R-CALF 2024 | The Fight Against EID

Congresswoman Harriett Hageman, a Wyoming Republican, has carried the torch for cattle producers who oppose vertical integration and excessive government mandates. To that end, her fight against livestock traceability measures isn’t new but it is heating up. Hageman said the USDA, the major packers, and the ear tag manufacturers’ attempts to force mandatory EID tag use on American cattle producers is not new. 

Hageman said the USDA, the major packers, and the ear tag manufacturers’ attempts to force mandatory EID tag use on American cattle producers is not new. 

“Now you can understand the packers, and you can understand the ear tag manufacturing companies,” Hageman said. “There’s also a reason as to why USDA is attempting to do this at this point in time.” 

She said the first major attempt by these groups to mandate RFID or EID tags was around 2010, though the proposed animal identification and traceability rule was met with tremendous push back from the industry. 

“USDA and APHIS found that livestock producers could continue to use the const effective and very effective methods of identification, such as brands, ear tags, back tags, tattoos, and that sort of thing that they had been using historically and been using very effectively,” she said. “The 2013 rule allows our producers to use what have been the types of identification and traceability that we’ve used for well over 100 years.” 

In 2019, APHIS issued a two-page fact sheet that announced that by 2023, cattle and bison producers would be required to begin using RFID ear tags. She said in the 2013 proposed rule, the cost for a full RFID tag mandate would cost livestock producers between $1.2 and $1.9 billion. 

R-CALF USA and two Wyoming and two South Dakota producers hired Hageman, an attorney, to file a lawsuit claiming USDA had failed to go through the proper rule making procedure. The rule was withdrawn by USDA that fall. Hageman said over the next five years, the USDA attempted a variety of ways to circumvent the rules, but R-CALF, also, has been vigilant in monitoring efforts and Hageman said, have thwarted them thus far. 

Hageman said USDA began the rulemaking process under the Environmental Protection Agency last year, a process that she said is burdensome, costly, and time consuming. To that end, a final rule was issued in early 2024 that requires cattle and bison producers to use EID ear tags. 

Hageman said there are several significant points to recognize. First, the USDA now claims the cost to producers will be only $26 million to implement. 

“You and I both know that costs have dramatically increased in the past ten years, so the idea that this is going to be less than a tenth of what they were estimating the cost to be ten years ago, is absolutely absurd,” Hageman said.  

The difference, she said, is the estimated cost includes only the cost of the ear tags themselves, without the cost of the wands used to read the tags, the cost of retrofitting corrals and working facilities to utilize the necessary equipment, hardware, software, or the cost of handling the livestock. She said the rule also pertains only to a narrow subset of producers, those who cross state lines. 

“In a state like Wyoming, where we don’t have a major packing facility, during the lifecycle of our cattle and bison, they’re for the most part always going to have to cross state lines at some point,” she said. “So, it’s going to nail our ranchers in Wyoming, in Montana, and in Idaho, whereas Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Iowa, those states where they have the big feedlots and the big packers, they wouldn’t have to comply with this.” 

It may, she said, minimize the costs on paper, but she calls it incrementalism. 

“That’s what these agencies do,” she said. “They adopt a rule that only affects a certain subset and then they expand it to cover more people and more areas and then they expand it to cover any cattle, whether they cross state lines or not. What you’ll see us the USDA will continuously attempt to expand this program to where it’ll cover all of our livestock and they’ll do it incrementally.” 

Hageman said she has been in this fight for over five years, and the reason she remains is her ranch background and her knowledge of how difficult the livestock industry can be. But she also said she’s motivated to continue fighting based on what has transpired overseas. 

In Ireland, she said a mandatory EID served a nefarious purpose and was used to track inventories. The government ordered 41,000 head of livestock be sent to slaughter to combat global warming. 

Hageman said the agencies lack the ability to order a slaughter or cull order unless they know where the cattle are located. 

“They’re not trying to solve a problem,” she said. “It’s just another way for our government to manipulate the process, manipulate the market, and attempt to impose a social agenda on private industry.” 

Hageman said the estimated costs don’t even likely cover the costs of setting up the agency to track and manage the data gathered from the mandated tags. She said the cost of the program will likely be shouldered by the small and medium-sized producers without a lobbying presence in the capitol so assuming the government will pay for the program is incorrect. 

To combat this, Hageman submitted her priorities to the appropriations committee at the federal level for the 2025 session. In her communication, she submitted a request to the appropriations committee to defund the mandatory RFID program entirely to prevent the USDA from either implementing or enforcing it. 

Hageman said the USDA’s claims that the program is to improve food safety and traceability, though because it affects only 11% of the livestock and largely exempts the livestock in feedyards, it is not an effective food safety and disease traceability program.  

“This is about government control of a disfavored industry,” she said. “It is exactly what you would expect a bureaucrat to put together.”