A recently released White House memo said that U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspections could be delayed and that a 15-day furlough for U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service personnel could result if Congress does not reach an agreement with the White house to avoid sequestration.
The National Chicken Council , along with 37 organizations representing various aspects of animal agriculture, livestock and poultry producers, food processing and manufacturing, retail, international trade and transportation, wrote to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to express strong concerns with the possibility of furloughing the nation's federal meat, poultry and egg products inspectors in the event sequestration goes into effect.
According to the groups : "We understand USDA is considering implementing a sequestration plan that would result in furloughing all the Food Safety and Inspection Service's meat, poultry and egg products inspectors for 15 days.
"Because of the importance of federal inspection to the production of meat, poultry and egg products, we do not believe furloughing FSIS inspectors to be an appropriate response to sequestration within the framework of the federal meat, poultry and egg products inspection laws. It certainly would not be in the public interest.
"Because federal establishments may not produce meat, poultry or egg products without federal inspection, furloughing inspectors would effectively shutter meat, poultry and egg products plants for more than two weeks, imposing significant hardship on thousands of inspected establishments and hundreds of thousands of people directly employed by these industries, not to mention the affected government employees," the groups wrote.
