Cory Booker: Lack Of Country Of Origin Labels Is 'Screwing Over Independent Ranchers'

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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in June, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) asked CEO of R-CALF Bill Bullard about Country Of Origin Labeling (COOL) laws.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:02Mr. Bullard, forgive me that I had to run out on your testimony to go vote,

00:06but your written testimony is compelling, and I know your verbal testimony was.

00:09You've witnessed a lot of folks on your terrain here.

00:13Senator Hawley, I think, made me very happy as he echoed some of your points.

00:18I want to get a little deeper into it.

00:20Just ask you first about the Packers and Stockyard Act.

00:23Why isn't your opinion being enforced?

00:25And what might we do to make it have more teeth to prevent a lot of the harms that you so well detailed?

00:34Well, I think it hasn't been enforced for the same reason we haven't enforced our antitrust laws,

00:39and that was a belief that if we just leave the markets alone, they will self-heal.

00:44Obviously, that has not happened, and it's decimated our industry.

00:48Congress recognized the need to provide additional protections to independent livestock producers

00:52clear back in 1921 when they passed the Packers and Stockyards Act.

00:57We now need the Packers and Stockyards Act to be fully implemented,

01:01and to do so, we need the U.S. Department of Agriculture to promulgate rules.

01:06And they began doing so in the last administration.

01:08They need to complete those rules.

01:10And that is because we have not enforced our antitrust laws.

01:13We have created an oligopolistic structure in the marketplace that is exerting harmful buying power upon the industry,

01:21and it is wiping out our producers.

01:24And if we don't take some immediate action in the form of regulatory relief,

01:29we will continue to see a loss of producers.

01:32And the Packers and Stockyards Act rules are the means by which we can provide some confidence to our industry

01:39and perhaps attract new entrants again if they believe they have a fair and robustly competitive industry to enter.

01:47So that's how we accomplish it.

01:49We write the rules and then enforce them.

01:52I appreciate that, and I agree with you on the urgency for the Trump administration

01:55to finish that rulemaking process so we have some teeth.

01:59I want to switch to an issue that the good chairperson and I really bonded over.

02:05It's just the abuses within the checkoff program.

02:09We know that there needs to be serious reform.

02:13I'm proud to have introduced the Opportunities for Fairness and Farming Act, the OFF Act,

02:18with Chair Lee, which would reform that checkoff program.

02:21But can you explain what the beef checkoff program is

02:25and describe how it's been overtaken by lobbyists and lobbying groups

02:29and the interests of corporate meat packers over the individual farmers and ranchers

02:35and how, in many ways, those programs are used to hurt you and your interests?

02:40So the beef checkoff program was passed in the 85 Farm Bill.

02:43It was intended to provide monies for beef promotion and research,

02:48and the monies were collected in the form of taxes on independent producers,

02:53and it generates tens of millions of dollars a year.

02:57The intent, of course, was to increase demand for beef.

03:00However, the money's been funneled through organizations that lobby on public policy issues

03:06that are contrary to the interests of independent producers.

03:08So independent producers find themselves today being forced to pay a tax on every head of animals sold

03:15only to see the funds from that tax being used in the halls of Washington to lobby against their interests.

03:21For example, our members fully support mandatory country awards labeling for beef,

03:26and they found that the organizations that are major recipients of the beef checkoff program

03:31are lobbying in Washington against that interest.

03:34We shared then-President Trump's, during his first term's, effort to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement.

03:43However, the organizations that are checkoff funds were being funneled to

03:48were, in fact, trying to promote that failed trade agreement.

03:52So there are many issues like that that are where we see the interests of many, many cattle farmers and ranchers

03:59and sheep producers being undermined by the organizations that have received the funds.

04:04Well, let's talk about that mandatory country of origin labeling.

04:08I honestly, again, I'm a guy from New Jersey.

04:12I didn't know about this before I came to Washington.

04:14I was sort of shocked at how we were screwing over independent ranchers with legislation like this.

04:20And so can you explain why mandatory country of origin labeling actually should be done right

04:27and not violated in the way that I've seen it violated, and why it's essential for fair competition,

04:34and really how did the elimination of this requirement, in effect, really harm American ranchers?

04:41Well, in any competitive market, you have to have symmetry in information between the buyer and the seller.

04:46And currently, without country of origin labeling, the multinational meat packers that are importing beef

04:51from 20 different countries are able to bring it into the U.S. market and mask the origins of that product

04:57and actually pass it off to U.S. consumers as if it were a domestic product

05:01because it bears the same U.S. inspection sticker as a domestic product does.

05:06But worse than that, since 2015, when country of origin labeling was repealed by Congress for beef and for pork,

05:12the current regulations have allowed meat packers to import a product, say, a steak from Uruguay

05:18that has a product of Uruguay label on it when it crosses U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

05:24And then when it's brought into a U.S. processing plant, the Uruguayan label can be thrown in the garbage,

05:30a new plastic wrapper fixed around the meat, and then it can be sold with a product of the USA label.

05:36Now, USDA did go through a rulemaking process, and on January 1 of 2026, we're supposed to see that remedied.

05:44However, that's only a voluntary law, so it is not going to require any packer to label any foreign products.

05:51And we are seeing a significant increase in the volume of foreign beef coming into this country,

05:56being passed off to unsuspecting consumers as if it were a domestic product.

06:00And as a result, they're priced accordingly.

06:04Instead of the consumer receiving a discount if the product is half the cost from Uruguay or Argentina, for example,

06:10consumers paying the same prices as if it were domestic.

06:13So consumers are being deceived.

06:15They're being exploited in the marketplace without mandatory country origin labeling.

06:19Consumers deserve to know where the beef came from and under what country's food safety production regime it was produced under.

06:26Mr. Chairman, I hope we do another round, but I'm going to stop here in deference to my Alabama ancestors.

06:30And my dear friend, the senator from Alabama.

06:35Thank you very much.

06:36I just ran the length of Russell, so thank you for giving me a moment to catch my breath.

06:43Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate you holding this hearing today.

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