PORCINE PREDICAMENT: Local governments that want to file for constitutional interpretations of their food safety rules could be helped by the KMT, Yeh Ching-yuan said

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 28, 2020
By: Lin Liang-sheng, Lu Yi-hsuan and
Kayleigh Madjar / Staff reporters, with staff writer

Local governments could seek a constitutional interpretation if the central government decides to nullify local municipalities’ food safety regulations demanding “ractopamine-free” products, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Evaluation and Discipline Committee director-general Yeh Ching-yuan (葉慶元) said yesterday.

Media reports have cited an anonymous Cabinet official as saying on Saturday that the central government was considering whether to nullify such new food safety regulations, but a decision would not be made until the Executive Yuan communicated further with local governments, hoping that they would drop plans for such rules.

The Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Thursday voted to approve a slew of administrative directives related to the government’s decision to lift restrictions on imports of pork containing ractopamine and on US beef from cattle older than 30 months, effective Friday. Ractopamine remains banned from use in domestic livestock farming.

Executive Yuan Secretary-General Li Meng-yen (李孟諺) said that ordinances by several local governments requiring zero tolerance for ractopamine in pork are causing confusion, not only because they conflict with Cabinet-level directives, but they also contradict one another.
[FULL  STORY]