Capital Update – For the Week Ending Jan. 10, 2025
In the National Pork Producers Council’s (NPPC) weekly recap: Biden signs ‘Beagle Brigade Act’ into law; packing plant line speeds program extended again; NPPC comments on USDA ‘Fed Cattle’ rule; dockworkers, operators avoid port disruptions with new labor deal; and business ownership information reporting law still on hold. Take a deeper dive below.
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Biden Signs ‘Beagle Brigade Act’ into Law
What happened: President Biden signed into law the “Beagle Brigade Act” to authorize and fund the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Detector Dog Training Center, which trains beagles and other canines to detect food, plants, and other host material that can carry foreign pests and diseases.
NPPC commended the president and the measure’s congressional sponsors, Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Reps. Sanford Bishop (D-GA) and Drew Ferguson (R-GA), for their efforts.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) uses dogs at U.S. ports of entry to spot contraband fruits, vegetables, and meat products in international passenger baggage, mailed packages, and vehicles entering the United States.
The dog training center had been operating under USDA’s general authority over animal and plant health, with funding through user fees. The “Beagle Brigade Act” provides permanent authorization and appropriation of funds for the center.
NPPC’s take: NPPC, which strongly supports the “Beagle Brigade Act,” led a coalition of more than 50 groups in pressing Congress to pass the bipartisan legislation to authorize the Newnan, Georgia, dog training center.
“Pork producers employ a variety of biosecurity measures to keep foreign animal diseases, like African swine fever (ASF), out of our herds,” NPPC’s Stevermer said. “Further away at our nation’s ports of entry, the Beagle Brigade helps ensure these diseases don’t travel past our borders.”
Why it matters: Foreign diseases and pests carried into the United States cost the country more than $135 billion annually in economic and environmental losses, according to USDA. NPPC is particularly concerned about ASF making it to the U.S. mainland. The pig-only disease is on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, just 750 miles from U.S. shores.
Packing Plant Line Speeds Program Extended Again
What happened: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will again extend the period for time-limited trials at pork packing plants operating with faster harvest line speeds. The latest extension is until May 15, 2025; the line speed trials were set to expire Jan. 15.
USDA in late 2019 established the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS), which included a provision that allowed packing plants to determine their own line speeds based on the ability to maintain process controls. In March 2021, a U.S. District Court struck down the provision, citing a lack of worker safety data. FSIS in November 2021 implemented a time-limited trial for six NSIS facilities to use increased line speeds for one year while collecting data for evaluating the impact of the faster speeds on workers. The trial was extended three times previously, including for nearly 11 months in February 2024.
After completing months-long studies at six pork processing plants, “line speeds were not determined to be the leading factor in worker musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) risk at these plants,” according to FSIS.
NPPC’s take: NPPC supports extension of the NSIS line speeds program, which could increase packing capacity and alleviate supply issues. It also supports making the line speeds program permanent. Without faster line speeds, packers would see a decrease in packing capacity as more hogs chase less shackle space, which could lead to a drop in pork prices. Economists estimated producers would have lost an additional $10 per head in the first and second quarters of 2024 without the faster line speed.
Why it’s important: FSIS developed a time-limited trial that allowed processing plants that adopted the NSIS to experiment with ergonomics, automation, and staffing to create work environments that would increase processing efficiency while protecting worker and food safety. Ensuring sufficient harvest capacity at packing plants is critical to the ability of the U.S. pork industry to provide products to consumers worldwide.
NPPC Comments on USDA ‘Fed Cattle’ ANPR
What happened: NPPC submitted comments in response to USDA’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) related to price discovery and competition for cattle bought under Alternative Marketing Arrangements (AMAs). According to USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the proposals outlined in the ANPR are intended to help alleviate the negative price effects AMAs have on the spot market and preferential behavior for producers selling fed cattle.
While it has no position on proposals related to the fed cattle market, NPPC supports the rights of all pork producers to market access and marketing opportunities, including the right to enter into agreements of their choosing. The use of marketing agreements and reliance on reported benchmarks to determine base prices for pricing formulas is common practice in the pork industry.
NPPC offered key points for AMS to consider if the agency were to continue modifying regulations related to price discovery and competition, including highlighting historical trends in hog and pork marketing and the important role of Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting (LMR) in providing timely and reliable market information.
Why it matters: NPPC deems the information reported under LMR to be essential for conducting business in the pork industry and works closely with the USDA AMS Livestock, Poultry, and Grain Market News Service to ensure a shared understanding of marketing methods, usage of swine and pork reports, and to assess potential changes to LMR information that will ensure it remains an accurate reflection of the marketplace.
Dockworkers, Operators Avoid Port Disruptions With New Labor Deal
What happened: Dockworkers and port operators at East Coast and Gulf of Mexico ports reached a tentative new labor agreement a week before the extension of the old contract was scheduled to expire, averting disruptions at shipping terminals from Maine to Texas and avoiding losses for U.S. meat exporters.
NPPC and a coalition of nearly 270 agricultural and business organizations have urged the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which represents dockworkers, and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents port terminal operators, to forge a new labor deal before a Jan. 15 deadline. The previous ILA-USMX contract expired Sept. 30, 2024, and was extended, following an Oct. 1-3 work stoppage.
ILA and USMX members still must ratify the latest six-year contract, which includes a framework for modernizing East Coast and Gulf ports while maintaining and creating jobs. The use of automation and technologies that could have displaced workers was the main point of contention between the two sides.
Coalition’s position: Port disruptions, including dockworker strikes and port lockouts, can jeopardize the delivery of perishable commodities, costing agricultural producers millions of dollars and, potentially, lost foreign customers.
Why it matters: The U.S. pork industry depends on exports, which annually account for about a quarter of all sales and contribute significantly to every producer’s bottom line. About 60% of U.S. pork exports are transported by ocean freight, with nearly 45% of that being shipped from ports on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico. A shutdown of East Coast and Gulf ports could have affected more than $100 million of red meat sales a week, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation.
Business Ownership Information Reporting Law Still on Hold
What happened: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit on Dec. 26 vacated a stay of a lower court’s nationwide injunction against the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), which requires certain entities organized as corporations, including pork operations, to report by Jan. 1, 2025, ownership information to the U.S. Department of Treasury.
A motions panel of the 5th Circuit on Dec. 23 granted the federal government’s emergency request to lift a suspension on enforcement of the reporting law issued in early December by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
In reinstating the temporary nationwide injunction, the 5th Circuit’s order states that “to preserve the constitutional status quo while the merits panel considers the parties’ weighty substantive arguments, … [the] motion to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the CTA and the Reporting Rule is VACATED.” The appellate court is considering the government’s appeal of the District Court’s injunction on an expedited basis.
Why it matters: Under the CTA, businesses operating in the United States must make a one-time report of “beneficial ownership information” about the individuals who ultimately own or control them to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. (Once filed, reports would need to be updated if companies make substantive changes to their operations.)
According to Treasury, the CTA is designed to prevent criminals from hiding illicit activity conducted through shell companies or opaque ownership structures. The law, enacted in 2021, exempts banks and credit unions, insurance companies, certain tax-exempt entities under the Internal Revenue Code, inactive businesses, and certain large operating companies, defined as those with more than 20 full-time employees, an operating presence at a physical address in the United States, and more than $5 million in gross revenue.