01/21/05 Join together?; Lowering standard?

All the National Cattlemen's Beef Association will say for now is with its technical team in Canada investigation the recent cases of b.s.e. in Canadian cattle, it will not have time this week to answer media questions or comments. And that includes their reaction to a recent call by a group it has not seen eye-to-eye with. R-C.A.L.F. U.S.A. earlier this week called for N.C.B.A. to join it in urging Congress to strike down U.S.D.A.'s proposed final rule for reopening the U.S. to Canadian live cattle and beef products this March. The call comes after N.C.B.A.'s Executive Board announced it had serious concerns about the proposed final rule from both a safety and economic standpoint. N.C.B.A.'s membership will not vote on a formal stand on the final rule until next month's stakeholder meeting in San Antonio. The latest news in the attempts to reopen Japan to U.S. beef products comes from Japanese newspapers. They report the U.S. is informally proposing to limit the age of cattle to be exported to Japan to less than fourteen months. That is a change from the originally proposed age limit of twenty months of age. The news reports state the U.S. is making the offer in talks in Tokyo in an attempt to resolve lingering issues in reopening the Japanese market. However, a U.S.D.A. spokesperson denied the reports and states the U.S. remains committed to shipping beef from cattle up to twenty months of age to Japan. New guidelines for Farm Service Agency County Committee elections are now out. Those were published earlier this week in the Federal Register. And based on public comments received through last October, there will be some modifications of the originally proposed guidelines. The new guidelines are designed to create greater access for women and minorities through federal programs, like F.S.A. The Idaho State Legislature is still awaiting a committee assignment before considering a bill that would require the state's fuel to contain at least ten per cent ethanol. The measure introduced by Senator Stan Williams is already getting national attention, as it is similar to efforts in other states to require ten per cent ethanol in gasoline by the year 2010. Williams says he is sponsoring the measure in his state as a means to reduce emissions, as well as benefit his state's ag economy through growing of crops and development of production facilities for ethanol.