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Butler: Meatpackers 'insulting' to farmers
Story Date: 2/1/2012
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Source: Richard Lobb, MEATINGPLACE, 1/31/12
Meatpackers who opposed the so-called GIPSA rule were “insulting” farmers and ranchers by suggesting the rule would make it easier for them to file lawsuits against the companies, says J. Dudley Butler, former head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration.
In an interview broadcast on Harvest Public Media, Butler said, “I know things have been said that we were passing rules that it would be easier to file a lawsuit. That is not correct. Farmers and ranchers are the least litigious people in the United States. It was insulting for the people that were fighting this rule to say that the farmers and ranchers were going to run out and file lawsuits.”
Butler also blamed Republican members of Congress for fomenting opposition to the proposed rule, which was published in June 2010. After ferocious opposition by the industry and its allies in Congress, a greatly scaled-back version was published in December 2010, and Butler resigned shortly thereafter.
“Republicans in the House started this movement, and some of it was based on untruths, some of them were untruths about me, untruths about what I said,” Butler told Harvest Public Media, a consortium of public radio stations in the Midwest.
“I just don’t think things were handled appropriately like a statesman or stateswoman would have handled them,” Butler said in discussing the fate of his proposed rule.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack had somewhat faint praise for Butler.
“While Dudley was very important, Dudley was one person in a very large agency,” Vilsack told Harvest Public Media. “We’re going to continue to enforce the law, continue to work in concert with the Department of Justice, and the fact that Dudley is resigning isn’t going to affect our desire, our passion, our interest in this area.”
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