This is ‘Help’?

Outgoing antitrust chief Christine Varney says the Justice Department is helping chart a course forward for the Agriculture Department’s controversial rule for buying and selling livestock and poultry.

Speaking to the liberal Center for American Progress, Varney said Justice will help USDA “think through the next steps of where they want to be” on the regulation, according to media reports.

Known as the GIPSA rule, the embattled draft regulation has been a lightning rod for criticism since it was unveiled last year. Most recently, it took a beating at a late-June hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Rather than listening to Justice Department lawyers, USDA might serve the interests of producers better by focusing on the 60,000 public comments it received on the rule. NPPC has said repeatedly the draft regulation is bad for producers, consumers and rural America and will lead to, among other things, thousands of job losses.