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After days of negotiations between both sides, the committee agreed on to allow the mandatory labels but soften penalties and burdensome record-keeping requirements that had concerned many food retailers and meatpackers who opposed the law. The committee adopted by voice vote the labeling changes just before it approved a five-year farm law that would govern agriculture programs.
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, a South Dakota Democrat who has long pushed for the labeling, which would help smaller, independent ranchers in her home state who face competition from Canadian beef.
China is working to clean up its drug and food industries, which are under international scrutiny after substandard Chinese goods have been rejected around the world as dangerous.
Herseth and others, including consumer groups, were most concerned that meats could not be given a USA label unless the animals were born, raised and slaughtered in the United States.
"There has to be some reflection of the fact that these animals were born elsewhere," Herseth said after the vote.
The agreement maintains that standard, but it also allows the labels to list the United States as one of several countries of origin if the meat is mixed.
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 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 involved in 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.
Processed foods are exempt from the labeling requirements, as 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, put it in place to promote his state's lucrative fishing industry.
[Associated Press;
by Mary Clare Jalonick] |
