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House passes two bills on market transparency
The House has passed two pieces of legislation critical to improving price transparency in the cattle markets.
But, Tanner Beemer, director of government affairs and market regulatory policy, with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says the path forward for the one-year reauthorization of Livestock Mandatory Reporting and the Cattle Contract Library bill will likely have to wait until Congress returns in January. “Once they get back to town in January, they’ve got quite a bit to do,” he says. “They have to raise the debt ceiling, they have to complete an omnibus appropriations package, and I think that a lot of these proposals such as LMR and perhaps the Contract Library Bill will be discussed as part of those bigger legislative vehicles that are expected to move in the early part of 2022.”
Beemer says LMR is the most important tool cattle producers have for price discovery. LMR is the legislative mandate which requires large meat processors to regularly report information on their transactions, such as the price they pay for livestock and the volume of purchases. “If that were to lapse in authority and go away, it would cause some pretty significant disruptions in the marketplace,” he says. “It’s not a full five-year reauthorization, but I think the industry has had some time to put together working groups and think about what we’d like to see changed in LMR.”
The House voted 418-9 to extend the authorization for LMR through September 30, 2022. LMR, along with federal funding is currently set to expire February 18, 2022.
He tells Brownfield the House also passed the Cattle Contract Library Act of 2021, led by Representatives Dusty Johnson (R-SD) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX), with overwhelming support. The House voted 411-13 to pass the bill. “One of the reasons these two pieces of legislation moved through the process so quickly is because they have such widespread support throughout the industry,” he says.
The bills will not have to be reintroduced in January and will be able to be picked up by the Senate for consideration.
AUDIO: Tanner Beemer, NCBA
