Legislation to streamline the current country-of-origin (COOL) law offered by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) does little to solve problems and will still cost U.S. pork producers with no apparent benefits, says National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) President Jon Caspers.

“While the Peterson bill is an admirable attempt to fix the existing COOL law, it does nothing to address the fundamental concerns that pork producers have about this legislation,” says the NPPC leader. “The fact that this bill attempts to find a solution to this burdensome and costly law demonstrates that there are problems with it.”

Peterson's HR 3083 removes the current law's audit verification section and mandates the Agriculture Department to use existing producer records for compliance verification. Peterson's bill also bans third-party audits aimed at verifying producer compliance.