“The U.S. meat and poultry industry is the economic engine powering the agriculture sector,” says Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts, in a letter addressed to President Trump.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, meat and poultry processing is a $227.9 billion industry. Meat and poultry packers and processors employ more than 532,000 workers, with beef packers paying average hourly wages of $22. In 2024, the meat and poultry industry produced 26.99 billion pounds of beef, 27.79 billion pounds of pork, 40.2 million pounds of veal, 133.6 million pounds of lamb and mutton, and 52.8 billion pounds of poultry.
The Meat Institute requested implementation of two Executive Orders (EO), Regulatory Freeze Pending Review and Delivering Emergency Price Relief to American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis. Several regulatory actions taken by the previous administration are (or will be, if finalized) so costly and burdensome, they will drive up the cost of meat and poultry products for consumers.
In the letter, the Meat Institute also requested the Trump administration take the following actions:
- Direct the Secretary of Agriculture to rescind the final rule, Inclusive Competition and Market Integrity Under the Packers and Stockyards Act; 89 Fed. Reg. 16092 (March 6, 2024). Despite a lack of legal authority and the presence of court precedent to the contrary, the rule attempts to enshrine diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts into a regulation of the Packers and Stockyards Act.
- Direct the Secretary of Agriculture to rescind the final rule, Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement Systems; 90 Fed. Reg. 5146 (January 16, 2025).
- Direct the Secretary of Agriculture to withdraw the Proposed Rule and Proposed Determination; Salmonella Framework for Raw Poultry Products; 89 Fed. Reg. 64678 (Aug. 7, 2024). The proposal should be withdrawn and reproposed as a performance standard with the input of stakeholders.
- Direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw the Proposed Rule and Notice of Public Hearing; Clean Water Act Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and Poultry Products Point Source Category; 89 Fed. Reg. 4474 (Jan. 23, 2024). EPA’s economic analysis of the proposal grossly underestimates the cost of compliance. Indeed, even using EPA’s flawed accounting, 16 meat and poultry facilities would be forced to close as a direct result of the cost of compliance.
Paired with the removal of these costly regulatory impediments, the Meat Institute supports the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) inspection modernization for pork and poultry processing. Pork modernization, the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS), was finalized by USDA during your first term, but the provision authorizing facilities to operate above outdated traditional inspection rates (frequently referred to as “line speeds”) was subsequently stopped by a court. NSIS’s poultry predecessor, the New Poultry Inspection System, was finalized under the Obama Administration without an inspection rate provision.
The Meat Institute encourages USDA to expeditiously issue Interim Final Rules to allow all interested and compliant modernized pork and poultry facilities to operate above traditional line speed restrictions.
