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This is URGENT if you want to put a stop to NAIS. Please circulate this alert and the template letter to any e-mail or fax list you may have in order to blanket the country.
There are about 3,000 R-CALF USA members that receive this alert. This is so important that we are asking every R-CALF USA member to deliver a copy of this alert to at least one non-member to get them to also fax a letter to the Subcommittee.
Here is the Subcommittee’s Fax Number for faxing your personal letter: 202-225-4544.
Timing is everything. Please help us get thousands of personal letters from livestock producers, main-street businesses and consumers faxed to the Subcommittee before March 20. Good Luck!
Here’s the one-page template letter (which also is posted on our Web site at www.r-calfusa.com):
[Put Date Here]
The Honorable David Scott
Chairman, House Committee on Agriculture
Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry
1301 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-6001
Re: Testimony for March 11, 2009 Hearing on Review of Animal Identification Systems
Dear Chairman Scott and Subcommittee Members:
I am a [insert livestock producer and/or consumer] from [insert your town and state] and I urge you to reject the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
NAIS is government intrusion at its worst. It is un-American for Congress and USDA to force each U.S. farmer and rancher to register with, and report to, the federal government their real property, the number and species of livestock they own, the number of animals produced from each year’s production, and the date and location where their livestock are located or moved – even when their livestock are not moved in interstate commerce or sold for human consumption. With few exceptions, no other segment of America’s free enterprise system is subject to such a heightened level of direct government surveillance.
USDA and Congress are using fear tactics to justify NAIS. They claim the U.S. is behind other countries in disease preparedness and cannot effectively control and eradicate animal diseases. This is absurd. The U.S. veterinary infrastructure is the envy of the world. For decades, U.S. livestock producers worked with their local veterinarians, state veterinarians, and regional and national USDA veterinarians to make the U.S. livestock herd the healthiest herd in the world. It is dishonest and irresponsible to assert the U.S. is second behind any other country in its ability to prevent, control and eradicate animal diseases.
