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Meat inspection rule changes now with OMB

Wisconsin Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen met with Deputy U.S. Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan in Washington last Thursday to discuss the rules being developed which will allow interstate sales of state-inspected meat.  Nilsestuen also met with the new FDA Administrator, Dr. Margaret Hamburg and a representative of the White House Food Safety working group.

 

Nilsestuen’s main objective was to emphasize cooperation between federal and state government agencies as these new rules are being developed and implemented.  “We want to insure that the intent of Congress in removing the prohibition to other states was met in the rule.”  He says a recent survey finds two-thirds of the state-inspected plants in Wisconsin plan to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the expanded markets.  There are 284 licensed meat plants in Wisconsin which processed more than 77 million pounds of meat and meat products in 2008.  While the Badger State has the most plants, there are 28 states which have state-inspected plants which would be affected by the change.

 

The rules are at the Office of Management and Budget right now, after that they will go to hearing which Nilsestuen expects to occur yet this calendar year.  There will also be a 90-day comment period once the final rule is published.  The reason for meeting with Merrigan specifically is she will be in charge of implementation of the rules and “She will be reviewing every piece of information that comes from the state agriculture departments.”  As Nilsestuen put it, there has been a long history of “tug-and-pull between the states and the feds” and that is what they are hoping to avoid on this.  He also wants to make sure implementation would not make it cost-prohibitive for a plant to participate.

 

Rod Nilsestuen talks about his meeting with Deputy Secretary Merrigan (5:30)