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NPPC Insists Obama Administration Study Ethanol Expansion Food Safety Requires Public-Private Partnership NPPC Wants Russia’s WTO Accession Delayed Until U.S. Pork Plants ‘Relisted’ Groups Urge Obama Administration To Resolve Trucking Issue With Mexico
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Food Safety Requires Public-Private Partnership
NPPC Wants Russia’s WTO Accession Delayed Until U.S. Pork Plants ‘Relisted’ Washington, Aprril 8, 2009 - In a letter transmitted today to President Obama, the National Pork Producers Council and its state affiliate organizations asked the administration to “slow the WTO accession process” for the Russian Federation until U.S. pork plants are relisted and Russia signs an “equivalence” agreement with the United States. Over the past year, Russia has “delisted” or failed to relist 34 U.S. pork production, processing and storage facilities, meaning 40 to 50 percent of all U.S. pork production is ineligible for export to the country. Russia did not identify any health or sanitary reasons for its actions, which are contrary to obligations contained in a 2006 side agreement that is part of World Trade Organization bilateral negotiations between Russia and the United States. The agreement established specific criteria and methods for Russian approval of U.S. pork plants. The actions also are inconsistent with the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement, which requires WTO trading partners to recognize the SPS measures of other countries as equivalent to their own. (Russia does not adhere to the WTO principle of equivalence and approves U.S. meat facilities on a plant-by-plant basis.) The U.S. government and the U.S. pork industry have demonstrated to Russian government officials the effectiveness of the U.S. pork plant inspection system in ensuring a high level of product safety. “If Russia wants to join the WTO, it needs to play by the rules and stop its blatant actions to restrict U.S. pork,” said NPPC President Don Butler. “U.S. pork plants produce the safest product in the world, and they are inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Russia should accept our inspection system as being at least as good as its system.” In its letter to the president, NPPC and 31 state pork organizations urged the Obama administration to press Russia to relist all U.S. pork facilities as a condition for U.S. approval of its accession to the WTO. The organizations also urged the president to withhold Permanent Normal Trade Relations status from Russia until the country recognizes the U.S. plant inspection system as equivalent to its system. Russia is a top destination for U.S. pork. Since the United States and Russia signed a 2005 agreement establishing quotas with low tariffs for U.S. pork entering Russia, pork exports to the country have increased by nearly 560 percent to $476 million in 2008. That made Russia the No. 5 market for U.S. pork last year.
NPPC Insists Obama Administration Study Ethanol Expansion
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Carol Browner, who is assistant to the president for energy and climate change, NPPC asked that the administration lead an effort to examine the effects of such an expansion on corn availability, the price elasticity of corn, the users of corn and rural work forces and industries associated with corn. Recently, there have been growing calls from lawmakers and ethanol stakeholders for raising the cap on blending ethanol into gasoline to 15 percent from its current 10 percent. There also have been signals that the corn-ethanol industry is seeking to increase production in the face of reports that the cellulosic ethanol production mandate of 100 million gallons by 2010 likely will not be met. NPPC wants the administration to bring stakeholders together to consider all possible impacts of corn-ethanol expansion, including the extent to which increasing blend limits will further increase market speculation, affect grain and commodity markets and actually help the ethanol industry. “In this new era of openness and transparency and calls for scientific integrity in Washington, I can’t imagine anyone or any organization being opposed to a study on the effects of producing and using more corn ethanol,” said NPPC President Don Butler. “We hope the Obama administration and Congress provide answers to the questions surrounding ethanol expansion before rushing to change ethanol policy – that’s the America way.” While the U.S. pork industry has not opposed the use of ethanol and the country’s goal of producing 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2015, it has paid a price, literally, in the form of much higher feed costs. Due mostly to those higher costs, pork producers since October 2007 have lost an average of $20 on each hog marketed; the industry has lost between $3 billion and $3.5 billion in equity over the past 18 months. Groups Urge Obama Administration To Resolve Trucking Issue With Mexico
Mexican trucks now are prohibited from entering the United States despite a North American Free Trade Agreement provision that called for allowing them starting in December 1995 and a February 2001 NAFTA dispute-settlement panel ruling that excluding Mexican trucks violated U.S. obligations under the trade deal. Mexico recently retaliated against a host of U.S. goods, raising tariffs on a number of products.
“We need to get this trucking issue resolved,” said NPPC President Don Butler, “because, although U.S. pork products were not included on the retaliation list, they could be in the future, and, more importantly, our trading partners need assurance that the United States will live up its trade obligations.”
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