On December 2, USDA’s Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) published its final rule regarding the “import regulations for sheep, goats, and their products.” More specifically, the final rule would remove “remaining bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) import restrictions on sheep [and] goats” while “updating its scrapie requirements for importing live sheep and goats.” However, the American Sheep Institute released a statement which argued that the final rule “could have serious consequences for American sheep and goat producers [because it] removes critical protections against fatal diseases, such as scrapie, when the administration should be focusing on opening new export markets...

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