There is a lot of discussion about two pieces of legislation in congress -- HR 2058 and "The Cole-Bishop amendment." Due to the way that FB works, and the way that tons of people use FB, we have closed comments on a couple of threads where the viability of these bills is being discussed. This is an effort to help tamp down the wild speculation about which bill to support.
The following is CASAA's current position on the matter. If you have any questions about it, feel free to comment here.
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The Cole-Bishop amendment has been accepted into an Agricultural appropriations bill that will be part of a larger budget bill going forward. It HAS NOT BECOME LAW. I would also like to include my comments that I have left on other posts related to this question:
I want to make something crystal clear. CASAA's position for the time being is that we support a change to the predicate date. Period. At the moment, "Support HR 2058" is our active vehicle for that message. Driving people to that engagement accomplishes two things:
1) It puts that message in front of lawmakers.
2) It gets people in our database so that we can more effectively activate them in the near future.
This conversation about which bill to support should not be framed in terms of one vs. the other. At their core, both pieces of legislation seek to achieve the same thing - Change the 2007 predicate date.
However, there are provisions of the Cole-Bishop amendment that CASAA is not yet comfortable with signing off on. This under no circumstances should be viewed as opposition to the amendment, we are just reserving our right -- on behalf of consumers -- to see if some other legislative solution becomes available. In fact, we have made no statement to the effect of "don't support the Cole-Bishop amendment." There is absolutely no reason to abandon one for the other AT THIS TIME.
To further clarify, VTA is a trade association. They are working to get the best deal for their members. This is one of those instances where the interests of industry may not be aligned with the interests of consumers. This is certainly not a slight to the efforts of VTA. However, it is another example of a clear line between the interests of consumers vs. industry. And, I should note, this does not mean we are pitted against one another. One of the core reasons why CASAA is so vital to this effort is that we can effectively represent a position that industry associations can not -- the voice of the consumer.
