Comments Due Monday January 22, 2007,
on USDA's November 2006 User Guide

November 23, 2006, USDA issued a National Animal Identification System (NAIS): A User Guide and Additional Information Resources, and invited comments to it on or before January 22, 2007. If you are interested in sending comments on the User Guide to USDA, this Alert will assist you.

If you haven't seen the User Guide, you can find it at:
http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/naislibrary/userguide.shtml.

You can submit comments by e-mail to:
animalidcomments@aphis.usda.gov please include "NAIS Draft User Guide" in the subject line, or by mail to:

NAIS Program Staff
Attn: NAIS Draft User Guide
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA
Unit 200
4700 River Road
Riverdale, Maryland 20737

At the end of this action alert are "talking points" that you can use to develop your written comments. Focus on the issues that are most important to you, and personalize your comments. It is also very important to send a copy of any letters to your elected officials. You can find who your legislator is at:
http://www.libertyark.net/tools.html - under "Contact Information for Your Elected Officials."

As always, if you have questions or concerns, you can reach us at:
libertyark@freedom.org.

ASK YOUR FRIENDS TO SIGN UP TO SUPPORT LIBERTY ARK'S FIGHT AGAINST NAIS. SEND THEM THIS LINK:
http://libertyark.net/contribute.html

Talking Points on the November 2006 NAIS USDA User Guide

• The USDA has announced that the National Animal Identification System is voluntary at the federal level only, but states it has the authority to still make NAIS mandatory. Thus we are still not protected from a mandatory national NAIS. USDA's recitation of "voluntary" 29 times in the Guide still does not make it so.
• The User Guide is clearly marked "DRAFT" thus is subject to change. This means we still don't have the final federal story on NAIS plans.
• This User Guide wasn't even announced in the Federal Register. Thus, USDA has abandoned any pretense at following required administrative law procedure. There is no statutory or regulatory basis for this User Guide.
• The requirements under the new User Guide are even less clear than the original USDA NAIS documents, and that along with the growing variety of state premises registration, and animal ID programs, will create uncertainty and confusion, and allow states to establish programs even more onerous than the original federal NAIS program.
• The Guide authorizes the use of datamining by states to produce so-called "voluntary" premise registrations. These have been used by the states to fraudulently claim farmers and ranchers have chosen of their own free will to participate in premises registration and NAIS. This is unethical and a violation of citizens' reasonable expectation that information provided to one animal health program will not be used in a program to which they have not consented, and which now represents them to have volunteered for.
• USDA still has not performed a cost benefit analysis of NAIS, and the estimated cost data in the User Guide are spurious and underestimated.
• If the program is truly to support market requirements, then the market should support it.
• The User Guide repeats prior statements that NAIS is for disease control. However, USDA has failed to produce scientific proof that NAIS will control disease.
• The potential abuses of the data are too numerous to list, and include its use to consolidate livestock markets and destroy what competition still exists.

If you have questions about this or other matters pertaining to NAIS, please contact libertyark@freedom.org, or call Karin Bergener, Liberty Ark Steering Committee member, at 330-298-0065.