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103D CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 364
To clarify the eligibility of certain small businesses for loans under the
Small Business Act, to aid, protect, and preserve small businesses in
meat production and marketing, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY 5, 1993
Mr. SMITH of Iowa introduced the following bill; which was referred jointly
to the Committees on Agriculture and Small Business
A BILL
To clarify the eligibility of certain small businesses for loans
under the Small Business Act, to aid, protect, and pre-
serve small businesses in meat production and marketing,
and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That this Act may be cited as the ‘‘Small Business Meat
Producer and Marketer Protection Act of 1993’’.
SECTION 1. The Small Business Act is hereby amend-
ed as follows:
(a) by inserting in section 3 before the word
‘‘credit’’ the word ‘‘sufficient’’, and by inserting
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after the word ‘‘conditions’’ the words ‘‘and at rea-
sonable rates’’; and
(b) by inserting in section 18(a) after the word
‘‘moratorium’’ the following: ‘‘or if the agency has
promulgated and is operating and administering a
loan program under which all qualified applicants
are not being granted loans,’’.
SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDING AND DECLARA-
TION OF POLICY.—
(a) The Congress finds that the existence, in indus-
tries engaged in commerce or in the production, process-
ing, manufacturing, and distribution of livestock and meat
food products for commerce, of marketing conditions det-
rimental to the maintenance of a free and competitive en-
vironment needed for the health, efficiency, and general
well-being of business (1) causes commerce and the chan-
nels and instrumentalities of commerce to be used to
spread and perpetuate such conditions among businesses
located in the several States; (2) burdens commerce and
the free flow of livestock and meat food products in com-
merce; (3) constitutes an unfair method of competition in
commerce; (4) leads to a burdening and obstruction of
commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and
(5) interferes with the orderly and fair marketing of goods
in commerce.
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(b) It is declared to be the policy of this Act, through
the exercise by Congress of its power to regulate commerce
among the several States and with foreign nations, to cor-
rect and as rapidly as practicable to eliminate the condi-
tions above referred to in such industries without substan-
tially curtailing the production, processing, manufactur-
ing, or distribution of such products.
SEC. 3. As used in this Act—
(a) ‘‘Commerce’’ means trade, commerce, trans-
portation, transmission or communication among the
several States or between any State and any place
outside thereof.
(b) ‘‘Livestock’’ means cattle, calves, swine,
sheep or lambs, whether alive or dead.
(c) ‘‘Meat food products’’ means all products
and by-products of the slaughtering and meat pack-
ing industry, if edible.
(d) ‘‘Meatpacker’’ means any person engaged in
the business of buying livestock for purposes of
slaughter or of manufacturing or preparing meats or
meat food products for sale or shipment.
(e) ‘‘Meat marketer’’ means any person en-
gaged in the business of buying, selling, brokering,
purveying or otherwise dealing in meats or meat
food products.
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(f) ‘‘Person’’ means one or more individuals,
partnerships, associations, corporations, legal rep-
resentatives, joint stock companies, trustees and re-
ceivers in bankruptcy and reorganization, common-
law trusts, or any organized group, whether or not
incorporated.
(g) ‘‘Meatpacker or meat marketer engaged in
commerce’’ means a meatpacker or meat marketer
(1) who is engaged in commerce or (2) who has em-
ployees engaged in the production, processing, man-
ufacturing or distribution of meat food products for
commerce, or employees handling, selling, or other-
wise working on meat food products which have been
moved in or produced, processed, manufactured, or
distributed for commerce by any person and which,
during any one of the last three years had annual
gross volume of sales made or business done of not
less than $250,000 (exclusive of excise taxes at the
retail level which are separately stated).
SEC. 4. (a) It shall be unlawful for any meatpacker
engaged in commerce to slaughter or cause to be slaugh-
tered, whether by contract, business order, or by any other
transaction, at any one location during any calendar week
more than one hundred head of cattle or calves, three hun-
dred head of swine, or three hundred head of sheep or
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lambs which were owned prior to slaughter for a period
in excess of twenty days by such meatpacker or by any
person who owns or controls more than 5 per centum of
the stock, voting power, or control of a meatpacker or by
any person, subsidiary, or affiliate in which such
meatpacker or other person owns or controls a total of
more than 5 per centum of the stock, voting power, or
control thereof. The prohibition in this subsection shall
apply to livestock owned by such meatpacker or such per-
sons or subject to their control directly or indirectly by
contract, purchase order, option, or other arrangement.
(b) It shall be unlawful for any meatpacker or meat
marketer engaged in commerce to offer for sale to or to
purchase from a meatpacker or meat marketer, whether
by contract, business order, or by any other transaction,
during any calendar week more than one hundred head
of live cattle or calves, three hundred head of live swine,
or three hundred head of live sheep or lambs which were
owned prior to the date of sale for a period in excess of
twenty days by such meatpacker or meat marketer or by
any person who owns or controls more than 5 per centum
of the voting power or control of such meatpacker or meat
marketer or by any subsidiary or affiliate in which such
meatpacker, meat retailer or other person owns or controls
a total of more than 5 per centum of the voting power
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or control thereof. The prohibition in this subsection shall
apply to livestock owned by such meatpacker or meat mar-
keter or such persons or subject to their control directly
or indirectly by contract, purchase order, option or other
arrangement; but it shall not be deemed to prohibit any
such meatpacker, meat marketer, or other person from
making, executing or fulfilling a contract of sale of any
commodity for future delivery on a board of trade which
has been designated as a contract market by the Commod-
ity Futures Trading Commission.
(c) It shall be unlawful for any meatpacker or meat
marketer engaged in commerce to contract for the forward
delivery of livestock if such contract authorizes, directly
or indirectly, such meatpacker or meat marketer to select
the date for the delivery of such livestock unless such date
is within a period of twenty consecutive calendar days.
SEC. 5. (a) Any person knowingly violating any provi-
sion of section 4 of this Act shall be fined not more than
$50,000, or more than $100 per head of cattle or calves
and $25 per head of swine, lambs or sheep slaughtered,
offered for sale or purchased, or contracted for forward
delivery in excess of the maximum number permitted by
such section, whichever amount is greater. A violation by
a corporation shall also be deemed to be a violation by
the individual directors, officers, receivers, trustees, or
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agents of such corporation who authorized, ordered or per-
formed any of the conduct constituting the violation in
whole or in part.
(b) A violation of this Act which occurs in more than
one week shall be considered a separate violation for each
calendar week during which a violation occurs.
SEC. 6. For the purposes of the Act entitled ‘‘An Act
to supplement existing laws against unlawful restraints
and monopolies, and for other purposes’’, approved Octo-
ber 15, 1914 (38 Stat. 730), and the Federal Trade Com-
mission Act, this Act shall be considered to be an antitrust
law.
SEC. 7. If any provision of this Act or the application
thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the
validity of the remainder of this Act and the application
of such provision to other persons or circumstances shall
not be affected thereby.
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