USDA is going to have less money than hoped for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) this year. Congress trimmed the Bush administration's budget request for NAIS in fiscal year 2008 by more than two-thirds.
This past Wednesday, USDA unveiled a new business plan for the NAIS. Later that day, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Bruce Knight told Brownfield one of the reasons the new plan will work is because the Bush administration planned to fully fund the program.
"Because of the importance of animal ID, we're carrying forward full speed ahead with the optimism that we will be able to garner enough funds from Congress and from carryover to be able to implement this program in a robust and full manner," Knight said.
But Congress didn’t cooperate. In the omnibus spending measure passed by Congress last week, lawmakers approved just $9.75 million for the NAIS animal in fiscal year 2008, less than a third of the more than $33.2 million requested by USDA.
The impact of the decision by Congress to slash funding for animal identification isn’t yet clear. But it seems unlikely that sufficient carryover money will be available to make-up the difference between the Bush administration's budget request for the NAIS and the funding actually approved by Congress.