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Critters Documents Government Legal, Laws, and Regs

USDA APHIS Follow Up

Delcianna Winders posted a folder containing several USDA APHIS enforcement actions. I was surprised to see an enforcement action against Donald Schrage of the infamous Rabbit Ridge kennel.

The violations listed in the enforcement action aren’t unusual for Schrage. This is just a normal year’s worth of writeups for him. It’s good to see that the USDA finally yanked his chain. I’ll be filing a FOIA to find out what happened in this case, and if he’s still licensed. Normally, a quick visit to a web site and a bit of search would have returned the information. Not anymore.

After writing yesterday’s post, I’m less sure that the Farmer’s Bureau et al court case triggered the USDA APHIS to pull the AWA database. The USDA APHIS just invested in a new system that was only rolled out in August. They have been redacting private information from the inspection reports. They could continue and upload new inspection reports as they finish.

This action has Trump written all over it. Trump had appointed Brian Klippenstein to his agriculture transition team. Klippenstein is a compatriot of Forrest Lucas, who funded the effort to gut Proposition B, the anti-puppy mill bill, in Missouri. As of January 17, Klippenstein was the only person on Trump’s transition team for the Department of Agriculture.

I’m anxious to read the documents turned up by  Delcianna’s FOIA request for communications related to this decision.