Senate Coalition Urges Appropriations Committee to Thwart Attempts to Revise COOL

A bipartisan group of 32 federal lawmakers led by U.S. Senators Jon Tester
(D-Mont.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) penned an October 6, 2014, letter to
the Senate Appropriations Committee asking its leaders to “reject efforts
to weaken or suspend Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) through any
continuing resolution or omnibus appropriations bill” pending a World Trade
Organization (WTO) decision on the United States’ meat labeling dispute with
Canada and Mexico.

According to their letter, “anonymous foreign sources continue their efforts
to undermine COOL,” making it essential that the Committee “not allow these
rumors from abroad to preemptively weaken U.S. law before the dispute
resolution process has run its course.” U.S. consumers, they contend, “have
the right to know where their food comes from and farmers should be able to
market their livestock as born and raised in America.”

Issue 540