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Posted by Antoinette Smith on 4/13/2005, 12:34 pm Nearly 66,000 horses were slaughtered in the U.S. last year alone, with most meat exported to France, Belgium, Italy, and Japan. "We‘re going to do it because it’s a priority," said Sweeney, whose district includes Saratoga Race Course. "This is not the will of the American people. This is an ethical issue. At the end of the day I think ethics win out." First introduced in February 2003, the bill would make slaughter of horses for human consumption illegal in the U.S. Many states already have similar laws, but three French and Belgium companies with plants in Texas and Illinois slaughtered 65,976 American horses in 2004. Texas law prohibits horse slaughtering but one firm has obtained an injunction while awaiting a court ruling on the matter. "What you have here is vast circumvention of state laws," Sweeney said. The bill would also reverse legislation, included in a 2004 appropriations measure, which left wild mustang herds unprotected for the first time since the early 1970s. "When many people take a horse to auction they have no idea what’s going to happen to it," Whitfield said. "They’ll take anything as long as it’s six months or older." Whitfield was joined at the press conference by his wife, Connie, vice chairwoman of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority. The bill had the support needed to gain House passage last year, but died in the Agriculture Committee. This year, it will come before the Commerce Committee that Whitfield belongs to. That panel's chairman has already agreed to schedule a hearing and hold an 'up-down' vote that virtually guarantees the bill's passage in committee, Sweeney said. From there it would go to the House floor, where the bill already has more than 220 co-sponsors. Only 218 votes are needed for passage in the 435-member House. The Senate is considering a comparable bill. "We do feel like we’ve significantly improved our chances by getting it out of the Ag Committee," Whitfield said. "That was a dead end." Cattle and beef industry lobbyists have fought hard to keep horse slaughter legal, fearing that cattle slaughter might be prohibited, too. Other groups say that banning slaughtering would create an overabundance of horses, with many of them neglected and kept in deplorable conditions. "I'm certainly not underestimating the opposition," Sweeney said. "The opposition is strong and substantial."—Paul Post Link: United States Equine Sanctuary & Rescue
Representatives John Sweeney (R-NY) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky) vowed to lead the battle in Congress and said legislation will be passed this year that bans the slaughter of horses for human consumption during a press conference Monday at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York.
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