Lawmakers from ruling and opposition camps have decided to discuss an amendment next week that would allow U.S. bone-in beef products to enter Taiwan without disputes, the legislative caucus whip of the governing Kuomintang (KMT) said Friday. Lu Hsueh-chang said KMT legislators and their opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) peers are slated to deal with the amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation that has been stalled for nearly two months on Dec. 29. They hope to provide a sound legal basis for the executive branch's disputed decision in late October to allow bone-in beef to be imported from the United States. Lu said versions submitted by the two parties have many similarities, but further discussions may be needed to bridge the differences. He pointed out that the KMT will never give way to the DPP's request that 'U.S. bone-in beef products will be permitted to enter Taiwan only after their bones are removed in advance.' According to Lu, the KMT version would note the principle of 'offshore inspection guidelines' and would require the government to send officials to check every batch of bone-in beef products in the United States before being shipped to Taiwan. If the DPP's version is selected, the KMT will add a note explaining that the legislation's logic falls in line with the requirements set by the World Organization for Animal Health, which gives the administration a basis for discussing the issue with the U.S., he said. Once an amendment is passed, Lu wondered 'whether someone in the government should be held politically accountable' for all the furor that has arisen over the issue in the past two months. 'It is important to review the entire process of the government's poor handling of the matter, even if an amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation, whether the KMT version or the DPP version, clears the Legislative Yuan,' he argued. The lack of advanced notice to the legislature of its decision to allow U.S. bone-in beef into Taiwan has affected related legislation and also delayed the screening of the central government's budget, he said. The Cabinet-level Department of Health's announcement Oct. 23 that bone-in beef and other previously banned beef products would be allowed into Taiwan starting Nov. 10 provoked an outcry led by the DPP, and it demanded that the Executive Yuan reopen negotiations with the United States on the protocol covering U.S. beef imports. Su Chi, secretary-general of the National Security Council, has ruled out the possibility of a new round of beef talks on the grounds that doing so will jeopardize two-way relations. 