Wyoming ranchers sue USDA over livestock tracking rules

Earlier this year, the United States Department of Agriculture required ranchers moving their livestock across state lines to implant their animals with an electronic chip to track them throughout the process, arguing that such a program would make it easier to understand the origin of disease and defects. But now a group of Wyoming ranchers – who depend almost exclusively on services across state lines for their businesses – are suing over those rule changes, arguing they could have a negative impact on their operations and put them at a competitive disadvantage against some of the nation’s largest cattle producers. Filed Oct. 10 in the U.S. District Court of Wyoming, the lawsuit claims an April guidance document from the USDA puts unnecessary and onerous regulations on cattle producers that the plaintiffs – which include several prominent ranchers in Wyoming as well as the vocal lobbyist group Ranchers Cattleman Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America – believe were improperly rolled out and are unfairly slanted against independent cattlemen in states like Wyoming...MORE

I've embedded the lawsuit below, or you can access here.