WASHINGTON, DC, Sept. 19, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Ranchers and ranchers are monopolizing the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), its sub-agency, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and the heads of those agencies Supreme Court over government efforts to phase out the use of metal ear tags, tags, back tags and similar inexpensive means of identifying livestock. Today, the New Civil Liberties Alliance submitted a motion petition for a writ of the US Supreme Court in R-CALF USA v USDA alleging that APHIS failed to meet the statutory requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) when it established two advisory committees and that the Tenth Circuit APHIS admitted off the hook based on an overly narrow interpretation of “established” that FACA would eviscerate. US appeals courts have issued very conflicting decisions on the issues raised in this case, warranting a review by the Supreme Court to resolve the split in authority.
The NCLA argues that APHIS formed the Cattle Traceability Working Group (CTWG) and Producer Traceability Council (PTC) in 2017 and 2019, respectively, as state advisory committees to help develop the illegal mandate that radio frequency identification (RFID) requires helping ) Ear tags for tracking livestock. APHIS used significant resources to convince livestock industry representatives of the need for an advisory committee and to set the agenda for the proposed committee. APHIS “founded” CTWG (and its successor PTC) under any common understanding of that word and in the spirit of FACA. The District Court and Tenth Circuit ruled differently, not because of a disagreement as to the facts, but because of their unusually narrow interpretation of the word “established.” This interpretation is in direct contradiction to an Eleventh Circuit decision and is in significant tension with the Supreme Court decision Public Citizen vs. US Department of Justice.
The NCLA’s petition raises…
