The Meat Institute is asking the Trump administration to roll back regulations on Nebraska’s meatpacking industry, where 6.5 million head of cattle are raised and processed every year. A new rule has increased protections for workers, but the group wants lawmakers to roll back those efforts, as well.
NORTH PLATTE, NE – An agriculture trade group wants the Trump administration to reduce regulations on the meatpacking industry. With nearly 6-and-a-half-million head of cattle, Nebraska is among the nation’s leaders in beef processing.
The Meat Institute contacted the Trump administration in January, outlining “strategies to reduce burdensome regulations and address meat prices for consumers.”
Antitrust expert Austin Frerick, who has also written a book on the industry, says rolling back regulations as outlined by the Meat Institute would make production standards lower than they are in China, for example.
Frerick adds weakening meatpacking regulations would also erode consumer confidence in domestically produced livestock. The Trump administration has made loosening rules on U-S corporations part of its domestic economic agenda.
The Meat Institute also wants lawmakers to rescind part of the century-old Packers and Stockyards Act they revived in 2024, which increased regulations on what are known as “direct polluters” that send waste directly into groundwater supplies. Food and Water Watch Staff Attorney Emily Miller argues the rules should also tighten regulations on “indirect” polluters.
The Meat Institute sees the move to protect workers regardless of pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, marital status or age – which is also part of the new rule – as an attempt to “enshrine D-E-I principles” into the Packers and Stockyards Act
