Amid another possible government shutdown, a passage in an omnibus bill, which includes $15 million to electronically track livestock, raises alarms with Republicans.
The House on Wednesday passed a $460 billion spending bill to fund about half the federal government through September 30, and avert a partial shutdown at the end of the week. The measure would package together six spending bills, extending funding for dozens of federal programs covering agriculture, energy and the environment, transportation, housing, the Justice Department and veterans.
The vote, 339 to 85, came after months of heated negotiations over federal funding that have repeatedly pushed the government to the edge of shutdown as Republicans pressed for more conservative policies and cuts. The Senate is now expected to take up and pass the bill before sending it to President Joe Biden in time for it to become law before a midnight deadline on Friday.
The omnibus bill, which was proposed on Sunday and combines six essential spending bills into one, includes text that allocates $15 million to “related infrastructure” needed for electronically tracking livestock.
The full text of the provision states, “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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However, ahead of the vote on Wednesday, Republican representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky took to X, formerly Twitter, to criticize the bill, saying it will be used to limit beef production and challenge small ranchers.
“Hidden in this week’s Omnibus: 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,” Massie wrote on X.
Republican Representative Mark Green of Tennessee also slammed the bill, writing on X, “Beef cattle production makes up 16.7% of Tennessee’s agricultural sector. I will not vote for an omnibus that gives radical Green New Deal activists the ability to hurt Tennessee’s farmers.”
GOP Senator Mike Lee of Utah wrote on X, “U.S. citizens have survived and thrived for two-and-a-half centuries without centralized electronic tracking of cattle. And yet the #SchumerMinibus spends $15 million on just that—electronic tracking of cattle.”
Newsweek reached out to Massie and Lee via email for comment on Wednesday.
At the moment, most livestock are tracked using tags that display 11-digit numbers, which are visible and trackable.
In January 2023, the Federal Register proposed regulations to mandate the inclusion of radio-frequency identification in ear tags to livestock, adding that these enhanced tags must be “both visually and electronically readable” to be recognized as official for the interstate movement of cattle and bison.
However, the mandate for electronic ear tags for cattle and bison crossing state lines has sparked controversy, specifically among small ranchers as they fear the added costs, which large corporate ranchers can absorb, will drive many smaller operations out of business.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.