Posted September 30, 2013
A U.S. District Court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by
the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which challenged Secretary of
Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s approval of
the National Pork Board’s purchase of the marketing slogan, “Pork: The Other
White Meat,” according to an article by MeatPoultry.com, available here. A Capital Press article on the case is
available here.
In Humane Society
of the United States, et al. v. Tom Vilsack, Secretary of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, No. 12-1582 (D.D.C. Sept. 25, 2013), HSUS alleged that the
National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) sold the marketing slogan to the
National Pork Board and unlawfully used the $60 million to lobby against animal
welfare campaigns. Plaintiffs argued
that the sale violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706,
alleging that the Secretary's approval was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and
contrary to law.” Specifically,
plaintiffs claimed the contract associated with the sale resulted in the use of
pork checkoff dollars for purposes of influencing legislation and government
policy, when “the Board is prohibited from using pork producers’ contributions
for that purpose.” Plaintiff Harvey
Dillenburg, a hog farmer, claimed that he had standing because the purchase
diminished the return on investment of his checkoff dollars. The complaint is available here. The text of the opinion is available here.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the plaintiffs
lacked standing to challenge how the National Pork Board spends money collected
from hog producers. Judge Jackson said
the plaintiffs failed to show that that they have “suffered an injury” that
“can be redressed by this lawsuit.” Judge
Jackson also ruled that plaintiff, Harvey Dillenburg, did not have
standing because his claim was only hypothetical and he was not “injured in fact” by
the NPPC’s lobbying efforts.
Judge Jackson stated that “lobbying is what these
organizations do, so being prompted to do it can hardly qualify as an injury
that confers constitutional standing.”
She continued, “the fact that [the organizations] have decided to
redirect some of their resources from one legislative agenda to another is
insufficient to give them standing.”
USDA oversees the checkoff program and can reject
expenditures that are in violation of federal laws or regulations.
Checkoff programs are also referred to as research and
promotion programs which promote and provide research and information for a
particular agricultural commodity without reference to specific producers or
brands. Producers and handlers usually
finance these programs for assessments charged on a per unit basis of the
marketed commodity. For more information
on Checkoff programs, please visit the National Agriculture Law Center’s
website, here.
