Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties For Stable Economic Growth

"Working together for responsible management."

RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE PROPOSED NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM

WHEREAS the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is proposing a Mandatory National Animal Identification System (NAIS) to be in place by 2009, and

WHEREAS the primary justifications for the NAIS given by the USDA are animal health issues, specifically, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and

WHEREAS there has been no reported FMD in the United States for over 70 years and its reintroduction is speculative, and

WHEREAS there have been only two reported cases of BSE in the United States with one cow being imported from Canada and the other born and lived its entire life on the property where it was born, and

WHEREAS there have been no reported cases of humans contacting, while within the United States, the related condition of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and

WHEREAS the USDA has put into place all necessary safeguards to ensure that the American beef supply has an extremely low probability of the transmissions of BSE prions to humans, and

WHEREAS the intent of the NAIS is to monitor and control animal health, the effectiveness is questioned due to the enormous size and complexity of the program, and

WHEREAS the proposed NAIS is in violation of the Fourth Amendment, i.e. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, -----." and,

WHEREAS the USDA plans to subject GPS satellite surveillance (Standards, p.10) and the distance radio-frequency reading (Standards, p. 27) into the homes of millions of citizens and the government is not permitted to use sense-enhancing technologies to invade the privacy of citizens homes, Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001) and the sanctity of the home is entitled to privacy protection in circumstances where an industrial complex is not, Dow Chemical v. U.S., 227, 238 (1986), and

WHEREAS the Coalition is strongly opposed to the proposed enormously intrusive surveillance against unsuspecting citizens, and

WHEREAS the proposed NAIS is in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments by attempting a forced registration in a huge permanent federal data base of individual citizens' real property (the homes and land where animals are kept) and personal property (the animals themselves) (Standards, pp 8-13; Plan, pp. 8, 12-13), and

WHEREAS the USDA is proposing that an animal owner, under the pain of unspecified "enforcement" must report within 24 hours any instance of any animal leaving or returning to the registered property is the trammeling of basic property rights and fundamental human rights, which must remain free from government interference, and is impossible to comply with in the rural ranching community because of the areas involved and the lack of knowledge of the location of each animal, and

WHEREAS the numerous constitutional infirmities are bound to enmesh the USDA, the States of Arizona and New Mexico and the livestock industry in extremely costly litigation for years to come, and

WHEREAS the financial and labor cost to the livestock producer is unknown for purchasing and installing the proposed computer chips/ear tags, a Radio Frequency Reading Instrument, a computer with a high-speed connection, a GPS receiver for monitoring range livestock, software for both the computer and GPS receiver, inputting the original data and updating the required data on the loss or malfunction of any computer chip and any movement from or return to the specified area of any and all livestock could easily generate over a thousand data events per year requiring record keeping and reporting for even a modest sized livestock operation, and generate tens/hundreds of thousands of data events per year for medium to large livestock operations, which will be extremely time consuming and costly, and

WHEREAS there is an extremely high potential for unauthorized computer chips to enter the market, being obtained by unsuspecting livestock producers which will result in erroneous data being utilized and reported with the potential for unsuspecting liability, and

WHEREAS ear tags on range livestock are easily lost, identifying the original livestock number, when two or more ear tags are lost, is impractical if not impossible and replacing lost ear tags on range livestock is essential impossible except when the livestock are gathered and even then not all livestock cannot necessarily be located, and

WHEREAS the costs of the NAIS will surely be beyond the economic benefits for most small animal producers and force them out of business which will also have a devastating economic affect not only on the small producers but the rural communities, counties and state, and

WHEREAS the human is the most fallible in the data inputting and transferring process where even one error has the potential to cause irreparable harm to a livestock producer, and

WHEREAS with an anticipated transfer of hundreds of millions of data points every year, with the number of historically proven anticipated errors, has the potential of creating an enormous lack of confidence in the system, identifying locations where problems may not occur and the potential for extensive liability charges where no liability exists, and

WHEREAS even one mistake by someone entering a multi-digit number into the data base could easily transfer the liability of a diseased animal to another livestock producer, and

WHEREAS an animal may not necessarily have a disease when it leaves the producer's premises but a disease is identified later, and it cannot be proven when the animal contacted the disease, the liability will surely be placed on the livestock producer since every movement of the animal may not be entered into the data base, and

WHEREAS any centralized computer data base can easily be breached by a "computer hacker" and the protection of personal private information is highly suspect, and

WHEREAS there is no proposal for communicating data to the existing state animal health agencies, and

WHEREAS Arizona, New Mexico and other "brand" states have had animal identification and tracking systems in place for over 100 years, and

WHEREAS brand state agencies have successfully demonstrated, on a continuing basis, the ability to track animals for animal health reasons, and

WHEREAS brands have been proven to be an effective and economical means of identifying animals, and

WHEREAS Arizona, New Mexico and the brand states contend that the data bases they have accumulated for over 100 years are too valuable a resource for the USDA to simply throw away and should be used for animal health tracking purposes, and

WHEREAS state agencies like the Arizona Animal Services Division and New Mexico Livestock Board have the statutory responsibility to monitor animal health, they simply cannot hand over that responsibility or authority to anyone especially to a private legal entity, i.e. privately contracted data collection system, and

WHEREAS a basic law of economics states, "Do not replace a proven economic source with an unproven one," and

WHEREAS the proposed NAIS has many unproven practical applications with an unknown cost to animal producers which has proven, with past initiatives, to be unworkable due to the enormous and needless complexity, and

WHEREAS the proposed NAIS violates the 10th amendment, i.e. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED The Coalition opposes the proposed USDA National Animal Identification System and calls upon the Arizona and New Mexixo Governors, State Legislators, and Congressional Delegations to join in opposing implementing the program.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED The Coalition requests our Congrssional Delegations ensure that there is congressional oversight on the proposed NAIS prior to the implementation to properly address the concerns of the livestock industries, the independent livestock producers and the recreational livestock owners and take the necessary legislative action to ensure that as a minimum a pilot NAIS program be conducted prior to full implementation to resolve the many potential problems now foreseen with the full-scaled NAIS program.

Done this 17th day of March, 2006, by a unanimous vote of the Board of Directors.

¹ The Coalition is comprised of Arizona Counties: Apache, Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, and Navajo, and; New Mexico Counties: Catron, Chaves, Eddy, Harding, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Otero, Sierra, Socorro and Rio Arriba; and the Towns of Sierra Vista and Benson, Arizona, along with representation from livestock, timber, mining, sportsmen, outfitter, farming and small business industries, as members of the Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties (Coalition). The population of the combined membership exceeds 593,000.

P.O. Box 125 Glenwood, New Mexico 88039
(505)539-2709
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