CCI members take on illegal corporate ag lobbying

Iowa CCI joins HSUS lawsuit to stop illegal NPPC funding

Lawsuit alleges National Pork Producers Council is using pork checkoff dollars to fund lobbying activities, which is illegal under federal law

 Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) has joined a lawsuit filed in federal district court by the Humane Society of the United States charging the National Pork Board with striking an illegal backroom deal with the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) for the purchase of the slogan “Pork: The Other White Meat”.

The deal essentially allows $60 million collected from pork checkoff funds to be illegally diverted into lobbying campaigns to de-regulate, de-fund, gut, privatize, and otherwise roll back key protections for independent family farmers and the environment.“

This thing stinks worse than a manure spill,” said Larry Ginter, a retired hog farmer and Iowa CCI member from Rhodes, Iowa.

According to federal law, every U.S. pork producer must pay into the checkoff program, but the funds can only be used for limited promotional and research purposes and may not be used for lobbying.

The lawsuit states:  These unlawful expenditures are not only arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and/or contrary to law within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706, they also allow the Board and the NPPC to evade federal restrictions against the use of pork checkoff dollars for purposes of influencing legislation and government policy.  Because the illegal purchase, ongoing annual payments, and resulting lobbying use of the funds at issue all violate federal laws and regulations, and constitute a gross misuse of federal checkoff assessments, Plaintiffs request that the Court set aside the unlawful expenditure approvals and immediately enjoin further payments from the Board to NPPC under the contract at issue.

Iowa CCI members – as part of the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment coalition - challenged the mandatory pork checkoff in the late 1990s. NPPC was forced to return more than $50,000 in producer checkoff funds after it was revealed that the group had engaged in surveillance of family farm and environmental organizations opposed to industrial hog operations - including Iowa CCI members and allied organizations in the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment.