The USDA has sent forward its final rule on the Packers and Stockyards Act update to the Office Of Management and Budget. The Organization For Competitive Markets filed public comments on that rule. Interim Executive Director Ben Gotschall says they don’t think the rule is very good because it provides very little antitrust protections for producers.
He’s not sure what will happen with the rule once the OMB reviews it.
Gotschall says while they’ll continue monitoring the process, Congress does have the ability to step in with some oversight measures to address the problems with the rule.
USDA has yet to publish the rule in the Federal Register and had targeted doing it in August however they missed that target as it just now went to OMB.
