Agricultural News
NCBA Lobbyist Colin Woodall on COOL- Debbie Stabenow Completely Failed Us
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 07:33:37 CST
The Chairlady of the Senate Ag Committee, Debbie Stabenow, is being singled out by the lead lobbyist of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association as not keeping her word in fixing mandatory Country of Origin Labeling rule that livestock and meat groups are up in arms about. Colin Woodall of the NCBA's Washington office says of the Farm Bill Conference Report that did not address a change in COOL and actually backtracked on GIPSA- "we sure found out that we don't have as many friends on Capitol Hill as we expected, especially in Debbie Stabenow, the chairlady of the Senate Ag Committee."
Woodall says part of the problem came out of the lack of votes by the full Farm Bill Conference Committee as he contends that "If we had a vote, we would have won both of these issues" (COOL and GIPSA).
Woodall says that NCBA and the other groups that signed a letter to the Farm Bill Conference Leadership and members have vowed to work as hard as they can to defeat the Conference Report in either the House or Senate. Woodall feels they have a chance of doing so in both bodies, but that prevailing in the Senate would send a great signal to Senator Stabenow- "I think our preference would be to take this farm bill down in the Senate, just to show the lack of leadership by Senator Stabenow on this subject."
Woodall says if the effort to stop the Farm Bill Conference Report fails, there will be no stopping Canada and Mexico from imposing huge tarriffs on the US meat industry and other exports from the US as well- he says he thinks that will happen later in 2014 or early 2015. Woodall dismisses any chance that the current rule put into place by USDA last spring will be found trade legal under WTO Rules.
You can hear our full conversation with Woodall by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
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