‘Non-Funding’ Block on U.S. Equine Slaughter at Risk

[Wandering Eyes]

As federal lawmakers attempt to hammer out a 2019 budget bill before a stopgap funding resolution expires Dec. 7, one of the under-the-radar items up for debate involves potentially lifting a long-standing block on funding for Agriculture Department inspectors to preside over equine meat-processing facilities.

Specific non-funding language has existed in fiscal budget bills since 2005, with the exception of a brief period in 2012-13. And it is that inclusion of about 10 lines of text within what is generally a 2,000-page, $1.2 trillion piece of legislation that creates a de facto federal anti-slaughter policy in the United States: If the government is prohibited from using taxpayer dollars to inspect horse meat processing plants, those facilities can’t butcher horses to be used as food.

The publication Roll Call, which reports on Capitol Hill news and the crafting of federal legislation, on Nov. 27 listed the possible removal of the anti-slaughter language as a potential funding dispute in the coming weeks.

“House Republicans want to remove a rider that would prohibit the inspection of horses intended for human consumption,” Roll Call reported. “Some lawmakers from both parties and animal rights groups support the ban, but critics say it deprives federal and state agencies of a useful tool in managing wild horse populations. More than 100,000 horses annually are exported to Canada and Mexico, mainly for slaughter, and the meat is sold in foreign markets with a taste for it, such as the European Union.”

Federal lawmakers have sparred over this issue in the past, most recently in December 2015.

At that time, The Humane Society of the United States called it a “major victory” when the following language was incorporated at the last minute by negotiators working on the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016:

“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act shall be used to pay the salaries and expenses of personnel–(1) to inspect horses under section 3 of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 603); (2) to inspect horses under section 903 of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996; or (3) to implement or enforce section 352.19 of title 9, Code of Federal Regulations (or a successor 21 regulation).”

Last week, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) issued an “advocacy alert” that encouraged constituents to contact their legislators about ensuring that similar horse-protection language makes it into the 2019 spending bill.

“Thankfully, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to include this amendment in its version of the 2019 Agriculture Appropriations bill–but the House Appropriations Committee did not,” the ASPCA wrote. “Because the Senate and House are on different pages, we need your help to ensure this critical language to protect our nation’s horses is included in the final bill.”

In response to a TDN query about the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s position on anti-slaughter language in a federal budget bill, the organization’s president, Alex Waldrop, wrote in an email on Wednesday that “we are not involved in this issue at this time.”

 

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