Here ya go, Oldtimer. Looks like your Democrat heroes are going to shove a bureaucrat-managed ID down our throats. Those Dems are really looking out for us, aren't they? Hope this makes you happy. :???:
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Ag Committee Chairman Peterson Determined To Impose Animal ID
By David Bowser
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — The chairman of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee wants mandatory animal identification, according to his committee staff director, but he won't change the law to do it.
The Secretary of Agriculture already has that power, Chandler Goule says.
Chandler Goule, staff director for the House Agriculture Committee, has worked on policy issues in Washington for the last 10 years. He's in charge of Congressman Collin Peterson's animal identification agenda. Peterson, D-Minnesota, is chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
"He is supportive of the mandatory animal ID system," Goule says of Peterson.
But, Goule says, there are some misconceptions of Peterson's position.
"He does not plan on doing animal ID legislation because there's no need for that," Goule says. "There's enough authority at the USDA under the Animal Health Protection Act to accomplish an animal ID system."
Goule says Peterson does not plan on rewriting any animal identification legislation that is already in place, but is still holding hearings on animal identification in the House Agriculture Committee.
"His agenda is, if you're in a breed or herd registered program or if you're with the Northwest guys or if you're up in Montana or in Kentucky or somewhere and you're already participating in a program," Goule says, "his objective is to make sure that the USDA sets a standard that works with that program."
That may or may not include brands, something that concerns ranchers in western brand states.
"All these notions that keep flying around that we're going to require a new eartag, new readers and new equipment," Goule says, "that's not the objective whatsoever."
Goule says that needs to be cleared up.
"The chairman is very supportive of a mandatory system," Goule reiterates, adding that a number of issues in the livestock industry play into that.
"Whether it's the lack of a veterinary workforce out in rural areas, or just the fact that the USDA advised our committee a couple of weeks ago that it took on average 199 days to track down all the herdmates for 27 different TB outbreaks," Goule explains, "what we're trying to do is move away from using BSE as a reason as to why we need animal ID."
Goule says bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE or mad cow disease, is a slow-moving disease.
Tuberculosis moves faster than BSE, but it, too, is a slow-moving disease. Still, it took the U.S. Department of Agriculture 199 days to track down the animals exposed to the TB-infected cattle.
"If we were to get a disease like foot and mouth in the U.S. that could spread in 10 or 12 days," Goule says, "it would be a catastrophic experience like Britain had."
The lack of a comprehensive animal identification system is Peterson's concern, Goule says. That is why Peterson wants a mandatory system.
"The animal ID system is not a food safety system," Goule continues. "It is an animal disease surveillance system."
He says Peterson and others on the committee understand the concerns of producers about confidentiality. Goule says they continue to work on a solution for that issue.
"We just had a meeting today with four lawyers about how do we fix and protect this information in the animal ID system."
As an animal science major, he says there are other things he would rather do than meet with lawyers, but that's his job.
"We are also very aware that there's some unique situations out there," Goule says.
The ones he is watching are ranchers on public lands and fairs and rodeos.
Goule says the government needs a way to work with the public lands ranchers and with expositions.
"I was a 4-Her in Texas for nine years," he adds. "What are we going to do about the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and Fort Worth Stock Show and places like that?"
He acknowledges that there are situations that will fall outside the broad scope of the norm.
"We fully realize that there are unique situations out there that we're going to have to work with," Goule says, "but our overall goal is to take existing systems and develop them into a national system that can be used to trace quarantined animals in 48 hours in order to help minimize the damage."
Still, there are still issues to be resolved, he admits.
"I met with the public lands people last week," Goule says.
He says he and Peterson understand that brands are a part of Western culture, but when it comes to tracking down brand receipts and brand registries, finding cattle based solely on brands for identification can be difficult and time-consuming.
Goule says his family has a brand in Texas, but Texas brands are registered by county. With 254 counties in the Lone Star State, there could be several ranches with the same brand in that one state.
"Then if you go to New Mexico, somebody else could have that same brand, and if you go to Colorado, somebody else could have that exact same brand."
He says the argument he was given was simply to call those three people with the same brands to track down cattle.
"What if two of those people were on vacation for a week and a half and didn't answer their phone and we're sitting here with a disease outbreak?" Goule says. "I understand that branding is a large part of the culture. We talked about this a lot in country of origin labeling. I don't think there will be anything done to discontinue it. I think what we'll try to do is meld this in with a system that will meet the requirements of 48-hour traceback."
He says there has to be confidence in the producer, confidence in the government and confidence in the industry.
Without a mandatory animal identification system, he sees a scenario where animal health officials might have to shut down cattle movement in all the states west of the Mississippi.
"It would be much better if we had a mandatory ID system and had to shut down just two states," Goule says, "because we were able to contain the disease in a faster time period."
The House Agriculture Committee has had one hearing in which they heard from producers and industry witnesses and from the United States Department of Agriculture.
"The next hearing that we have planned," Goule says, "will be after the April recess, and it will be government agencies."
He says U.S. Department of Agriculture officials will testify along with officials from the Department of Homeland Security.
"They have done several scenarios over the last five to six years on what would happen if we had an intentional outbreak of foot and mouth disease," Goule says, "or if we had a naturally occurring outbreak."
He says the fact is that the government can't track cloven-hoofed animals, not just cattle and pigs, but deer and elk and animals of that sort that are also commercially produced.
An outbreak like that, he says, if it were in three parts of the country, could cause from $30 billion to $100 billion in damages.
"That's our next set of hearings that we're going to look at."
Goule says there will likely be another hearing after that, but no date has been scheduled.
"I'm pushing for specialty situations," he says. "We need to bring somebody in and talk about the stock shows. Let's talk about horse races. Let's talk about public lands and things like that."
He says they need to look into some of the unique situations in animal agriculture.
"I can see a third hearing."
Some have questioned why Peterson is conducting hearings if he isn’t going to bring legislation to the floor.
"The only type of legislation that would even be reasonable," Goule says, "would be to do something like requiring the USDA to have a mandatory animal ID system in place by ‘X’ date and time, but we're not doing that."
The Secretary of Agriculture already has the authority to do that, he insists.
"These hearings are to demonstrate the need and why we need a mandatory animal ID system," Goule says. "I think through the last administration there was too much opposition down at the department. We wasted $142 million and eight years, and we had 35.1 percent of premises registered. If that's the direction it's going to continue going, the chairman's not going to be supportive of it."
Goule points out that Peterson said at the hearing a couple of weeks ago that if opposition to animal identification continues and there is a foot and mouth outbreak in this country, producers need not come to him thinking he's going to have a receptive ear to bail out those in trouble and give money to depopulate the animals.
"We're trying to fix the problem now."
He says he thinks Peterson is trying to look further ahead than the detractors of an animal identification program.
"What are we going to do?" Goule asks.
There could be a time when health officials won't have 199 days to find infected or exposed cattle, he warns.
"It's not just animal ID," Goule says. "We have a problem with the veterinary workforce. We don't have enough veterinarians. We don't have a system that can talk to itself."
Those are the things that Peterson's trying to demonstrate at the hearings, Goule explains.
He says Peterson has had some good conversations with the new Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, since the last hearings. Vilsack is the former governor of Iowa and ran for President in the 2008 primaries.
Goule says Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., chairwoman of the Agricultural Appropriations Committee, was pretty blunt with the secretary.
"I think we have definitely come together to agree upon a phased-in system that ends up being mandatory," Goule says. "That's the way it has to go, but it has to work with existing systems that are already out there."
http://www.livestockweekly.com/papers/09/04/16/whl16bow-goule.asp