Farm, Food Groups Battle User Fees

February 9, 2001

A group of farm and food organizations have asked Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. not to include user fees for meat, poultry and egg inspection in the President's 2002 budget proposal. It's an issue that has been part of budget deliberations for nearly two decades, the groups said, and are viewed as requests for a "food safety tax" on consumers, farmers and the meat, poultry and egg processing industries.

"The public, not industry, directly benefits from federal food safety inspection programs, and the general public has always funded these programs," they told Daniels. A proposal to end direct government payment for food safety inspection, if enacted into law, "would provide little incentive for the government to manage its program costs, outcomes or efficiencies." Further, such a "food safety tax" would create the perception that inspectors are being paid by the industries they are supposed to regulate and could erode public confidence in federal food safety inspection programs, they added.

Past efforts to impose user fees for food safety inspection programs have been ignored, voted against or opposed by Congress. As recently as October 19, 1999, the House of Representatives rejected user fees for fiscal 2000, including those proposed for meat, poultry and egg inspection, by a vote of 410 to 0. The House took a similarly strong position of opposition to user fees in the 105th Congress when it voted against imposing them in FY 1999 by a vote of 0 to 421.

Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection has opposed these "user fees." The committee has strongly maintained its view that "the funding of basic meat and poultry inspection remains an appropriate federal government responsibility which should be funded from general tax revenues," the groups pointed out.

"We know of no other consumer, farm, labor or industry organization, nor any other public policy group, which supports imposing a food tax for meat, poultry and egg inspection. We urge you not to request a "user fee" in the Administration's budget submission to Congress, either in whole or in part, for federally mandated meat, poultry or egg inspection," they added.

The groups represented meat and food processors, distributors, grocers, and beef, pork, chicken and egg producers.