring meat and other products to carry labels with their country of origin.
That soon may change. Reports of tainted seafood from China have raised consumer awareness about the safety of imported food, and many of the law’s most powerful opponents have left Congress.
“The political dynamic is such that there’s just no getting around it,” said Colin Woodall, director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The livestock group has opposed a mandatory labeling program.
The House Agriculture Committee voted Thursday night to require country of origin labels on meats beginning next year.
After days of negotiations, the committee agreed to allow the mandatory labels but also to soften penalties and record-keeping requirements that many food retailers and meatpackers opposed.
The Agriculture Department never put in place the 2002 law requiring the labels because then-majority Republicans repeatedly delayed it, most recently to 2008.
“I think that both (sides) gained momentum in the news of recent weeks,” said Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a South Dakota Democrat who has long pushed for the labeling, which would help some smaller ranchers differentiate their product from Canadian beef.
Virginia Rep. Robert Goodlatte, the top Republican on the Agriculture panel and a lawmaker who has never supported a mandatory labeling law, helped broker the agreement. He said the “overwhelming majority” of interests are behind it now.
“It has much greater flexibility that is needed,” he said.
The agreement only applied to meats, but the law would also govern fruits, vegetables and peanuts. Those labeling programs have been far less controversial.
The law’s leading opponents have been grocery stores and large meatpacking companies, many of whom mix U.S. and Mexican beef, and other businesses getting products to supermarkets. They have said the tracking and the paperwork needed to comply with the law is too burdensome and would lead to higher prices.
Those interests had influential allies on Capitol Hill — mostly Texas Republicans — before Democrats took over this year.
President Bush, a Texan who has strong ties to the cattle industry, never has liked the labeling law, either. He reluctantly embraced it as part of the wide-ranging farm bill in 2002 that set agriculture policy.
The labeling requirement, popular with small, independent ranchers who sell their own products, applies to certain cuts of beef, lamb and pork, as well as to peanuts, fruits and vegetables. Processed foods are exempt. So are restaurants and other food service establishments.
The labeling program was not delayed for seafood. The former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, wanted it to promote his state’s lucrative fishing industry.
The spotlight on federal oversight is adding momentum to a renewed push by consumer groups to put the labeling law in place.
“When consumers hear about all these things in China, their tendency is to avoid things from China,” said Chris Waldrop of the Consumer Federation of America. “But they can’t because we don’t have country-of-origin labeling, so they are left in the supermarket to their own devices.”
The same experts point to several instances of mad cow disease in Canada as evidence of the need for stricter labeling.
But Regina Hildwine, director of food labeling and standards for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, says the labels will be “additional noise” on crowded packaging.
“There’s a lot more information on a label that’s more important for a consumer to understand, like nutrition facts,” she said.
Other lawmakers say the law doesn’t apply soon enough and are pushing for the requirement to become effective this year. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said a must-pass spending bill could be an option to try that.
The law is a priority for some lawmakers from the Midwest and northern Rockies, where smaller ranchers face heavy competition from Canada.
“Only by differentiating domestic beef from the rising tide of imported beef can our industry compete,” said Bill Bullard, chief executive officer of R-CALF USA, a group that represents smaller independent producers.