Cong. Rick Crawford: COOL Leaves Cold Future For State Exports

Editor’s note: Cong. Rick Crawford, R-Jonesboro, is the author of this guest commentary. He represents Arkansas’ First District. He is a member of the House Committee on Agriculture and serves as chairman of the Subcommittee on Livestock, Rural Development and Credit.

Arkansans take pride in their ability to feed, clothe and manufacture goods not only for their own state, but for the country and the world as well.

These products – including aircraft, poultry, rice, cotton and steel, to name a few – combined for a total export value of more than $7.1 billion in 2013, growing by more than 35 percent since 2010. This growth has occurred because our state’s private sector invested in meaningful economic activity, and it cannot occur if lawmakers in Washington strap that sector with undue regulatory burdens and expenses.

On the national level, the U.S. has enjoyed healthy trading partnerships with multiple international markets, including its neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico. U.S. trade with these two countries sits at $1.2 trillion and supports nearly 14 million domestic jobs, while Arkansas, alone, exported nearly $2.5 billion in products there last year.

Yet, despite this success, Washington has jeopardized it by failing to properly address an unnecessary labeling requirement.

Known as Country of Origin Labeling, or simply COOL, Congress began an effort in 2002 requiring retail stores to identify where certain food items were produced. Congress greatly expanded COOL in the 2008 farm bill, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) controversially implemented the final rule for it one year later.

AN ADDED BURDEN
Livestock and food industry groups rightly criticized COOL over increased production and packaging costs, while Canada and Mexico challenged the rule with the World Trade Organization. The two countries claimed U.S. consumers would view meat items from another country as inferior, creating a trade-distorting impact on purchases.

The WTO ruled in Canada and Mexico’s favor, citing COOL regulations treated imported livestock more harshly than U.S. livestock without accomplishing its original purpose to inform U.S. consumers. When the USDA revised COOL in 2013 to show each production step for meat – including “born,” “raised” and “slaughtered” – the WTO ruled on Oct. 20, 2014, that COOL still violated trade obligations by unfairly favoring domestic meat. The WTO subsequently gave the U.S. 60 days to comply or potentially face billions of dollars in costly retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico.

Many studies within the U.S. have supported the WTO’s findings. One of the country’s leading universities for livestock research, Kansas State, discovered that consumers show little awareness of COOL, and the rule has not influenced how they buy meat. COOL had become simply an added and costly burden on producers and packers.

Similarly, an agricultural, food and manufacturing consortium, known as the COOL Reform Coalition, has cited that non-compliance with the WTO will have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy. Arkansas, alone, could face $283 million in tariffs for its rice, chicken, prepared foods, eggs and wheat exports to Canada and Mexico.

THREATENS ECONOMY
Washington should not arbitrarily impede the ability of its citizens to engage in legal and gainful commerce, and the WTO’s latest decision underscores that the current mandatory COOL law needs changing. The House Committee on Agriculture – of which I am a member – has long maintained this position.

In fact, we expressed our disappointment that the Senate proved uncooperative to fix COOL during the 2014 farm bill and that U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack openly opposed Congress acting on this issue – an issue that threatens the economy of Arkansas and every state in our union.

In summary, I support the full repeal of mandatory COOL for beef, pork and chicken products, but I also recognize the difficulty of this mission and remain open to alternatives that bring the U.S. into complete WTO compliance.

In doing so, Arkansans can continue taking pride in feeding, clothing and manufacturing goods for the rest of the globe.