-By Lester Aldrich
Dow Jones Newswires
KANSAS CITY (Dow Jones)–Creekstone Farms Premium Beef on Monday confirmed in an email that it had filed its reply to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s opposition to the firm’s desire to test all of the cattle it slaughters at its Arkansas City, Kan., plant for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease.
Creekstone Farms is suing the USDA for refusing to allow it to test cattle for BSE and this summer asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to issue a summary judgement in its favor. The USDA replied, and this filing is Creekstone’s response.
Joe Meng, a Creekstone vice president, said Monday the USDA now has a chance to reply to the company’s reply, and the judge has said it must be turned in by Dec. 1. After that, the judge is scheduled to issue his decision on the motion for a summary judgement.
In making its case, Creekstone argued that the USDA misinterpreted and exceeded the authority Congress gave it in the nearly 100-year-old Virus, Serum, and Toxins Act which was enacted to stop the sale of bogus hog cholera serums to farmers in the Midwest.
In its filing Friday, Creekstone documented the economic harm caused by the USDA’s refusal to allow the company to test for BSE. According to the filing, “Creekstone has lost about 35% of its revenue due to BSE concerns and is prepared to spend $6,000,000 per year to perform BSE testing itself to help recover the lost demand.”
Creekstone also submitted comments from nationally recognized BSE experts, stating that more BSE testing, even of younger, healthy-appearing cattle is valuable because it provides more data on the presence or absence of BSE in cattle slaughtered in the U.S.
Creekstone also assailed USDA for seeking to use its regulatory authority to “favor one set of competitors (large meatpackers with low margins) over others (Creekstone and other high-end meatpackers with an interest in BSE testing)” as “not only inappropriate as a matter of policy, but also likely unconstitutional.”
