Senators Insist COOL Stays in Place, as WTO Edges Toward Report Release
Leadership on the Senate Appropriations Committee should block any attempt to scale back or eliminate country-of-origin labeling (COOL) through fiscal year 2015 funding bills, nearly one-third of the Senate said in a letter to Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and ranking member Richard Shelby, R-Ala. The World Trade Organization compliance panel report in the COOL dispute, which pits the U.S. against Canada and Mexico, is past due at this point, but the WTO process will probably continue into 2015, said the Oct. 6 letter, led by Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. and signed by 30 more lawmakers.
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The Senate letter contrasts with a recent House effort pushing the Department of Agriculture to revoke the regulations if the WTO sides with Canada and Mexico (see 14072415). U.S. industry representatives have pushed the U.S. to change the rules to avoid Canadian and Mexican retaliation (see 14082821). The Canadian government in June 2013 published its list of goods that could be subject to retaliatory tariffs, which includes jewelry, swivel seats and wooden furniture, among other manufactured goods.
Removing the labeling rules, or weakening them, would “short-circuit” efforts to support U.S. meat producers and consumers and undermine the U.S. policy in the WTO fight, the letter said. “The complexity of the case is unlikely to yield a clear-cut decision,” said the lawmakers. “The United States government has tools to address the outcome, once the WTO process reaches finality, to ensure labeling remains consistent with our trade obligations.” Canada and Mexico allege the COOL rules discriminate against their products.
The House, Senate and President Barack Obama rallied together to enact in September a stopgap funding measure, H.J.Res.124 (here), that will keep the government running through early December. In the immediate wake of the mid-term election on Nov. 4, lawmakers from both chambers will therefore have to come together again to fund the federal government after the December cut-off. If the two chambers choose to move forward with omnibus bills, as opposed to another continuing resolution, Mikulski would reject COOL changes through that process, said a committee spokesman. “Chairwoman Mikulski has said she wants to finish an omnibus in early December and this committee did not make any attempt to weaken COOL enforcement when it marked up the Agriculture bill in May,” said the spokesman.
The National Association of Manufacturers is pushing any means to bring the U.S. COOL regime into compliance with WTO rules, including language on appropriations legislation that would authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to rescind portions of the regime that are determined non-compliant, said NAM director Jessica Lemos in an interview. Canadian and Mexico retaliation could cost U.S. exporters $2 billion in sales to those two markets, she said. “Once that market share is lost, it takes years to regain as we’ve seen in different circumstances over the years,” said Lemos. “Increased tariffs on a number of manufactured goods would cause decreases in exports to those markets. In fact, we’ve seen that when there are indications that retaliation is likely to come, importers choose safer bets in other markets.”
The WTO compliance panel is likely to fault the U.S. in the dispute, the Wall Street Journal has reported. A U.S. Trade Representative spokesman said the compliance panel report will be released "once finalized and translated," likely before the end of 2014. The Senate letter called the coverage that the decision will fault the U.S. “rumors from abroad." The COOL rules aim to give Americans more information on the food they eat, said the lawmakers. -- Brian Dabbs