Article: YOUR COMMENTS to the USDA on NAIS are very much needed.

I received this tonight (and my comment to the USDA is below):

Dear Fellow Horse Owners and Friends,

If you have not already heard, when Barack Obama was inaugurated President on January 20, one of his major objectives was to review any administrative actions that had been signed or initiated during the last week of the Bush Administration in an alleged effort to cut costs and to eliminate detrimental policies. No matter what your politics, you may be aware that on January 13, 2009, the latest directive of USDA/APHIS in regards to the furtherance of National Animal Identification System (NAIS) was published in the Federal Register, making it one of the policies up for review by the new administration. This may be one of the few times that a comment or observation may genuinely postpone or even halt implementation of NAIS, especially as it relates to microchip implantation and Premises Identification Number.

Please help direct the course of NAIS. Your comments are needed.

The USDA is pushing through more changes to further the implementation of NAIS. We have the opportunity to stop these changes by commenting on the proposed rule change. Your comments can be made at

www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocketDetail&d=APHIS-2007-0096 .

The procedure is simple and painless. You can read the comments of everyone who has participated. All you need to do to comment is to click on the yellow comment tag at the right of the side under the add comments column then follow the directions.

The gist of this proposal is “VOLUNTARY” will become “MANDATORY” when federal unified AINs and PINs supersede any state ID policy becomes effective March 15, 2010.

The following is the abstract for the proposed rules change:

Official Animal Identification Numbering Systems

We are proposing to amend the domestic livestock regulations to require that when animal identification numbers (AINs) are used, only those numbers beginning with the 840 prefix will be recognized as official for use on all AIN tags applied to animals 1 year or more after the date on which this proposed rule is finalized. In addition, we are proposing to require that all new premises identification numbers (PINs) that are issued on or after the effective date of this rule use the seven-character alphanumeric code format. Official eartags that use a premises based numbering system issued after a 1-year phase-in period will be required to use the seven-character alphanumeric code format as well. Further, we are proposing several changes pertaining to the use of the U.S. shield on official eartags, numbering systems that use such eartags, and the correlation of those numbering systems with the PIN. These proposed changes are intended to achieve greater standardization and uniformity of official numbering systems and eartags used in animal disease programs and to enhance animal traceability, as discussed in previous Federal Register documents pertaining to the National Animal Identification System.

My comment to the USDA:

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