State COOL rule dies in Colorado

An attempt at creating a mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law in Colorado died in the state’s Legislature on Jan. 30. The bill HB18-1043 was introduced by Colorado State Rep. Kimmi Lewis (R-64). The bill would have required Colorado grocery stores to label all raw beef sold in the state as either “Product of the U.S.” or as imported, with a list of the countries from which the meat or animals came. Several Colorado ranchers presented testimony, claiming that packers and retailers are fraudulently labeling imported beef as domestic. The Colorado General Assembly’s House Committee on Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources voted 10 to 3 along mostly partisan lines to not pass the bill out of committee, effectively killing the bill. Lewis and supporting group R-CALF claimed that “about one-fifth of the beef available in the U.S. is imported but consumers do not know this because Colorado retailers are hiding the origins of imported beef.” According to USDA data, roughly 11 percent of U.S. beef supply (domestic production + imports) in 2017 prior to exports came from imports. However, the majority of imported beef is used in manufacturing applications, such as ground beef for fast food. Such applications would not have been covered by the proposed bill or even the previously-killed national COOL law. — WLJ