A Good Idea

Part of the conversation about Country Of Origin Labeling (COOL) on a national level has been what the costs would be to the producers in the US. I have never been able to figure out why we have to pay for it and what our costs would be. I've always asked the question, why can't we just identify, like brand or eartag, any cattle that come across our borders as a foreign product and that way the cost would be on the foreign product and not on ours?

Well U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg has introduced a bill to do just this, identify cattle as they come across the border. Bravo Zulu. The article even explains why this hasn't been done before, the Texas Cattle Feeders Association. Figures, they bring in all kinds of Mexican cattle, feed them, then sell them as a product of the US. This organization and the Meat Packers have been the main opponents to the whole COOL idea.

Hopefully Denny Rehberg has found a way around these people by bringing the issue up in another committee, we'll see. Maybe this will ease the costs of COOL on US producers.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live. Anatole France