USDA

In late May, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of next year’s Agriculture Appropriations bill (S.2389) which provides funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the 2015 fiscal year. The bill once again contains an amendment that in effect will continue the ban on the humane slaughter of horses in the U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered the amendment to prohibit funding for USDA inspections at U.S. horse slaughter facilities. Their amendment passed by an 18-12 vote. Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) spoke in opposition to the amendment. This sets up the likelihood of a repeat of this year’s congressional action on the current budget that ended a brief interlude of construction planning for new slaughter plants in the U.S. Congress did this very same thing in 2006, but in 2011, the highly respected General Accounting Office (GAO)—Congress’s own watchdog agency—reported bluntly to Congress that their funding cut and the resultant plant closures actually had the opposite effect from that intended. The GAO told Congress that horses were now traveling further (to Mexico and Canada) and in many cases were slaughtered under worse conditions than before, and that their legislation had harmed horse welfare. After receiving that report, in 2011 Congress reinstated the funding for USDA inspections, opening the door for a resumption of horse processing in this country. As a result of that action, the USDA in 2013 gave approval for the opening of horse slaughter plants in New Mexico and Missouri. However, lawsuits filed by animal rights activists repeatedly delayed those openings. HSUS and the Obama administration both lobbied to end horse slaughter in the U.S. Yet unsolved, however, is the issue of how to humanely cope with the more than 100,000 unwanted and abandoned horses that used to pass through those processing facilities each year. Posted May 31, 2014

The Congress passed, and the President signed the new budget, effectively banning horse slaughter once again by cutting funding for USDA inspections at horse slaughter facilities. Congress did this very same thing in 2006, an action which effectively closed all horse processing plants in the country. Much has happened between then and now. In 2011, the highly respected General Accounting Office (GAO)—Congress’s own watchdog agency—reported bluntly to Congress that their funding cut and the resultant plant closures actually had the opposite effect from that intended. The GAO told Congress that horses were now traveling further (to Mexico and Canada) and in many cases were slaughtered under worse conditions than before, and that their legislation had harmed horse welfare. After receiving that report, in 2011 Congress reinstated the funding for USDA inspections, opening the door for a resumption of horse processing in this country. As a result of that action, the USDA recently gave approval for the opening of horse slaughter plants in New Mexico and Missouri. However, lawsuits filed by animal rights activists repeatedly delayed those openings. “Americans do not want to see scarce tax dollars used to oversee an inhumane, disreputable horse slaughter industry,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). “We don’t have dog and cat slaughter plants in the U.S. catering to small markets overseas, and we shouldn’t have horse slaughter operations for that purpose, either.” HSUS and the Obama administration both lobbied to end horse slaughter in the U.S. Yet unsolved, however, is the issue of how to humanely cope with the more than 100,000 unwanted and abandoned horses that used to pass through those processing facilities each year. Click for more details. Posted January 15, 2014

A federal judge last Friday placed a temporary restraining order on the planned openings of two New Mexico horse slaughter plants scheduled to begin operations this week. Chief U.S. District Judge M. Christine Armijo ruled on the basis of claims by horse slaughter opponents that the plants pose a threat to the environment. The ban will remain in effect for at least thirty days. The plants are allowed to seek a bond from their opponents to compensate them for lost business should they ultimately prevail through the courts. The New Mexico plants had expected to be the first to open since Congress effectively banned horse slaughter in the U.S. six years ago. The judge based her decision on a directive published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), but lawyers for the USDA claim that the directive was just an operating guideline for USDA use and had no bearing on the law that permits horse slaughter. The HSUS and other groups were parties to the lawsuit blocking the plant openings. Lawyers for the USDA, the slaughter plants, and tribal groups in the area claim that the judge relied on sweeping statements of damage to the environment with no evidence to back up the claims. John Boyd, representing the Yakama tribe in Washington State said the only proven damage to the environment has been caused by the runaway population of thousands of unwanted horses destroying the vegetation and driving out other species. Another hearing will take place in thirty days. For more details, read Milan Simonich’s article in the Alamagordo Daily News. Posted August 4, 2013

This year, Congress is expected to reverse the defacto ban on horse slaughter in the U.S. Annually, since 2005, the appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has arrived at both houses of Congress with riders (sponsored by the HSUS) disallowing any funds that would allow USDA to inspect horses in transit to slaughter facilities. It was a backdoor move by animal rights activists (and approved by many horse lovers that cannot bear the thought of horses for human consumption) that effectively ended all horse slaughter in the U.S. In a report to Congress earlier this year, the General Accounting Office (GAO)—Congress’s objective and apolitical investigative arm—said in essence that horse welfare has been harmed by the closing of slaughter houses in the U.S. (See Foxhunting Life news report.) This year it appears that Congress will heed the GAO report. The conference committee preparing the legislation for Congress’s vote has omitted these riders to the bill, and once the bill reaches Congress, no amendments can be appended. If the bill passes as expected, USDA inspection of horses in transit could resume, and the reopening of slaughter houses in the U.S. could be economically feasible once again. At the time the last facilities were closed, there were one hundred thousand horses being disposed of annually. As the GAO found during their investigation, retirement facilities were unable to absorb even a small fraction of unwanted horses, and in 2010, 138,000 horses were exported to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. “The horses are traveling farther to meet the same end….in foreign slaughtering facilities where U.S. humane slaughtering protections do not apply,” said the GAO in their report. Posted November 16, 2011

There are movements stirring to re-open horse processing plants in the U.S. The last remaining processing facility, which was located in Illinois, was closed in 2007 by a federal judge. Although horse processing was not outlawed, Congress, in 2006, curtailed the US Department of Agriculture’s inspection of such plants. Just recently, a Summit of the Horse conference was held in Las Vegas in which strategies for reviving the horse processing industry were presented and discussed. Proponents say it would revive an industry, stabilize prices at the bottom of the horse market, and be a more humane way of dealing with abused and abandoned horses, which are now transported thousands of miles to Canada or Mexico. “Once they’re across the border, we don’t know how they’re being treated. If we process them here, we will do it humanely and the meat will be properly inspected,” says Nebraska Senator Tyson Larson. Larsen spoke at the Las Vegas conference and introduced a bill in his state last week that, if passed, would create a state meat inspection program that could eventually allow Nebraska to ship horsemeat across it’s borders. In the past, some U.S.-processed horsemeat was sold to zoos, but most of it was shipped overseas to markets and restaurants. Read more in Heather Johnson’s article in the North Platte Telegraph.January 16, 2011