Requiring animals to be tagged, with no connection to any testing or other disease control measure, is not the answer for animal health or food safety. The Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) already has extensive powers to address animal diseases and to include animal ID as part of those programs. This bill, however, gives the agency authority to require animal identification solely for the sake of identification, unrelated to any real animal disease control measure.

Back in 2005, at the urging of Agribusiness groups, the Texas Legislature adopted a law that allowed the TAHC to impose mandatory National Animal Identification System (NAIS). NAIS would have required that anyone who owned even a single livestock or poultry animal register their property, individually ID each animal (in most cases with electronic ID such as microchips or RFID), and report their movements to the government. The agency rushed forward with the first stage of NAIS, and it only stopped when thousands of Texans cried foul.

The outcry against NAIS was so great all over the country that the U.S. Department of Agriculture withdrew the program in 2009. When NAIS died, so did the agency's legal authority to impose animal identification requirements unrelated to disease control programs.

The mandatory NAIS statute in Texas is defunct. At this moment, the TAHC can only legally require identification when it is connected to a disease control program.

HB 2311 and SB 1233 breathe new life into the agency's authority, however. The original intent behind the bills was to address the fact that TAHC has been overstepping its bounds, most recently by issuing a mandatory cattle ID rule that requires cattle - even those going direct to slaughter - to be ear tagged. But the bills have been amended to undermine that original intent, and they now grandfather in the agency's illegal regulation.

Agribusiness industry groups are insisting that the bill include all species and allow the agency to impose federal regulations on every farmer.

We need both farmers and consumers who care about small and diversified livestock farms -- which are healthy sources of local food -- to speak up! Please take action today.