Agricultural News
American Meat Institute's Mark Dopp Contends GIPSA Rule Will Set Back Beef and Pork Industries by Decades
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 9:15:31 CDT
One of the panelists on the third and final panel of the day at the Workshop on Competition held by the Department of Justice and the Department of Agriculture was the General Counsel of the American Meat Institute , Mark Dopp. We talked to Dopp about his comments and the overall day's events Friday afternoon in Ft. Collins- and you can click on the LISTEN BAR at the bottom of this story, and hear our conversation.
As the event got under way, AMI's Dopp issued a statement detailing the thorough examination that these issues have already had in courts and in economic studies:
"We are confident that the USDA-DOJ workshops will show what dozens of analyses by the government and universities have concluded repeatedly -- that the U.S. meat and poultry industry is dynamic and competitive and that livestock and poultry procurement practices that include marketing agreements and forward contracts are legitimate," Dopp said.
Dopp specifically expressed concerns about a new proposal from the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration (GIPSA) that will strongly discourage the use of alternative marketing agreements by exposing parties who enter into them to litigation, represents a plain-old end run around both the courts and Congress.
"Past attempts to prove through the courts that somehow agreements and forward contracts afford undue preferences have been rejected by eight appellate courts," he added. "Despite these judicial rejections, USDA's new proposal, which will strongly discourage the use of these agreements by exposing parties who enter into them to litigation, represents a plain-old end run around both the courts and Congress."
CLick here for the full AMI statement provided at the workshop.
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