Preemption watch.

This is a man bites dog story. NCSL reports regularly on the steady accumulation of federal laws and regulations that preempt the states and shrink the policy jurisdiction of state legislatures. Now, a unique story: Congress is considering legislation that would expand the authority of the states to allow greater scope for state meat and poultry inspection programs.

Two bills have been introduced to allow interstate shipment of state-inspected "amenable" meat and poultry products. NCSL is supporting both HR 1137, introduced by Representative John Thune of South Dakota and HR 801, introduced by Representative William Thornberry of Texas. Except for "nonamenable" meat such as deer, buffalo and emu, state-inspected meat and poultry may not be shipped interstate, even though meat inspected by foreign countries may be shipped interstate in the United States.

Federal meat and poultry inspection has proved not only to be ineffective at times, but also bureaucratically cumbersome. The federal government does not have the resources to serve remote rural areas or to inspect small meat or poultry processing plants. This discourages small start-up operations, specialty producers and plant operators serving less populated areas. In short, federal law favors big operators and foreign operators and makes state rural economic development efforts more difficult.

Despite federal law, 26 states have initiated meat and poultry inspection programs that meet U.S. Department of Agriculture standards. The state programs have been a boon to small processing operations and remote rural areas. The problem is that state-inspected meat and poultry, unless it's emu, deer, or some similar "nonamenable" product, may not be shipped interstate or internationally. So, even in the 26 states, small operations and rural areas are placed at a competitive disadvantage. The Thune and Thornberry bills would fix this problem.