The American Meat Institute, which includes Canada’s biggest meat packers, is protesting over government rule changes making it more difficult to defend against market monopoly charges.
“This position was wrong before and is wrong now,” said Mark Dopp, chief pperating Officer and lawyer for the Meat Institute.
The institute said the proposed rules violate the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act because of its breadth and vagueness.
“Changing the harm to competition standard requires Congressional action and that fact is highlighted by the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia vs the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Dopp.
“In addition, the proposal includes standards so vague that, if adopted, it would be impossible for a regulated entity to know how to comply.”
Dopp raised the spectre of higher meat and poultry prices and harm to farmers, and meat packers.
Meat packers and poultry processors in the United States have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to head off class-action court cases and the government Is offering subsidies to encourage the establishment of new meat-packing and poultry processing plants and competitors.
