Newhouse: CIAO Act Provides Clarity For Organic Producers

Earlier this Spring, Oregon’s Peter DeFazio and Washington’s Dan Newhouse joined Rodney Davis of Illinois, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Jimmy Panetta of California and Chellie Pingree of Maine, introducing the Continuous Improvement and Accountability in Organics Standards Act, better known as the CIAO Act. Newhouse noted this bipartisan legislation will provide assistance to the industry, as well as the USDA, in efforts to advance organic standards.

“It’s going to help improve oversight, enforcement of new rules, it’s going to give guidance and hopefully this is going to clear some of that regulatory red tape so that does not hamper innovation within the industry.”

The Chair of the House Western Caucus added the CIAO Act will also help address, and overcome, the regulatory limbo many organic producers experience. Newhouse noted there is a large backlog of proposals to improve the current organic standards. He added some of those ideas, even popular ones, have been in a holding pattern for up to 15 years.

“That just does not give the clarity to producers to be able to move forward with innovations.  By removing that and being able to move forward, so regulations are clear to producers, they can make decisions that they need to.”

Click Here to learn more about the CIAO Act.

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