October 2, 2024

Nebraska Beef Farmers Suffer While Senator Fischer Rakes in Big Meat Packer Cash

Senator Deb Fischer is badly out of step with American farmers, ranchers and consumers on the issue of Country of Origin Labeling (COOL). In 2015, Congress repealed COOL for beef and pork products. It was a move that crippled American farmers and ranchers and now foreign meat is now being sold without country-of-origin disclosure. Meat packers can now displace U.S. production by sourcing cheaper, foreign beef and yet sell it to unsuspecting American consumers as if it were a domestic-produced product because even foreign meat receives a USDA inspection sticker when it enters the U.S. Sadly, consumers erroneously equate the USDA inspection sticker with a mark of origin. After COOL was repealed, meat packer profit margins jumped from $146 to $269 per animal but U.S. cattle prices dropped causing hardship in Nebraska and rural America. A poll by Morning Consult found that 86 percent of registered voters supported mandatory country of origin labeling for beef and 77 percent believed it was important that the beef they purchased was born, raised and harvested in the United States. However, Sen. Fischer has opposed legislation to mandate country-of-origin labeling. On July 27, 2023, she voted against the Country of Origin Labeling Online Act (S. 1421), which passed the Commerce Committee by a bipartisan vote of 16-11. The bill would mandate that country-of-origin labeling be clearly and conspicuously stated in any website description of a product. The legislation is supported by…

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