R-CALF USA

Action Alert: DOGE Seeks Input on Waste, Fraud and Abuse at the USDA

Background: The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is seeking public help fixing waste, fraud and abuse relating to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This is a great opportunity for DOGE to hear from America’s independent cattle and sheep producers.

Action: On X, formerly known as Twitter, send a Direct Message (DM) to DOGE USDA at https://x.com/DOGE_USDA. Or send an email to the House DOGE Caucus at doge@mail.house.gov. In your DM or email write that you are an independent U.S. cattle or sheep producer in your state. All your DM or email has to say is “The Packers and Stockyards Act (PSA) Rules are good and must be finalized, but both the wasteful beef checkoff law and the mandatory electronic identification (EID) rule must be rejected.”

And if you are comfortable writing more, you can.

Here are some additional points:

  • Reducing competition in the cash cattle market lowers cash cattle prices. There is a tremendous imbalance between the market power of the Big 4 packers who control over 85% of the market and the market power of independent U.S. cattle producers. The PSA rules prohibit the Big 4 packers from interfering with the integrity and competitiveness of the market.

 

  • A USDA audit revealed that the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association receives nearly 82% of its revenue from mandatory producer-paid beef checkoff funds and the USDA, in turn, hires staff to oversee every message the checkoff program expresses because the mandatory program is deemed to exclusively convey government speech. It is wasteful for the USDA to oversee and manage a program that funds government speech that many cattle producers disagree with, especially when those funds are used by private entities that support policies that many independent U.S. cattle producers view as contrary to their interests and livelihoods.

 

  • The mandatory EID rule is costly for cattle producers and taxpayers as the government has been appropriating millions of dollars to purchase EID eartags from private eartag manufacturers, including from foreign eartag manufacturers, and when those appropriations cease, independent cattle producers will have no opportunity to recover the cost of the mandatory EID eartags in the marketplace. The EID mandate is unnecessary as the cattle industry already has an effective and efficient program that enables animal health officials to conduct disease tracebacks. The EID rule will promote more concentration in the U.S. cattle industry because the large, vertically integrated cattle feeding and packing operations are not required to use individual EID tags.

 

Thank you for your support!


Source: Bill Bullard, R-CALF USA CEO