Today, Harriet Hageman, Senior Litigation Counsel with the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA),
filed a lawsuit in
federal district court in Casper, Wyoming representing the Ranchers
Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA)
and four ranchers from Wyoming and South Dakota, to stop the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) effort to eliminate all animal
identification options other than radio frequency identification (RFID)
devices and premises registration for adult cattle and bison moving
interstate. The lawsuit seeks declaratory judgment and an injunction against Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and USDA Administrator for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Kevin Shae, who together issued the RFID mandate in April of this year. The lawsuit alleges that USDA’s mandate that livestock producers use RFID ear tags, along with the requirement that they obtain a premises identification number (PIN), and the elimination of all other animal identification options currently available to U.S. cattle producers, violate current traceability regulations. The existing regulations, adopted in 2013, allow livestock producers to use the types of effective animal identification techniques and devices that have been widely used by the industry for over 100 years, including brands, tattoos, permanent metal ear tags, group/lot identification, and backtags on animals destined for harvest. The lawsuit further alleges that the USDA violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by relying exclusively upon a hand-picked group of individuals who have been advocating for the use of RFID, including industry officials and ear tag manufacturers who stand to earn windfall profits from the mandate...
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