PFI pounces on proposed pet food fee

Staff Writer

The Pet Food Institute (PFI) president Duane Ekedahl said the fee Rep. Warren J. Triche Jr., D-Thibodaux, sought to impose on pet food manufacturing in Louisiana in his House Bill 630 would have made the state ten times higher than the next highest state for tonnage fees.

“If this goes through it would not be a fee. It would be an unprecedented use of these monies. It would be a tax on the consumer,” said Ekedahl.

He also said the state already imposed the highest tonnage fee for inspection than any other state.

Triche’s bill, in its current form, would have imposed a half-cent per pound ($10 per ton) fee on pet food manufactured in the state. The revenue generated by this fee would then go toward storm-related animal control efforts in the 64 parishes.

Triche’s bill was killed before it even made it to committee, however.

Triche explained the lobbyists for the pet food industry were so successful at killing his bill, because they exploited a typo in the bill’s abstract

The typo led many to believe Triche wished to impose a 20-cent per ton fee on pet food manufactured in the state in order to fund animal control services in the 64 parishes related to the Katrina and Rita.

Ekedahl said tonnage fees are considered user fees and therefore should be used by the states and their departments of agriculture for work they do with respect to pet foods, which includes inspection programs of pet foods.

And all the states have this authority and responsibility.

Ekedahl spoke generally about animal control and imposing a fee on the pet food industry to fund it.

“Responsible pet owners have not caused the problem. It is a social problem. And therefore, you’re taxing the responsible pet owner for the deeds of others. So, this is wrong in every way,” said Ekedahl.

He said in other states animal control is funded from the state’s general revenue and there is not tax on pet food to support animal control.

But, he also said he recognizes the unprecedented situation generated in the state in the aftermath of the storms.

“I think everybody sympathizes with that. And I think the pet food people and other people feel there are other revenues that should be coming into Louisiana to deal with that,” said Ekedahl. “Our [PFI] understanding is that there are unprecedented sources of funds for that unprecedented problem, which have come through our governments and have been directed toward that.”

He said the problems the state faces with animal control cannot become a reason to aggregate basic laws of fairness.

He doesn’t think it is fair the pet food industry should be held responsible for funding animal control. There are other groups that are as equally as worthy or unworthy of being taxed.

He asked in jest why not tax school children for animal control?

“Animal control is serious and needs to be funded, but to specify a group to tax them for this, when they didn’t cause or are really related to the problem. That’s our issue,” said Ekedahl. “We’re not arguing against tonnage fees by the state to support the necessary activities with respect to pet food. But to divert that money to another unrelated issue is our problem with the case.”

Going with this thinking, Ekedahl explained even a $1 per ton fee for animal control would not be suitable.

Ekedahl said Triche’s proposed $10 per ton fee would be so substantial the industry in the state would have to pass the cost down to the consumer. And being able to write the fee off would not be helpful enough.

Triche, of course, did not want this to happen and went so far as to put a one-year sunset clause in his bell in order to kill the fee easily if the industry did pass the cost along.

But Ekedahl is skeptical about any tax or fee being temporary or run on a trail basis.

Triche said a source in the state’s agriculture office told him roughly 150,000 tons of pet food is manufactured in the state each year. He sent his bill to the calendar in hopes someone else may take it up, again, at a later date.