It used to be that any citizen wanting to ensure they only buy puppies from trustworthy breeders could hop on the U.S. Department of Agriculture website and immediately access inspection reports.

But President Donald Trump changed that shortly after taking office, and now there is zero transparency -- and not just on the website.

From the Tampa Bay Times:

In May of last year, the Tampa Bay Times asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide the three most recent inspections of 15 puppy breeders who supply Tampa-area stores. It took nine months, but the reply arrived last week: 54 pages of total blackout.

The documents sent to the Times were redacted in their entirety, and the USDA said handing over "personnel and medical files" would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

With the website pages scrubbed and the USDA blacking out documents, there is officially no way to know which breeders are violating the law and mistreating their animals.

In Florida, the issue is gaining significance: state lawmakers will soon vote on a bill that would forbid local governments from prohibiting the sale of dogs from breeders licensed by the USDA.

Rep. Halsey Beshears, R-Monticello, on Tuesday morning filed the amendment, which was tacked on to a 125-page bill offered by state agriculture secretary Adam Putnam. The amendment could be voted on as early as Wednesday.

Should the bill become law, buyers will be unable to see the conditions under which puppies are bred, and a license from the USDA does not ensure animals are receiving humane treatment.

[A]s the Times learned last year, USDA-licensed breeder does not mean the facility is not a puppy mill nor does it mean it has a flawless track record.

... "Having a USDA license for breeding dogs is like having a driver's license," said John Goodwin, the senior director of the Humane Society of the United States Stop Puppy Mills campaign. "You get to hold onto it even with a number of citations, except now, no one knows what those citations are. The worst people in the world could be selling to pet stores, and no one is the wiser."

If violations were still visible on the USDA's website, prospective buyers would have another route to determining where not to shop.

Head over to the Tampa Bay Times to read some of the violations by USDA-licensed breeders previously reported on the USDA's website.