March 23, 2024 - Epoch Times
08:04
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| Time | Text |
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| You know that weird feeling when the U.S. | |
| Senate passes a seemingly routine spending bill, Joe Biden signs it into law, a government shutdown is averted, but then later you learn that included deep inside of this seemingly innocuous bill is a provision to track beef cattle. | |
| Specifically, included in this massive spending bill is a $15 million outlay for the purchase of electronic RFID tags for cows and bison. | |
| Now, while seemingly random and easy to ignore, Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky doesn't see it that way. | |
| Instead, after learning about this provision, he issued a warning about how these ear tags might eventually be used to electronically track livestock across the entire country in an effort to limit the consumption of beef. | |
| Here's specifically how he laid out the threat in a Twitter post. | |
| Hidden in this week's Omnibus, lobbyists got $15 million to implement electronic tracking of all cattle in the US. | |
| No law authorizes this. | |
| It will be used by the Green Agenda to limit beef production and by the corporate meat oligopoly to dominate small ranchers. | |
| Now, there is obviously a lot to unpack here. | |
| The specific provision that he's referring to within the spending bill is this one right here. | |
| It's a short paragraph that's incredibly easy to miss, especially given the fact that the actual spending bill is about this thick. | |
| But here's what the relevant paragraph says. | |
| Quote, The agreement directs the Department of Agriculture to continue to provide the tag and related infrastructure needed to comply with the federal animal disease traceability rule, including no less than $15 million for electronic identification EID tags and related infrastructure needed for stakeholders to comply including no less than $15 million for electronic identification EID tags and related infrastructure needed for stakeholders to comply with the proposed rule, use of electronic identification ear tags as official identification | |
| Now let's unpack what this actually means in plain English in order to give you a real sense of what's going on here. | |
| To start with, back in the year 2013, the USDA passed a rule called the Federal Animal Disease Traceability Rule. | |
| And just for your general reference, even though it's technically called an administrative rule, it actually does have the force of law, because as it currently stands, Rules that are created like this by federal agencies, such as by the USDA, in practical terms, they have the same power as laws. | |
| You can call them laws made by people we never voted for. | |
| That's called the doctrine of Chevron deference, and it is actually being currently challenged at the U.S. Supreme Court, but at the moment, this is how it works. | |
| Regardless, getting back to the actual rule, as the name suggests, the stated purpose of that rule, that particular rule, was to be able to track livestock across state lines in order to limit disease outbreaks. | |
| Here's how it's described over in the Federal Register. | |
| Quote, Under this rule, unless otherwise exempted, livestock belonging to species covered by the regulations that are moved interstate must be officially identified and accompanied by an interstate certificate of veterinary inspection. | |
| The purpose of this rulemaking is to improve our ability to trace livestock in the event that disease is found. | |
| And so this particular rule, it pertains to the movement of livestock from one state to another. | |
| And it covers many species, including pigs, goats, horses, poultry, cows, and bison. | |
| And in terms of cows and bison specifically, here's what it says in relevant part, quote, Requirements would cover all sexually intact cattle and bison aged 18 months and over, dairy cattle of any age, and cattle and bison of any age used for rodeos, recreational events, shows, or exhibitions. | |
| Because they tend to live longer than feeder cattle, move around more, and have more opportunities for commingling, thus presenting a greater risk of spreading disease. | |
| And so right off the bat, I want to highlight that Congressman Massey's statement that all cattle in America will be tracked is not accurate. | |
| Under the current framework, cows that don't move across state lines, as well as feeder cattle, will not actually be tracked. | |
| And just for your reference, feeder cattle refers to young cattle under the age of 18 months who are getting fattened up at feeding box. | |
| And so in terms of the food supply, it's mostly dairy cows and cattle above the age of 18 months who move across state lines that are covered by this particular rule. | |
| And so, since the year 2013, the way that cattle have been tracked under this rule is through an 11-digit ID tag that's attached to their ear. | |
| Meaning, that in order to be eligible for interstate travel, cattle must have these 11-digit tags attached to their ears. | |
| And if you actually want to read them, you need to get pretty up close to the cow in order to see the number. | |
| Now, as you can imagine, that is rather inefficient, and it's hard to streamline a process when you're dealing with a lot of livestock. | |
| And so, because of that, last year the USDA proposed a new rule. | |
| Or rather, it's actually an amendment to the existing rule. | |
| The amendment is called Use of Electronic ID Ear Tags as Official ID in Cattle and Bison. | |
| And just like the name suggests, this amendment, it will require that the tags on cattle not be just normal tags with an 11-digit number, but rather RFID tags. | |
| That way they can be scanned remotely without having someone get up close to the animal. | |
| The idea is that this new system, it would streamline the tracking process and take a lot of the human error out of the equation. | |
| Now, like most federal agency rule changes, this one was put out for public comment. | |
| And if you head on over to the Federal Register website, you'll see that this particular proposed rule has garnered well over 2,000 responses, with many of them coming from small and mid-sized farmers saying that this rule will disproportionately affect them since Larger corporate farms can absorb the cost of equipping ID tags for all their cattle, while family farms, for them, it might be a huge burden. | |
| Here's, for instance, what a pretty good representative comment read. | |
| Quote, As a person who has worked in small and medium-scale agriculture and seen firsthand how challenging it is to not only find a USDA slaughter facility within the same state, but get an appointment within a year, I'm completely sure that this rule would disproportionately affect small and medium-sized meat producers. | |
| And so, as is the case with most government regulations, this one will likely favor large corporations, and it'll just add to the cost of doing business for small family farms, which might inevitably, alongside the other myriad of red tape, lead to more consolidation within the beef industry. | |
| Now, the comment period for this proposal ended last April, but with the inclusion of this $15 million outlay in the federal spending package, well, I wouldn't be surprised if you see this proposed rule becoming finalized in the very near future. | |
| But even if it does, it won't actually change the parameters for which cattle and bison must be tagged. | |
| It'll just require those tags to be electronic chips. | |
| And so, on the one hand, the claim that the federal government has a plan in place to track all cattle in America is not true, at least for now. | |
| But that's not to say that it won't be true in the future. | |
| And that this is just the first step in that direction. | |
| Perhaps what Congressman Thomas Massie was alluding to in that statement is the trend. | |
| Just like with cell phones. | |
| Everyone gets them in order to text, make phone calls, and browse the web. | |
| But then on the flip side, a few years later, they're now used to track everyone all the time by the federal government as well as the police. | |
| Likewise, today you might be putting electronic RFID tags on all cattle that go state-to-state. | |
| Tomorrow, the electronic tags will be required from all cattle, regardless of whether they go state-to-state. | |
| And then 10 years down the line, when the anti-meat lobby gains power, well, those tags will be used to lower meat consumption in general. | |
| But of course, that's getting out there into the realm of speculation, which is outside the scope of this program. | |
| We stick to the knowable facts, and the fact is that at this moment, this $15 million earmark is for electronic tags to be placed on cattle who travel interstate in order to stop the outbreak of diseases. | |
| If you'd like to go through the notes from today's episode, I'll throw them down into the description box below this video so you can peruse them if you're the type of person who likes to dig into the weeds. | |
| Also, if you want to get a little bit deeper into this subject of the war on meat, I would highly recommend, if you haven't checked it out already, our awesome documentary called No Farmers, No Food. | |
| In it, we expose the globalist agenda, which is handcuffing farmers across the entire world and might very well lead to real food shortages in the near future. | |
| If you want to check out that awesome documentary, which I hope you do because it took us well over a year to put all that research together, well, the link to it will be right there at the top of the description box below. | |
| I hope you check it out. | |
| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epic Times. | |
| Stay informed. |
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