The fiscal 2012 spending bill advanced by the House Ag Appropriations Subcommittee cuts funding to support USDA’s controversial Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration livestock marketing rule. The legislation includes language that expressly forbids USDA from using any funds in fiscal 2012 to write, prepare, develop or publish a final rule or interim final rule to complete action on its proposed GIPSA rule.

The full House Appropriations Committee is expected to consider the bill next Tuesday. If the subcommittee’s ban on spending for the rule survives the Congressional process – it could mean opponents of the proposed rule would have an opportunity to revise authorization for the rule in the new Farm Bill. The GIPSA rule would mean sweeping changes to the way livestock and poultry are marketed in the United States and is opposed by groups like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

But R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard says corporate meatpackers have enlisted the aid of key Congressional members to help them avoid U.S. laws that prohibit meatpackers from engaging in unfair trade practices against U.S. farmers and ranchers. R-CALF supports the proposed rule. Bullard says if this type of corporate greed is going to be stopped then the American people must tell their members of Congress they are ashamed of the effort to put corporate meatpacker profits ahead of the well-being of family farmers and ranchers, consumers and rural America.