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Congress Using Money as Leverage to Make NAIS Mandatory

It's been no secret that Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the chair of the House Appropriations Ag Subcommittee, wants a mandatory National Animal Identification System. Last week she emphasized that message telling USDA and the livestock industry to agree to a mandatory program or the program will be zeroed out in the 2010 fiscal year budget. The program has already been reduced to zero in the Ag Appropriations measure approved last Thursday by the subcommittee.

DeLauro charged that USDA has mismanaged the program while spending millions. She says a mandatory program is needed to provide assurance against economic calamity and to protect our export markets. The move was not totally unexpected. Earlier Collin Peterson, D-Minn.,  Chairman of the House Ag Committee, said he would support cutting off funding for the program unless USDA finds a way to make the program mandatory.

To date only 35% of animal premises across the nation have been registered. USDA has found through its recent listening sessions around the country almost no support for a mandatory program. In fact they are finding an organized uprising that is calling for an elimination of the program.