NAMI Responds to “Special Investigator” Legislation

The House Agriculture Committee voted to approve the Meat and Poultry Special Investigator Act, and the North American Meat Institute called it “redundant, wasteful, and costly.” 

Julianna Potts is CEO of NAMI, and she says, “The committee voted to approve the bill despite our opposition, along with the opposition from the country’s largest livestock producer organizations.” 

She also says USDA and the Justice Department already have the authorities the bill would grant, making this expansion of government bureaucracy with its required staff and offices “duplicative.” 

Her organization points out that the special investigator this bill would establish would feel emboldened and obligated to bring as many new cases as possible, warranted or not, to test the legal limits of the new rules. 

“The resulting legal uncertainty and market chaos will accelerate unpredictable changes in livestock and poultry marketing that will add costs to both producers and consumers during a time of high inflation,” Potts says.

(Story Courtesy of the NAFB News Service)