| I am trying to find my old archives on this. This problem is multiple years old, at least 3 or four. It started when a suit was brought against the USDA for not enforcing this law against all breeders. In the non-regulatory paragraphs the law has as passed by congress has exemptions for some specified breeders and was intended to only impact larger wholesale operations and animal laboratories.
The result of the court case was that the USDA was told to revisit their rules and the list of establishments it would cover. They complied and came back with a new set of rules on covered establishments that again only hit larger scale operations. For this effort they were sued again and the court refused to hear any arguments that the regulations were for commercial interests.
This resulted in the ruling we are now talking about. The regulations that are to be enforced are written specifically to provide minimum living conditions for dogs and cats that are maintained at commercial breeders and laboratories. This attempt at regulation is like making all the rules for an eighteen wheeler apply to the family mini-pickup because you carry a load of dog food home once in a while. Unsafe trucks cause many accidents, but the rules don't fit: same with the current ruling.
As I see the problem is that the courts ordered USDA to enforce the rules that they currently have, not to generate and enforce rules for the home breeder.
I hope that this adequately explains the concern, and the reason why DDAL motives are suspect in this case.  |