The U.S. District Court Eastern District of Washington granted summary judgment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in a lawsuit filed by R-CALF USA and the Cattle Producers of Washington (CPoW). The lawsuit alleged that the USDA was unlawfully allowing imported beef to be both sold to consumers without a country of origin label and sold to consumers with a “Product of USA” label even if the animal from which the beef was derived was born, raised and slaughtered in a foreign country.
The court, after finding that cattle producers demonstrated they had suffered financial harm as a result of the lack of country of origin labeling (COOL) on imported beef, and that the financial harm they suffered was “fairly traceable” to the USDA’s actions, nevertheless ruled against the cattle producers. The court determined that the cattle producers were time-barred from prevailing in their case because the regulations that allowed the removal of COOL labels on imported beef was promulgated in 1989 and the statute of limitations expired in 1995. Read more. Listen to Bill Bullard of R-CALF USA here on American Cattle News:
