‘The left wants to ban cattle and before you can ban anything you need a registry, you need to know where it’s at and who owns it.’
A controversial measure to include $15 million for the electronic tracking of livestock has made it through Congress via the recently passed omnibus bill, raising fears among critics that the new system could be weaponized by the government to limit beef consumption.
American cattle rancher Shad Sullivan told The Epoch Times that he fears that the electronic tags will be the end of the small rancher.
“They are going to use it as a taxing mechanism to eventually control the livestock,” Mr. Sullivan said. “In the European Union, they used these measures under the guise of climate change lies to limit the cattle supply, and if they do that here, it will destroy our industry.
“If the tag mandate is implemented it will be the key to open the door to the gas chamber for independent ranching.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who owns livestock, also sounded the alarm that the move could lead to the erosion of the industry.
“The left wants to ban cattle and before you can ban anything you need a registry, you need to know where it’s at and who owns it and that’s why they want to tag cattle,” he said in a March 23 post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “We’ve seen it happen in Europe.”
In a previous post, Mr. Massie wrote that, if passed, the electronic tracking “will be used by the GREEN agenda to limit beef production, and by the corporate meat oligopoly to DOMINATE small ranchers.”
🚨 Hidden in this week’s Omnibus:
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 6, 2024
Lobbyists got $15 million dollars to implement ELECTRONIC TRACKING of all cattle in the U.S.
No law authorizes this!
It will be used by the GREEN agenda to limit beef production, and by the corporate meat oligopoly to DOMINATE small ranchers. pic.twitter.com/jNsmDcxUGT
The omnibus bill, which was passed on March 22, combines six essential spending bills into one and includes text that allocates $15 million to “related infrastructure” needed for the program.
The full text of the provision reads: “The agreement directs the Department to continue to provide the tag and related infrastructure needed to comply with the Federal Animal Disease Traceability rule, including no less than $15,000,000 for electronic identification (EID) tags and related infrastructure needed for stakeholders to comply with the proposed rule, ‘Use of Electronic Identification Eartags as Official Identification in Cattle and Bison,’ should that rule be finalized.”
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