The Secret Plan to Make NAIS Mandatory

Here is today’s quiz: What is the difference between a “consistent” state and an “inconsistent” state?

If you said one refers to feeling calm and the other to feeling crazy, you’re wrong.

Here’s a hint: It has to do with the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

Still don’t know?

Well, a “consistent” state is government lingo for a state (like Iowa or Michigan) that requires farmers to comply with NAIS for registering cattle. An “inconsistent” state is—you guessed it—one that doesn’t require compliance.

According to a transcript of a meeting last October of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Committee on Livestock Identification (actually, the U.S. Animal Health Association, which advises USDA on NAIS), USDA is being advised to establish an “interim rule” that would prohibit cattle from moving between “consistent” and “inconsistent” states (except for transport to slaughter).

Mary Zanoni, a prominent opponent of NAIS (and the individual who alerted me to the proposed change), says the effect of such an interim rule would be to “make it impossible for any state to resist, because it would become economically isolated. Also note that an ‘interim rule’ can be promulgated WITH NO PRIOR OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLIC COMMENT.”

It’s interesting that the proposed interim rule comes nearly at the end of the transcript (p. 14). Much of the text prior to that consists of verbiage about how USDA would like to see NAIS be mandatory, but is committed to it being voluntary. For example, a USDA official reporting to the committee “stated that for a safer and more secure food supply, some people feel strongly the system needs to be mandatory, that most ranchers are aware of the importance of a national animal identification system, as well as the pork industry, but there is resistance in the countryside. He said that we must emphasize the national animal identification system is voluntary and that we need to sell it to producers so they can see the benefits and that it is in their best business interests to participate.”

This process of implementing NAIS provides us with wonderful insight into how bureaucrats maneuver, through obtuse and contradictory language, to get what they really want in terms of forcing themselves into people’s private lives. They say they want a voluntary system that doesn’t impose unnecessary burdens on farmers. But what they are doing is planning to penalize individual states that fail to make NAIS mandatory.

As a writer, I have to admire the use of language. Along with the "inconsistent" states, I like the part about "resistance in the countryside." Yes, the natives are restless, USDA has taken notice, and that restlessness may be the only factor encouraging bureaucratic hesitation.