Rosa on COOL

From the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro:

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), chairwoman of the House Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following opening statement during a subcommittee hearing on the proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget for the Marketing and Regulatory Programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at which Bruce Knight, Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs
at the U.S. Department of Agriculture testified.

From her opening remarks:

There are, of course, several other important issues to discuss during this hearing. One critical issue is country-of-origin labeling (COOL). In the FY 2008 omnibus appropriations bill, we included a timeline that would lead to the implementation of COOL by September 30, 2008. Unfortunately, USDA missed the first deadline – which was for Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to re-publish a proposed rule for covered commodities (beef, fruits and vegetables) by January 17, 2008. It is almost three months past that deadline, and we are still waiting.

I realize that the provision on COOL in the farm bill represents an agreement that was reached among the various stakeholders and so I understand the USDA may therefore be waiting for the farm bill to pass. However, USDA does not seem to not have a problem making assumptions about the new farm bill in their Fiscal Year 2009 budget request, so it is interesting that they would ignore it when it pertains to COOL.