Source:  Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 4/16/10

The California Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed a lower court ruling which held that the state's Proposition 65 is expressly preempted by the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA).

Specifically, the state's highest court denied a petition to review a lower appellate court decision which had sided with the meat industry in the lawsuit, filed in 2005 by the National Meat Association and the American Meat Institute. California's Fourth Appellate Court handed down that decision in December. 

Proposition 65 was passed in 1986, and among its regulatory requirements is one that requires food to be labeled with notices of specific contents. Those substances then can be checked against an official list of substances implicated in incidents of cancer and birth defects.

The FMIA provides for federal jurisdiction over all links in the meat production chain, including labeling. It expressly prohibits "additional or different requirements for establishments with inspection services and as to marking, labeling, packaging, and ingredients," according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service Web site.

The decision does not withhold information on what substances are in a product's substances from consumer, but does require that those who would like Prop 65–type labeling on meats to file a petition with the USDA "for the issuance, amendment or repeal of a rule," the NMA notes.

Not all court decisions have gone the meat industry associations' way: Two weeks ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, also in California, sided with animal activists' when it vacated an injunction of a California law that bans the slaughter of non-ambulatory livestock of all species and remanded the matter to the lower court for further proceedings.

NMA still is considering its options in that case, Director of Communications and Government Relations Jeremy Russell told Meatingplace.

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