R-CALF USA

To: Everyone

From: Bill Bullard, CEO, R-CALF USA

Date: January 30, 2025

Subject: Please Call Your Senators to Cosponsor MCOOL

 

Background: On Wednesday of next week (Feb. 5), South Dakota Senator and Senate Majority Leader John Thune and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker will reintroduce the bipartisan American Beef Labeling Act in this new Congress. The American Beef Labeling Act requires mandatory country of origin labeling for beef (MCOOL for beef).

Beginning now and before the American Beef Labeling Act is reintroduced next week, we need to act fast and get as many cosponsors on the bill as quickly as possible so that it can be swiftly passed by Congress or included in the upcoming Farm Bill.

U.S. Senators Rounds (R-SD), Lummis (R-WY), Gillibrand (D-NY), Hoeven (R-ND), Luján (D-NM), and Heinrich (D-NM) were cosponsors of the American Beef Labeling Act during the last congressional session.

If any of these are your senators, please thank them for their leadership in cosponsoring the American Beef Labeling Act last year and urge them to be cosponsors of the American Beef Labeling Act this year.

And if any of your senators are newly elected or were not a cosponsor last year, please call and inform them that mandatory country of origin labeling for beef is needed so U.S. consumers can distinguish beef from cattle born, raised, and slaughtered in the USA from the growing volume of cheaper, imported beef that is harming American ranchers because their domestic beef market lacks transparency.

Action: Please call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for each of your senators by name and urge them to cosponsor the American Beef Labeling Act, which will reinstate MCOOL for beef and is expected to be introduced next Wednesday.  They can call either Senator Thune’s office or Senator Booker’s office to become a cosponsor.

Please continue to make weekly calls and ask your friends, relatives, neighbors, and other acquaintances to help make calls until your senator agrees to support the American Beef Labeling Act.

Good Luck with your calls.  We’ll be in touch.

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Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) is the largest producer-only lobbying and trade association representing U.S. cattle producers. It is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle and sheep industries. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com.

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