US Senate Passes Mandatory Livestock Price Reporting Law

Senate passes Mandatory Price Reporting law
By Tom Johnston on 9/22/2015 MeatingPlace.com

The U.S. Senate on Monday passed the Mandatory Livestock Reporting Act of 2015, according to the Congressional Record.

Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting requires packers to inform the USDA of the prices they pay livestock producers for cattle, hogs and lambs as well as the prices they receive for wholesale meat cuts.
USDA then publishes reports that detail the dealings between livestock producers and meat packers.
The legislation also includes technical changes to swine and lamb reporting that legislators say will result in the capture of more transactions and more accurate reports.

The bill also mandates that USDA conduct a study, taking input from the livestock and meat community, on the “workability” of the reporting program before the next reauthorization in 2020.

Senate Agriculture Committee Passes Reauthorization Package for Price Reporting, Forest Foundation and Grain Inspection
Thursday, September 17, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kan., Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today held a business meeting where bipartisan legislation was passed to reauthorize Mandatory Price Reporting, the National Forest Foundation Act and the U.S. Grain Standards Act.

H.R. 2051, as amended, was passed by voice vote and now heads to the Senate floor for consideration.
The following is Chairman Roberts’ opening statement as prepared for delivery:
I call this meeting of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry to order.
The purpose of today’s meeting is to reauthorize several important legislative authorities that will expire at the end of this month.
Each of you have the legislative language and a summary of the Agriculture Reauthorizations Act of 2015 in front of you.
Before I give a brief overview of the legislation, I want to recognize the work of our Ranking Member Senator Stabenow and her staff for their efforts as we negotiated this pathway forward. Thank you, Senator Stabenow, and I look forward to mutual success on this bill and others to come. I also thank our House partners Chairman Conaway and Ranking Member Peterson for their leadership and passing the three bills independently. Today we combine those bills into one with the goal of reauthorizing these programs before September 30th.
As I said, the Agriculture Reauthorizations Act of 2015 consists of three titles, including H.R. 2051 – the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act of 2015, H.R. 2394 – National Forest Foundation Act Reauthorization, and H.R. 2088 – U.S. Grain Standards Act Reauthorization. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives approved these bills by voice vote on the suspension calendar.
The proposal before the committee modifies each bill to reflect bipartisan and bicameral agreements and packages them into one legislative vehicle. The Congressional Budget Office reviewed the proposal and determined it has no impact on direct spending or revenue.

Starting with Title one, Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting requires packers to inform the Department of Agriculture of the prices they pay livestock producers for cattle, hogs and lambs, and the prices they receive for wholesale meat cuts.
The Department then publishes an array of reports that detail the sale transactions occurring between livestock producers and meat packers.
This information is critical for farmers and ranchers who raise livestock and entities in the meat trade, because it provides them a landscape of the marketplace for livestock and meat and provides information for them to make informed business decisions.
Further, the legislation includes technical changes to swine and lamb reporting that will result in more transactions being captured and more accurate reports.
We also require the Department of Agriculture to conduct a study, with input from the livestock and meat community, on the workability of the reporting program prior to the next reauthorization in 2020.
I understand the importance of these reports to the constituent community, and I strongly encourage USDA to use the authority they have to keep these reports on schedule any day that the markets are open so that livestock and futures markets aren’t thrown into disarray.

For the full transcript visit: http://www.ag.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/senate-agriculture-committee-passes-reauthorization-package-for-price-reporting-forest-foundation-and-grain-inspection