F/V advisory meeting postponed?

I have an email this morning into Andy Hatch at AMS on the question of whether the Jan. 14-15 F/V industry advisory committee has been postponed. Back on Dec. 17 Andy sent an email to me that said:

The dates of the Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee’s next meeting are January 14-15. The location will be the Capital Hilton at 1001-16th Street NW in Washington. Our news release and Federal Register “Notice of Meeting” will be published shortly. We are working on inviting and scheduling speakers, and formulating the meeting agenda.

PMA reported on their Web site this news on Friday:

PMA has learned that the USDA is rescheduling the January 14-15 meeting of the Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee. USDA is working diligently to determine alternate dates for the meeting. The Federal Advisory Committee Act regulations require a “Notice of Meeting” to be published in the Federal Register no later than 15 days prior to an advisory committee meeting. Although USDA developed the notice with sufficient time, the agency was unable to get it published in the Federal Register by December 31. USDA attempted to get a waiver but it was denied.


TK: As one of few people to attend every f/v industry advisory committee meeting - and I have air tickets to DC for this weekend - I'm extremely disappointed with this disturbing lack of execution by AMS. Of course, this does not fall to Andy; the failure goes up the food chain. I'm also chapped AMS has not let the trade press know about the change in these plans prior to today.


Breaking.....


Andy writes in an email today the AMS is considering Feb. 7-8 for the new meeting date, but nothing definitive yet.