On Monday, December 13, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack held an open meeting reaffirming USDA’s commitment to a “serious” and “good faith” analysis of all comments received on the proposed GIPSA rule in order to produce a “fair, feasible and common-sense rule.”

The Secretary gave an an overview of the rulemaking process for the proposed rule, which defines and clarifies the protections for livestock and poultry farmers and ranchers in their dealings with packers and processors under the Packers & Stockyards Act of 1921.

The comment period for the proposed rule ended November 22, 2010 (see NSAC’s submitted comments here).  USDA received over 60,000 comments on the rule, and has posted the nearly 9,000 unique comments received on www.regulations.gov.

From here, the proposed rule enters a lengthy review process, during which USDA will review the content and applicability of the comments received, perform a cost-benefit analysis, and eventually send the rule to the Office of Budget and Management (OMB) for final clearance.

“Given the complexity of the rule and the number of comments, I hesitate to predict how long it will take [for final publication],” said Vilsack. “We’re going to do a serious analysis, and I don’t want anyone to assume that this rule will get rushed through the process.”

NSAC will continue to monitor the review process and will update you as we receive more information.