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In this story from last week, a number of you asked what COOL and NAIS were.

COOL = Country of Origin Labeling
NAIS = National Animal Identification System

More on NAIS:

NAIS is another expensive, large government program that discriminates against small farmers. Proposed by the USDA, NAIS imposes on all livestock and animal owners a high-tech, high-cost livestock backtrack system requiring:
a. Registration of any premises where even one animal, a chicken, pet donkey, etc... is kept, in a database accessible to many agencies and foreign governments.
b. Radio Frequency ID (RFID) microchipping or tagging of every animal.
c. Reporting and recording each animal’s movements within 24 hours, under threat of severe penalty, including confiscation of animals and fines of $1000 per day, per infraction.

More on COOL:

Summary of COOL in the compromise Farm Bill:

Penalties – Reduced from $10,000 to $1,000 for continuous willful violations. (Note: In the past 2.5 years seafood COOL has been implemented, USDA has issued $0 fines for non-compliance cases) (Applicable to meat and produce)

Audit – Provides USDA Secretary authority to audit retailers and suppliers of covered commodities to determine compliance. (Applicable to meat and produce)

Record keeping – The Secretary is prohibited from requiring anyone subject to an audit to provide records other than those maintained in the course of the normal conduct of business, including animal health papers, import/customs documents or producer affidavits. (Applicable to meat and produce)

Meat grandfather clause – Animals in the U.S. prior to January 1, 2008 will be presumed as U.S. for the purposes of COOL; animals imported and born in the U.S. after January 1, 2008 will be required to meet the obligations outlined in COOL.

Produce – State, regional or locality labeling is sufficient to meet the requirements of COOL. (e.g. Washington Apples, California Grown, etc.) According to the agreement between NFU and anti-COOL groups, they will not support any amendments to COOL throughout the 2007 Farm Bill drafting process (House floor, Senate consideration, conference committee). See letter to Chairman Peterson and Ranking Member Goodlatte. Also the letter from R-CALF USA to the committee in support of the COOL compromise which compares it side by side. If you haven’t done it yet, send a letter or make a call of thanks to Peterson and Goodlatte.