ByHouse Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources (originally sponsored by Representatives Kretz, Riccelli, Maycumber, Lekanoff, Mosbrucker, Chopp, Walsh, Chapman, Harris, Blake, Dent, Pettigrew, Rude, Springer, Steele, Appleton, Caldier, Fitzgibbon, Leavitt, Eslick, Volz, Van Werven, Shea, Cody, Tharinger, Robinson, Young, and Ormsby)

AN ACT Relating to requiring retailers to indicate the country of origin on beef sold to the public; and adding a new section to chapter 15.04 RCW.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. A new section is added to chapter 15.04 RCW to read as follows:

(1) A retailer who sells beef or offers beef for sale that is raised and processed in Washington state must make an effort to display information that is clearly visible and readily viewable by the public and placed in the immediate vicinity of the beef to designate and display the beef as either:

(a) "U.S.A. beef" if the beef is derived exclusively from animals that are either:

(ii) Born and raised exclusively in the United States and transported for a period of time not more than sixty days through any other country and slaughtered in the United States; or

(b) "Imported" if the beef does not meet the criteria described in (a) of this subsection. The placard for imported beef must indicate each country in which the animal was born, raised, and slaughtered.

(2) The retailer is only required to comply with subsection (1) of this section if the Washington state beef shipped to the retailer is clearly marked as to its origin and is accompanied with a placard or similar signage compatible with the display case of the retailer.

(4) The definitions in this subsection apply throughout this section unless the context clearly requires otherwise.

(b)(i) "Meat" means the edible part of the muscle of an animal that is skeletal or that is found in the tongue, diaphragm, heart, or esophagus, with or without the accompanying or overlying fat, and the portions of the bone, skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels that normally accompany the muscle tissue and that are not separated from it in the process of dressing.

(ii)(A) "Meat" includes the edible part of the muscle that has been chopped or ground.

(B) "Meat" does not include the muscle found in the lips, snout, or ears, nor any edible part of the muscle that has been manufactured, cured, smoked, cooked, or processed.

(c) "Retailer" means a person regularly engaged in the business of selling meat at retail to the public and selling only to the user or consumer and not for resale.