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The long, winding and very bumpy road for mandatory country-of-origin
labeling law and other legislation could continue as President
Barack Obama's administration on Wednesday ordered all federal
agencies to freeze new or pending regulations of the Bush
administration until the new camp approves them.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel issued a memorandum
to all federal agencies that, among other things, directs
them to consider extending for 60 days the effective date
of regulations that have been published but have not yet
taken effect "for purposes of reviewing questions of law
and policy raised by those regulations." In such a case,
a notice-and-comment period of 30 days would be reopened.
Published Jan. 15 in the Federal Register , the final COOL
law is slated to take effect March 16. However, the memo
indicates Obama is asking agency heads to use discretion.
"It appears that there is some discretion given as to whether
or not published final rules will be enacted as is or reviewed,"
American Meat Institute spokesman Dave Ray told Meatingplace
. "So it's not certain what will happen with COOL."
Concerns
Some would expect the Obama camp to tighten up COOL rules,
which, for example, currently allow meatpackers to commingle
as few as one foreign animal with domestic cattle and label
the entire day's production as of mixed-country origin.
The true intent of the law, say its proponents, is to differentiate
U.S. product from foreign product.
"The main concern of packers has, I believe, always been
complexity," National Meat Association spokesman Jeremy
Russell told Meatingplace . "The more complex
the mandatory COOL labeling system the more costly — and
the more likely there will be errors."
Meanwhile, other regulations the Obama administration might
review include a rule proposed by the Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service regarding an official numbering system
for the National Animal Identification initiative, which
was published Jan. 13. New provisions in the 2008 farm bill
also hang in the balance. The disposition of the Food and
Drug Administration's new guidance on genetically engineered
animals also is unclear.
To read the full text of the memorandum, click here.
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