http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/40187092.htmlBy

By Nick Lough

Story Updated: Feb 24, 2009 at 7:14 AM MST

BILLINGS - Animal rights and cattle groups are squaring off over a bill that would allow a horse slaughter facility in Montana.

House Bill 418 passed out of committee and should be heard on the house floor later this week. The bill calls for the creation of a horse slaughter facility, making it the only one of its kind in the United States.

"The slaughter plants in the United States closed for a reason. They weren't feasible in the state they were in, they had ecological problems, they had environmental problems, and they went the way they were supposed to go," said Montana Humane Society Dave Pauli.

"It doesn't mean you have to do it. It's that if you don't have the funds, and you don't have the feed, and don't have the place to keep them, and they are old, and they are no longer going to work for what you need them for, it's a place for them to go," said Billings Livestock and Horse Sale's Jenn Parker.

Texas and Illinois were the last two states to close horse slaughter facilities.

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/02/25/legi/85st_090225_horse.txt

Horse-slaughtering plants endorsed by House

By MIKE DENNISON IR State Bureau - 02/25/2009

The Montana House Tuesday easily endorsed a bill to allow and encourage horse-slaughtering plants in the state, as supporters said it will address a national crisis of horse abandonment and bring jobs to Montana.

“This bill is really about providing a humane and regulated processing plant,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ed Butcher, R-Winifred. “This is a business. And we want to look at it. We want to have a humane way to address this problem.”

The House voted 67-33 to endorse House Bill 418, setting up a final vote Wednesday, after which it will advance to the Senate.

The bill passed by its comfortable margin despite a strong lobbying effort against it by the Humane Society of the United States.

HB418 allows private slaughterhouses for horses to be built in Montana and also protects them against what Butcher said are “frivolous” lawsuits or legal challenges by opponents. The bill says a state court may not delay construction of a plant once the plant is licensed by the state.

House Majority Leader Margarett Campbell, D-Poplar, said she’s been in the horse-breeding business most of her life, and that with the economy souring, many people are unable to take care of their horses and dispose of them in inhumane ways. A slaughter plant would be a good solution, she said.

Supporters also said a slaughter plant could offer economic development in rural Montana.

“This is a multibillion-dollar industry and you need to take a look at the positive things this can do for the state,” said Rep. Tony Belcourt, D-Box Elder. “The amount of revenue we could generate from this business is huge.”

Butcher said European companies are interested in perhaps building a plant in America and shipping the product overseas.

Supporters of the bill also blocked two amendments on the floor. One would have stripped out provisions that shielded a plant from some legal action; another would have required the plant to pay a local “prevailing wage” to workers.

“I simply want this plant built under the same rules that every other plant is built under,” said Rep. John Fleming, D-St. Ignatius, in support of the first amendment.

HB418 also says if someone goes to court to block a horse-slaughter plant, the person must post a bond at 20 percent of the estimated cost of the project. If the lawsuit eventually fails, the person filing it would be liable for financial losses suffered by the developer if the project is delayed.

http://www.greatfallstribune.c...0319/NEWS01/90319015

Horse slaughter bill finds support in Senate
March 19, 2009

HELENA (AP) — A bill to revive the business of horse slaughter passed its first hurdle after a lengthy debate Thursday in the Montana Senate.

House Bill 418, endorsed on a vote of 27-23, aims to rein in possible state court actions that might discourage construction of a horse slaughterhouse in Montana.

After one more successful vote in the Senate, the measure introduced by Republican Rep. Ed Butcher of Winifred would go to the governor’s desk.

Bill proponents say the recession has compounded the burden of disposing of old horses, and that a slaughter facility would curtail the number of abandoned horses.

Opponents argue there are more humane ways to deal with old horses. They say the bill hands slaughterhouses protections that are denied to other businesses.

This bill has been signed into law

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap...05/01/ap6369274.html

Associated Press

Montana horse slaughter bill becomes law

Associated Press, 05.01.09, 08:10 PM EDT

Legislation to allow investor-owned horse slaughterhouses in Montana and limit opportunities for legal action against them became law on Friday, after Gov. Brian Schweitzer neither signed nor vetoed the measure.

Friday was the deadline for Schweitzer to act and, with no action by him, House Bill 418 automatically became law.

The bill includes some protection against court injunctions that would stop or delay slaughterhouse construction. The measure sponsored by Rep. Ed Butcher, R-Winifred, aims to limit the kind of legal challenges that forced the last U.S. slaughterhouses, which were in Illinois and Texas, to close in 2007.

During the 2009 legislative session, which ended Tuesday, Schweitzer rejected the limit on legal action. He said it would strip people of appeal rights important in environmental protection. The Legislature then rejected the changes Schweitzer wanted.

Butcher said during the session that the governor's amendments would make the bill "an empty shell because nobody's going to invest five to six million in a business in Montana if they're going to be harassed."

Schweitzer has said that as an owner of livestock and horses, he supports the humane processing of horses to produce meat for human consumption.

His communications director, Sarah Elliott, issued a terse statement Friday, saying only that "the governor made his opinion on this bill known, the Legislature did the same. No action was taken and the bill has now become law."

The bill brought lawmakers and the governor a flood of e-mails and telephone messages, from across the country, in support of the legislation and against it.