Congress poised to restart U.S. horse slaughter for human consumption

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It's the time of the year that most families are thinking about putting turkey on the table, not Trigger.

But language quietly stripped from a must-pass federal spending bill this week would enable slaughter of horses for human consumption to resume in the U.S. for the first time in more than five years.

The legislative bundle, which includes language that avoids a partial government shutdown after Friday, can't be amended and was scheduled to clear both the House and Senate by week's end.

Chris Heyde, a lobbyist for the Animal Welfare Institute, decried how the policy was changed by just three members of Congress and their staffs behind the closed doors of a conference committee, giving animal lovers no chance to argue their concerns.

Sens. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., were joined by Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., in voting for the change. Only the fourth member of the conference committee, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., objected.

Heyde and other animal rights activists say the move leaves them with only one avenue to keep domestic horse packing plants from starting up again -- legislation banning horse slaughter entirely.

Since 2005, a clause in the annual Agricultural Appropriations bill has stipulated that no federal money can be used to inspect horse slaughter facilities in the U.S. Without the inspections, the meat can't be shipped across state lines, effectively blocking operation of horse slaughterhouses since the market for the meat is almost entirely overseas.

The same provision started out in the House-passed version of the legislation this year, but not included in the Senate-approved version. The Senate version prevailed on the votes of three out of four members of a House-Senate committee appointed to work out differences between the bills.

The inspection ban has not stopped horse slaughter. A number of plants in the U.S. still process horses for animal feed, hides and other byproducts. And an estimated 140,000 American horses a year are shipped to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada, often under substandard conditions by truckers who aren't registered with the USDA to handle animals.

The change is being hailed by a coalition of horse breeders, Indian tribal councils, large-animal veterinarians and others who contend the lack of domestic processing options hurts them financially and makes it more likely that horses will be abandoned or ill-cared for by owners who can't afford them.

"This ban, no matter how well-intentioned, is hurting our horses and shipping much-needed jobs to Canada and Mexico,'' said Sen. Max Baucus, D- Mont., who has been urging an end to the inspection ban for several years.

"We could not be more pleased to once again have a clear path to increase the welfare of horses, reinvigorate the devastated horse-related economy and promote the ethical, appropriate use of horses,'' said Sue Wallis, a Wyoming legislator and U.S. co-chair of the International Equine Business Association, an alliance of groups seeking to change the law.

Animal rights activists counter that the change will simply facilitate killing more horses to feed Asian and European appetites for horsemeat, cost the U.S. Department of Agriculture millions and do little or nothing to improve conditions of horses.

"It is outrageous that American taxpayers would be required to subsidize foreign-owned businesses that Americans oppose and that produces meat from animals that are not raised for food,'' said Vicki Tobin, vice president of the Illinois-based Equine Welfare Alliance.

The "American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act" would ban all export of horses to packing houses as well as permanently ban horse slaughter in this country.

"Americans don't eat horses and they don't want them inhumanely killed, shrink-wrapped and sent to Japan or Belgium for a high-priced appetizer,'' said Michael Markarian, policy officer for the Humane Society of the United States. "It's time to stop the export of American horses for slaughter, not add money to the cash-strapped federal budget to open more slaughter plants."

The anti-slaughter bill has 25 sponsors in the Senate and nearly 100 in the House, almost all from the East Coast and California.

Baucus set the ban reversal in motion last year when he sponsored a Government Accountability Office study to look into the "unintended consequences" of the end to domestic horse slaughter.

That study, released in June, estimated that the change had reduced horse prices by as much as 20 percent, but mainly among lower-to-medium-priced animals that are more likely to go to slaughter. And it noted an increase in the number of neglected or abandoned horses in places like Colorado, California, Texas and Florida in the years since the ban took effect, but the analysts said the impact of the slaughter ban versus the effects of other factors like recession or drought were difficult to separate.

The GAO report recommended that Congress either allow the USDA to resume inspection of horses for slaughter, whether domestic or exported, or consider a permanent ban on horse slaughter.

(Reach Lee Bowman at bowmanl@shns.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)