State inspected meat plant rule becomes one step closer

It has taken years of discussion and bureaucratic wrangling, but Wisconsin's smaller state-inspected meat plants are now one step closer to being able to sell their products across state lines.

Currently, only meat from plants inspected by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors can be sold across state lines. But officials in Wisconsin agriculture and in the Wisconsin Congressional delegation have been trying to change that for years.

Wisconsin has 275 state-inspected meat plants - and many of those operators have told regulators that they could be more successful and employ more people if they could sell their products in interstate commerce.

According to officials in the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection's (DATCP) food inspection program, Wisconsin has more state-inspected meat plants than any other state.

There are also 145 federally-inspected meat packing plants in the state.

Plants can choose to be regulated by state governments, but then they can sell their meat products only within their own states.

Congress changed that law in 2008, and the USDA finally published regulations to carry out that law last May. States must get federal approval and formally adopt those federal regulations before their meat slaughterers and processors can voluntarily participate in the program.

The argument has been all along that there is no difference in the food safety standards between state and federal plants.

But federal officials have dragged their feet on allowing the change.

Last week, Gov. Scott Walker authorized state rule-making that will allow Wisconsin's specialty meat plants to sell their products across state lines for the first time, expanding their markets and boosting their rural economies.

Under new state rule-making regulations, each department rule must first be approved in the governor's office.

"These small state-inspected meat processors have a vital place in our heritage, and now we can help assure they are just as important to our future," Walker said in making his announcement.

"This new opportunity promises to increase their investments in personnel and capital, adding jobs and building the tax base in our state's rural areas," he added.

Walker authorized the Wisconsin DATCP to begin the process of amending the administrative rule known as ATCP 55, which governs meat inspection in the state.

The process will incorporate new federal regulations into state regulations to allow meat from state-inspected meat plants to cross state lines.

About 30 state-inspected meat plant operators have indicated to the department that they want to participate in the federally-sanctioned program so they can sell interstate.

When the rules go through the hearing process and get approval from the citizen policy board at DATCP, participants in the program will be able to sell directly to consumers in other states and also to distributors, which will multiply the economic impact, Walker said.

The next step is for the Board of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to approve the "scope statement" which describes what the regulation intends to do.

Then DATCP staff will begin drafting rules that will go to public hearing, to the board for approval and then to a legislative committee.