Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 3/28/17

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association on Monday praised President Donald Trump for signing a congressional resolution directing the Bureau of Land Management to repeal their Planning 2.0 Rule. NCBA also urged Trump to press China to let U.S. beef enter its market. 

Ethan Lane, executive director of the Public Lands Council and the NCBA Federal Lands, called the signature a significant victory for western ranchers.

“BLM’s Planning 2.0 Rule would have caused a wholesale shift in management focus at BLM by prioritizing 'social and environmental change’ over ensuring the multiple use of public lands,” said Lane.

NCBA also sent a letter to Trump, urging him to raise restoring U.S. beef access to China when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April. Leaders from the U.S. Meat Export Federation and the North American Meat Institute also signed the letter.

U.S. beef has been denied access to China since 2003. Last fall China announced that it had lifted its ban on imports of U.S. beef, but attempts since then to negotiate the technical terms of access have been unsuccessful.

GIPSA plea
Last week, NCBA, along with the National Pork Producers Council, the National Turkey Federation, the National Chicken Council and the Meat Institute issued public statements asking the Trump administration to rescind a Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) interim final rule and withdraw the proposed rules that would give producers more power in legal challenges with processors.

Congress had blocked the rules multiple times since they were proposed in 2010, but failed to block them in 2016, allowing GIPSA to move ahead in the final weeks of the Obama Administration.

The so-called “scope” interim final rule would make it unnecessary for a producer to show harm to competition generally when challenging a particular practice by a packer.   

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