By T. D. Thornton
Ten lines of text within a 2,009-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus federal spending bill will effectively prohibit horse slaughter in the United States in the fiscal year of 2016 by blocking funding for Agriculture Department inspectors to preside over equine meat-processing facilities.
The text of the bill, which was released early Wednesday morning, is scheduled for final votes in the House and Senate later this week.
The non-funding language in the bill extends a de facto federal
anti-slaughter policy that has been in effect since 2005, with the exception of a brief period in 2012-13.
According to the website of The Humane Society of the United States, the organization is “celebrating major victories” because the proposed bill also includes language to protect elephants from poaching by cracking down on the domestic trade of ivory and language to keep gray wolves from being delisted from the Endangered Species Act.
“Negotiators have done the right thing and included language to forbid anyone from setting up a horse slaughter plant on American soil,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive CEO of The Humane Society. “We don't round up dogs and cats, butcher them, and ship them to foreign markets, and it should be unthinkable to do that with a species that helped us settle the nation.”
The specific language in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 that protects horses from domestic slaughter is listed under section 767:
“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).
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