The Animal Welfare Act was amended by the 2014 Farm Bill to provide “the Secretary of Agriculture with the authority to determine that animal dealers and exhibitors are not required to obtain a license under the Act  . . . if the size of the business conducting AWA-related activities is determined to be de minimis by the Secretary.”

USDA has proposed regulations that define de minimis and “has determined that de minimis businesses  . . .  are capable of providing adequate care and treatment of the animals involved in regulated business activities.”

USDA proposes that :

“[d]ealers and exhibitors operating at or below the thresholds determined for their particular AWA-related business activity would be exempted from Federal licensing requirements established under the Act and regulations. Our proposed actions would amend the regulations to be consistent with the Act while continuing to ensure the humane care and treatment of animals covered under the AWA.”

USDA performed a “Regulatory Impact & Analysis Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis” regarding its proposed regulations, finding that:

“this proposed rule would relieve regulatory responsibilities for some currently licensed entities and reduce the cost of business for those entities [and] [t]hose currently licensed exhibitors and dealers . . . would no longer be subject to licensing, animal identification, and recordkeeping requirements.”

USDA’s summarized the economic impact of its rule:

“The cost of a license for the smallest entities is between $40 and $85 annually. Identification tags for dogs and cats cost from $1.12 to $2.50 each. Other covered animals can be identified by a label attached to the primary enclosure containing a description of the animals in the enclosure at negligible cost.  We estimate that the average currently licensed entity potentially affected by this proposal spends about 10 hours annually to comply with the licensing paperwork and recordkeeping requirements.  All of the currently licensed entities that would be considered de minimis under this proposal would benefit from reduced costs for licensing, identification and recordkeeping. “

“We estimate that there may be as many as 212 currently licensed exhibitors who would no longer need to be licensed under the proposed rule. There are 133 currently licensed exhibitors with 4 or fewer animals that would therefore be considered de minimis under this proposal.  There are also 79 currently licensed exhibitors with 5 to 8 animals.  At least some of the licensees in this latter group exhibit any or all of their animals for no more than 30 days per calendar year, and would therefore be considered de minimis as seasonal exhibitors under this proposal.  We estimate that the cost savings for all these entities could total about $41,400 annually.”

Comments to USDA’s regulation will be accepted until November 2, 2016.