Fight continues on horse slaughter
01/11/2006
By SUZANNE GAMBOA / Associated Press
The Bush administration may inspect horse meat on a fee-for-service basis,
continuing the slaughter of horses for human consumption, despite votes in
Congress last year to try to stop it.
The Agriculture Department, responding to petitions from European operators
of three horse slaughterhouses, told Congress it is considering writing
emergency rules to provide the fee-for-service inspections.
That has angered some lawmakers who say the department is circumventing
Congress' will.
The House voted 269-158 and the Senate 69-28 last year to cut off spending
on the salaries and expenses of USDA horse meat inspectors — which the
measure's sponsors say was intended to stop the slaughter of horses. Several
lawmakers who sponsored the measure are urging USDA to deny the plants'
petition or at least allow time for a public comment period.
"It was the clear intent of Congress and the only thing discussed on the
House and Senate floor was the fact that we wanted to stop slaughter," said
Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., one of the sponsors of the measure cutting off
funding. "Congress was very clear in its intent, and the Department of
Agriculture has circumvented that intent."
A USDA spokesman, asked for comment, referred to a letter sent to lawmakers
stating the agency's position.
In that letter, the agency said the amendment "does not prevent horse
slaughter at all." Along with Whitfield, amendment sponsors were Sens.
Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., John Ensign, R-Nev., and Mary Landrieu, D-La., and
Reps. John Spratt Jr., D-S.C.., John Sweeney, R-N.Y.
Two horse slaughterhouses in Texas and one in Illinois process horse meat
largely for human consumption abroad.
Owners of the plant say ending the inspections will eliminate between 182 to
222 jobs and cause a total $41 million economic loss annually in the
communities where the plants are located.
The slaughterhouses petitioned the USDA for the new inspection service about
three weeks after Bush signed the farm spending bill that included the horse
slaughter amendment. The plants also asked the USDA to speed things up by
dispensing with soliciting public comment on the proposed inspections.
"We just asked for them to allow us the same services that have been
available to us for some time. We have a history of paying for services with
USDA, like bison," said Jim Bradshaw, lobbyist for the Texas plants. "We
also pay for all of our overtime, so there's been a process in effect that
allowed us to pay for our services with them."
The slaughterhouses want the fee-for-service in place by March 10 on an
emergency basis to avoid economic losses. Horse meat processing is a large
part of the Texas plants' operations, Bradshaw said.
Fort Worth-based Beltex Corp. and Dallas Crown Inc., based in Kaufman, have
combined payroll of $11 million and spend a combined $6 million on air
freight at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the plants said in their
petition.
The third plant, Cavel International Inc. based in DeKalb, Ill. pays
transportation companies $1.5 million a year to transport livestock and $8
million buying livestock. None are publicly traded companies.
Michael Markarian, vice president of the Humane Society of the United
States, said the Federal Meat Inspection Act states that horse and other
meat must be inspected by USDA, and the agency must bear the cost.
"It protects food for export. It would destroy American markets if we sent
tainted food," Markarian said.
The USDA maintains another law allows it to provide, when requested,
fee-for-service inspections.
Whitfield alleged the USDA has been maneuvering to set up the
fee-for-service since a conference committee met to draft a compromise farm
spending bill.
"They're being very precise in doing every thing they can to circumvent the
intent of Congress," Whitfield said. But their efforts are helping build
support for another bill that bans horse slaughter outright, he said.

http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8F2NR6G3.html

I would like to bring this to your attention also. I was doing some reading this morning on a horsepolitics website. Luvs2ride can shed more light on this since she is involved with this site also. But the gist of the article was a drastic increase in the cost of necropsy and disposal of dead horses. The vetrinary community of an east coast state has now removed horses from it's list of livestock animals. Therefore resulting in this cost increase. They are being classified as pets just as these sites wanted. However, oddly enough this price increase is viewed as wrong and unfair by the very people who fought to have horses classified as companion animals.

I really have little interest in this particular case. But I do want to bring the same publicity to the after effects this law that the passing of it involved. I do believe these will be not be sensationalized the way other issues have. All along the public has been assured that this legislation would basically affect nothing in the horse industry except the blood thirsty pro-slaughter people. Now we shall see.

One more thing. Since in the near future there will be no slaughter houses to record cruelty in maybe those who were so kind as to provide with the gross out videos and such can find time to go to a few horse auctions. Maybe they can follow some of the "unsuspecting horse owners" who were in the past preyed upon by killer buyers home and take videos of the conditions their horses live in that put them at the bottom of the food chain in the first place. This will continue.

I am not talking about Sat. night auctions either. I don't personally attend them. I am talking about nationally advertised sales. You still see yearlings who weigh only about 200 pounds more than the day they were born. Care to think what the broodmares on these farms look like? Horse with ribs sticking out, worm bellies and moth eaten coats. I have to wonder at the gaul or ignorance (can't figure out which) that these owners have to be able to even catalog these animals much less bring them to town in that condition.

Which brings me back to the original question I asked so long ago. What do you think these responsible owners will do with these horses in the future? That question was never answered but it needs to be addressed now. That is the next solution that needs to be found. It should have been addressed a long time ago but it will be even more pressing in the future.

I have personally turned down the "gift" of 3 "free" horses in the recent past. Why people think I would have use for or could sell something they can't is beyond me. I don't have the luxury of being able to afford to "rescue" horses. I can only save what will be marketable for me in the future. Maybe that is cruel but it is business for me.

Hi Mary,

I do not share your concerns on the issue of horses being reclassified as companion animals. Here in Virginia they are classified as livestock, but we must pay sales tax on their feed as if they were companion animals.

As to the cost of necropsy, the states have traditionally subsidized that cost as an encouragement to the horse community to have this necropsy done in the case of suspicious deaths. It is intended to aid in getting a jump on disease outbreaks and should have nothing to do with the classification of the animal. Of course there is often no common sense to government rules.

The proslaughter camp has been making wild claims about the cost of euthanizing and disposing of a horse recently. They are claiming it costs between $1500 and $2500. I have recently been through this with an old pony, and my total cost was $100. We did an online poll and found the high end was $350.

The man making these claims was Jim Bradshaw, who says he is a "spokesperson" for the Beltex plant. He is actually a registered lobbyist and has distributed untruths and blood money with equal abandon. Records show he has contributed to the likes of Bonilla, Goodlatte, Burns, and even Bush.

As to your concern about the "unwanted" horses and their plight, I have done an in-depth study of the statistics and you can find it at.

http://www.horse-protection.org/pdf/Relationship-of-Abuse-to-Slaughter.pdf

You will see that the study mathematically proves that the "unwanted horse" theory is in fact nothing but a myth. The numbers in fact indicate that, if anything, horse slaughter actually promotes abuse. It is based on statistics from the USDA and ILDA, both of which are publicly pro-slaughter. I challenge anyone to produce fact based evidence that contradicts this.

John Holland