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Brownfield Ag Network –
Tuesday – November 21, 2006 – 2:34 p.m. CST
R-CALF
USA wins battle in long legal war
by Peter Shinn
Audio related to this story 
AUDIO: Interview with R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard (4 1/4 min MP3).
R-CALF USA won a legal victory Tuesday in its long-running battle against USDA's
minimal risk rule, which opened the U.S. border to Canadian slaughter cattle
under 30 months of age and an expanded roster of Canadian beef products. But the
fight is far from over in a case that has already been ongoing for the better
part of two years.
Montana District Court Judge Richard Cebull refused to hear oral arguments in
the case after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of USDA in July
of 2005, allowing the USDA rule to take effect and ending the U.S. ban on
Canadian slaughter cattle. But R-CALF appealed Cebull's decision not to hear
oral arguments in the case back to the 9th Circuit, and USDA asked that court to
issue a summary judgment against R-CALF.
But R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard told Brownfield the 9th Circuit refused to do so.
"We just received the 9th Circuit's order, and the order was to deny USDA's
attempt to dismiss our case, which opens the door to R-CALF," Bullard
proclaimed. "We now get to appeal our case."
Even more importantly, Bullard said, R-CALF will be allowed to submit evidence
it's collected since it initially filed the case in January of 2005. "If we
prevail on the appeal, then we will also have all the facts and scientific
evidence that we submitted in this case heard by a court of law, and that's been
our objective all along," said Bullard.
But the case still has a long way to go. Bullard said a panel of the 9th Circuit
may make a decision on R-CALF's appeal sometime in the first quarter of next
year. If it rules in favor of R-CALF, the case then goes back to Judge Cebull
for trial.
http://www.brownfieldnetwork.com:80/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=0C3954A0-9B6A-EB42-6F1771422E53E810
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