Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) final rule removing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) import restrictions on sheep, goats, and their products:
“This is another example of the Biden Administration putting America second, today’s move puts America’s sheep and goat producers in harm’s way. Removing bovine spongiform encephalopathy import restrictions opens our sheep producer’s flocks to extremely contagious and deadly diseases which we’ve invested significant taxpayer dollars into and all but eradicated over the past two decades. If these diseases are reintroduced in the U.S., producers will lose export markets which already took decades to recover,” said Senator Cramer.
“The federal government has invested over $200 million into scrapie eradication since the early 2000s. This investment has yielded tremendous results, lowering the percentage of scrapie positive cull sheep at slaughter by 99 percent since FY2003. By allowing scrapie positive animals and genetic materials into the United States, we risk reintroducing the very disease we have nearly eradicated,” the senators wrote.