COOL fee planned for retailers

If you thought retailers loved COOL before, wait till you see this...


Here is the link to the USDA summary of the fiscal year 2009 budget. Autumn Veazey of United Fresh passed this info along yesterday, and said the association is talking with AMS and trying to find out more about this troubling prospect.

From page 70 of the USDA budget summary is this paragraph.

As part of the 2009 budget request, AMS will propose an amendment to the authorizing legislation for Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) that will allow the program to collect, retain, and invest user fees to fund random compliance reviews. The estimated user fee collections for COOL compliance monitoring and enforcement, is approximately $10 million. In FY 2009, COOL will be mandatory for a wider range of commodities than fish and shellfish that are currently subject to COOL requirements.


Here is additional elaboration on the issue provided to United by an official within USDA AMS:

For FY 2009, when COOL becomes mandatory for all covered commodities, AMS will use the funding currently provided through annual appropriations ($1.1 million) to finance COOL regulatory and oversight activities, including rulemaking, outreach, and education. However, at this level of funding, the program will be unable to conduct surveillance audits to monitor compliance with labeling requirements. To finance these monitoring and enforcement-related activities, USDA proposes to collect mandatory user fees from retailers. This proposal requires an amendment to authorizing legislation that would allow the program to collect and retain user fees for this purpose in a no-year account with investment authority. AMS proposes to accomplish periodic random surveillance audits through a cooperative Federal/ State network. The proposed fees would finance surveillance audits on all covered commodities (meat; perishable fruits, vegetables, and specialty commodities; peanuts; fish and shellfish) at retail establishments, provide training for Federal and State employees on enforcement responsibilities, and develop and maintain an automated web-based data entry and tracking system for records management and violation follow-up, as well as ten additional Federal employees to carry out the expanded program and conduct trace-back audits. The estimated cost increase is $9.6 million for surveillance and enforcement of all covered commodities, which would equal approximately $259 for each of an estimated 37,000 retail locations.