For Immediate Release – July 23, 2004
For Information, contact:

            Crystal Bryant at TSCRA (800) 242-7820
            Burt Rutherford at TCFA (800) 299-8232

  Texas cattle groups applaud passage of Food Promotion Act

             The top elected officers of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) and the Texas Cattle Feeders Association (TCFA), along with 347 other food groups, applauded today's passage of the Food Promotion Act of 2004 (H.R. 4576 by the U.S. House Agriculture Committee.  The bill calls for the implementation of a voluntary, rather than mandatory, country-of-origin labeling program.

            "We thank House Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) and Ranking Minority Member Charles Stenholm (D-TX) for their leadership in moving forward with country-of-origin labeling that is market driven and not burdensome to producers," said Bob McCan, president of TSCRA in Fort Worth and Ernie Morales, chairman of the Amarillo-based TCFA.

            "We also thank House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Henry Bonilla (R-TX) for creating the opportunity for today's legislation.  Chairman Bonilla pushed a two-year delay of the original COOL legislation, which provided time to research and investigate all the ramifications of mandatory COOL."

            The Food Promotion Act of 2004 amends the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to establish the voluntary labeling of produce, meat (including beef, pork, veal, lamb) and seafood with country-of-origin information.  The labels are aimed at encouraging consumers to choose American products at their supermarkets.

            "We have long had concerns about the economic burden that mandatory country-of-origin labeling would place on beef producers. In order to comply with the mandatory law, cow-calf producers, stocker operators and feeders would have been required to maintain extensive, auditable record-keeping systems," they said.  "USDA has estimated the implementation costs of mandatory COOL record keeping at close to $2 billion and some industry experts calculate the total reaching $10 billion. However, today's legislation has given both consumers and producers a country-of-origin labeling program that works."   

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