Livestock Mandatory Reporting Extension

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5290, to extend authority for the Department of Agriculture's Livestock Mandatory Reporting program.

Under the Livestock Mandatory Reporting program, or LMR, meatpackers across the country are required to report to the USDA the details of transactions involving the purchase of cattle, swine, and sheep, as well as transactions for the corresponding sales of certain beef, pork, and lamb products.

The USDA compiles and disseminates the information through hundreds of market reports each week, detailing price trends and supply and demand conditions. In turn, livestock industry participants, including farmers, ranchers, and feedlot operators, use the information to make informed marketing decisions.

The livestock markets have experienced significant price volatility leading up to and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, cattle markets in particular. As I am sure many of you have heard from constituents at home, this uncertainty has led to cries from the countryside for significant market reforms and investigations into packer purchasing behavior.

As industry and Congress continue to grapple with the best approach to improving market transparency while avoiding unintended consequences, and as we await the results of ongoing investigations, it is imperative that farmers and ranchers maintain access to the market information already provided by LMR.

H.R. 5290 would do just that, providing much-needed certainty for the year ahead.

Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the Livestock Mandatory Reporting program is really a necessary and significant tool for the agriculture industry, especially based on the disruptions that we experienced most recently in 2020.

I think American citizens are consciously aware of the difficulties and the potential difficulties with the food and agriculture supply chains and the difficulties that they experienced as they went to the grocery stores as they sought to feed their families, specifically during 2020 and in the wake of COVID-19. The Livestock Mandatory Reporting program is a tool that can help avoid that type of an issue.

This reauthorization, as the chairman said, is important. It gives us time to have a great debate and to look at how we increase transparency within the livestock industry.

I urge my colleagues to support this extension, this reauthorization, to give us time to make the necessary fixes and refinements in the future.

Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I will just close right briefly with a big thank you to my great staff, which is headed by the distinguished, smart, and dedicated Anne Simmons. I don't know what I would do without her. Of course, Ashley Smith, Prescott Martin, Daniel Feingold, Lesly McNitt, Kelcy Schaunaman, and also my chief of staff, Catherine Kuerbitz. We are a team, and I want to thank our staff.

Also, I want to thank our ranking member. We work together in a bipartisan way. This is an example of how we Democrats and Republicans have got to continue to do. We are here today setting this fine example of strong bipartisanship.

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