USDA Bucks Administration, Sec of Ag, Congress, Senate and John Q Public in Embracing Predatory Horse Slaughter
Press release from Equine Welfare Alliance. DO NOT GIVE UP THE FIGHT TO SAVE THESE HORSE AND BURROS!
http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/USDA_Inspections.pdf
USDA to Grant Horse Meat Inspections
OK City Billboard courtesy of Respect 4 Horses and Wild Horse Freedom Federation
EWA (Chicago) – The Equine Welfare Alliance has learned from multiple sources that the USDA will announce a grant of horse meat inspections to the Valley Meats Company in Roswell, NM tomorrow. The plant has been involved in litigation with the USDA, accusing it of intentionally delaying a grant of inspections. The EWA has further learned that announcements will be made next week granting inspections to plants in Iowa and Missouri. Friday, June 28th, was a deadline set by the court for a response from the USDA in the litigation.
The House and Senate appropriations committees have both passed amendments to the 2014 USDA budget that would prohibit funding for such inspections, in essence banning horse slaughter in the U.S. The administration and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack have requested that they not be funded. If the USDA budget in the House and Senate receives a vote, EWA is assured it will pass in both chambers, and the plants would again lose inspectors and be forced to close at the end of October.
The inspections were first defunded in 2007, but all three foreign plants then operating in Illinois and Texas had already been shut down by state laws before the courts had decided on challenges to the defunding. Essentially the defunding simply kept the plants from moving to other states.
Funding was restored in 2011 when the House passed a defunding amendment, but the Senate did not. A four member conference committee then reinstated the funding by a three to one vote. Since the reinstatement several plants have requested that they be granted inspections. How soon any of these companies might begin slaughtering horses is unclear. Valley Meats still must obtain a water discharge permit in order to begin operations, and there is some question about other permits. The New Mexico Environmental Department is expected to hold a public hearing on the Valley Meats discharge permit within 30 days.
The Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) is a dues-free 501c4, umbrella organization with over 290 member organizations and over 1,000 individual members worldwide in 21 countries. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids.www.equinewelfarealliance.org
Related Articles
- Horse Slaughter: EU Consumer awareness campaign continues (ppjg.me)
- Chemically Tainted Horse Meat Unfit for Consumption (rtfitchauthor.com)
- Research shows most Missourians oppose horse slaughter (horsetalk.co.nz)
- Horse slaughterhouse accuses USDA of IRS tactics (wfaa.com)
- Key committee votes to block funding of slaughter checks (horsetalk.co.nz)
- Iowa Regulators Asked To Rule that Horse Meat is Inedible (rtfitchauthor.com)
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Ok so I will not be paying any taxes next year… Call it the Boston tea Party… I would call this taxation without reputation if you ask me… What does the USDA want to kill the American people by selling toxic horse meat…
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This is beyond comprehension…just days after farm bill fails, the USDA jumps in and takes its best shot! They are just arrogant empty souls awaiting their place in HELL!!!
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File an injunction – If you call the police and report that an adulterated horse has been sold to a kill buyer – the police have NO clue what to do.
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If USDA does grant his application, we have no choice but to flood the politicians with our demand to pass the budget with the defunding amendment!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
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We should be doing that anyhow….now more than ever!
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It looks like the lawsuit did its job. I think it can still be stopped. With the law in New Mexico banning adulterated horse meat it looks like the slaughter plant would be breaking the law on the first day of operation.
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Exactly, this seems to not be about USDA compliance, but about the lawsuit.
Hopefully this company and the other prospectives will be blocked by one lawsuit after the other, reams of law breaking red tape, and the October 2014 USDA budget
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My understanding is that the lawsuits are precisely about USDA compliance, or the lack with in their own procedural regulations.
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Agreed – my comment was about the 6/28 announcement – USDA is being forced by the lawsuit to comply – it’s not like the USDA is out there campaigning to add horse meat inspections to their already stressed work load
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You would think so, Barbara. They will be in possession of meat that cannot be sold. What is the point of all this?
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Barb, USDA will not be truthful in their inspections they weren’t in the past and they wouldn’t be now… I don’t trust them, they NO the horses are not humanly killed and still endorse it NOPE they will let them go through I KNOW IT, IF this happens??
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Why in the hell can’t they all get their act together and stop this catastrophe, once and for all?! With the many devastating facts on horse slaughter and it’s consequences, why isn’t anyone listening to the tragic reality of it all? This should not be happening and you can bet, those making the decisions know it! Let’s hope they listen to the people and do right by them and our equines.
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Canadians are watching and hoping that the horses are protected. Thanks to all those working so hard for the horses.
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Crank up the volume and take this battle to a higher level and a wider range of Horse lovers.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/community.php
Since launching in 2007, Avaaz has grown into a powerful and unprecedented global democratic force.
Avaaz has a simple democratic mission: close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want. Our community is unique in its ability to mobilize citizen pressure on governments everywhere to act on crises and opportunities anywhere, within as little as 24 hours.
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I think there is money being slipped to USDA under the table . I smell some rats with 2 legs.
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I was told this was gonna happen due to pending lawsuits in NM, OK, & MO : ( It is disheartening and disgusting that such a cruel, inhumane, foul industry is allowed by LAW to take place once again in the US. How do the beef ranchers feel about it? Are they not concerned that contamination will happen here? Our horses deserve better! WE DO NOT EAT HORSES so why are we legally allowing slaughter to the EU and Japan and every other horse-eating nation on earth. I will fight this daily.
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Just proves my contention that what is legally right is not always morally right.
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I will fight it too….Let me know how I can fight along with you.
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The Beef Industry is probably funding the lawsuit against the USDA.
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Administratively, with the multiple applications to slaughter pending and NO LAW prohibiting HCHS at the Federal level, USDA had to approve….doesn’t mean the plants will have the inspectors necessary to conduct HCHS or that something will prevent HCHS via the Farm Bill that the TOADS in the HOUSE can’t get together on.
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We don’t need the Farm Bill. All it had was the King Amendment. We need the Budget to be passed because both the House and Senate have the defunding amendments on their versions of the Budget.
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Wow what a condrumun. On one hand you have the USDA approving permits. That’s all well and fine and good. But who is going to pay for those inspections! That meat can’t leave without being inspected.
And even if slaughter plants do somehow manage to open (barf is the nicest word I can think of)they’d be closed Oct 1. This does not sound like logical or good business planning.
USDA totally stuck their foot into the cow manure. Horsemeat is adulterated according to NM’s attorney general. So if it’s adulterated how can they expect to pass any meat off as unadulterated?
This is Fed vs State bs. I sense this will be visiting a Court in the near future and maybe even the Supreme Court…
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There goes our own food safety. Can’t trust any of the meat producers. Sorry but i have to give up eating meat. I don’t want to be killed by this industry. They are backing it, Farm Bureau is backing it. Carpenters association and pork producers are backing it. Time to retaliate America!
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This makes no sense at all.
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The USDA along with HHS has created a system that is knowingly, willingly and negligently allowing the sale and theft of adulterated horses to enter a human food chain. That is terrorism. They have not educated the police on what to do. This is criminal – not CIVIL. An injunction is in order
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You are so right!! Frightening to know that those goes on in a supposedly civilized country. What can we do to fight it?
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The NM Attorney General said horses produced adulterated meat and so they would have to have a lifetime medical record to be slaughtered under NM law. Don’t know how much clout he really has, but maybe he will take action.
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So how much waz the judge paid? Really, how much, because any judge in their right mind would allow congress time to finish its part in this. Then if that fails push the grant for inspections then. How much did that final push cost? Then iowa meats and missouri meats? What gives? This is ridiculous! Seems to me America no longer has justice for all, but justice for big ag only!
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In illinois i hear the knife blades clinking already.
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So, in my opinion anyone who sells adulterated horse meat knowingly is committing murder. Child will die. Everyone in the busines is complicit. What about the new EU regulations which are supposed to kick in? More fraud? How do they plan to get around these? So if you want something from the federal government you just need to sue them or threaten to sue them. Let’s sue them on behalf of the foreign consumers.
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TRO….there must be legal options…environmental impact…… legal- food safety…Isn’t the Euro market closing to U.S. Horsemeat????????????????
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The HSUS and FRER were just waiting because the USDA cannot give permits until they perform an environmental assessment – which they did not do. I think HSUS and FRER filed suit yesterday. They TOLD the USDA they were going to do this a long time ago. There are other local issues that will have to be settled as well.
Besides, there ARE legitimate reasons for not granting anything to Valley Meats! Just pick one. The USDA did NOT have to cave on this. They could have declared all horse meat unfit for human food a long time ago, but they rejected that. WHY? And just WHO is funding this lawsuit against the USDA?
This just doesn’t make any sense at all, no matter how you look at it.
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When will you all see that this administration is nothing but liars, crooks and thugs? As long as you keep giving them power of office (and now they will pass Amnesty to insure their power indefinitely), neither the horses, nor those of us who love them, cherish them and indeed live for them, will EVER again have a voice. The people in power (NOW) don’t care about anything but their own sustained power. They are destroying agriculture, energy and all that will make it possible to continue to afford to feed the horses we have, let alone save any more horses. Owner of 13 horses (6 rescues)!!!
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I totally agree. Research indicates that the same scientist who came up with the non-native, invasive, feral, exotic, pest, alien labels for our federally protected wild horses has authored articles that explicitly state that you should not eat a popular species that you are trying to eradicate because it only adds value to the animal. Adding new value to the animal, makes it more culturally valuable than it already is.
Anyone who is able to find and follow this guy and one of his co-anti-wild-horse-conspirators can find this evidence. Our wild horses are caught up in a land-use values scheme that began in the 1980’s with attempts of American scientists, members of the IUCN, and The Nature Conservancy to control public land use. These people had a hand in authoring the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity which specifically targets our wild horses.
The herd areas where our wild horses are located on or near valuable natural resources that even now are being mined by this President’s campaign donors. Our valuable natural resources located largedly in remote areas of the Western States is being mined, sold, and then donated to the political campaigns of this President and democrats in the Senate.
If you go back to the 2011 Summit of the Horse and listen to many of the videos, you cannot help but note that although that conference was supposed to be about horse slaughter, what the people who attended were really interested in was not losing their land. They hardly mentioned horses and horse slaughter at all.
This is why I have said over and over again that the best allies for wild horses are the ranchers themselves. They are easy scape-goats because they set themselves up by repeating the party line that there are too many wild horses on the land. Perhaps they believed if they went along with this line, they would be able to keep their land but that is clearly not in the plan.
If you want to prevent horse slaughter and save our wild horses at the same time, we need to recognize that the paradigm between the wild horses, ranchers, and horse slaughter is not what we think it is.
We are in a fight now that a lot of states have organized groups that are fighting the government land grab for wilderness areas, national monuments, new historical sights, new wildlife refuges, road closures all over the West, gates being locked to limit human access to roads to their mineral and metal claims.
It may seem warped, but our horses are caught in a war because they have clearly been targeted through propaganda by such scientifically stellar groups as the Wildlife Society and the Sierra Club, so the human anti-horse drones President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore put into positions of power and influence.
And you wonder why Bruce Babbitt stopped the investigation Jim Bacca had begun on the BLM?
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Uh….. Congress DID get the defunding amendments in BOTH House and Senate versions of the 2014 Federal Budget. But Vilsack caved before they had a chance to finish so Obama can sign it. He did NOT have to do this – or, maybe he’s counting on the HSUS, FRER and others to delay things until Congress can finish the Budget. Still, it was a crazy thing to do NOW with the defunding almost certain to pass and the EU’s new regs cutting in at the end of July. How much of our tax money will be wasted until either or both the Congress/EU shut things down?
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Here is just another thought, maybe the Government has a plan for all the BLM horses in holding pens. I know this is totally disguisting but think about it.
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Who is the judge? Shouldnt he wait for congress?
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One would think, but the judge set that deadline months ago before Congress got the amendments into the Budget. Still seems wacky to me.
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Cant we go to the supreme court to stop this?
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Part of this is a state’s rights versus federal right’s issue. A number of states have realized that people who rely on the land are being put out of business through regulations and policies that are enacted through executive advisory committees. Executive advisory committees have essentially replaced Congress as the law making governing bodies in our country through regulation. Rather than you and I having ciizen input through our elected representatives, the executive advisory councils have appointed citizen advisory committees that include carefully screemed citizens who will carry out the intent of whatever executive order or article in an international treaty that a President wants incorporated into governing policy. The Sierra Club, the Wildlife Society, the Audobon Society, The Nature Conservancy, the IUCN (protected from law suits by President Clinton’s EO), Ducks Unlimited and many other environmental/conservation type organizations have been represented on these non-governmental citizen advisory committees.
We the people can end this, but we have to be very clear about what it is we are trying to end. So far, we are so far off base as an advocacy group that all we do is waste our time, money, and emotion fighting windmills.
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This sounds like a party the people need to crash. Who screens these people and how can we make it more equitable?
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Aren’t some of these orgs anti-slaughter?
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My head is spinning how bout yours?? What I wish is R.T. or someone please help inform us more if you can, WHERE does this really stand, you can see the questions right here… Please can someone clarify what truly is happening or can happen or won’t happen??? PLEASE??? Thanks
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Check my posts.
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Then please tell us the next step…what can I do to stop this from passing? Any new petitions I can sign out there? Let me know
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Barb and everyone if you have not receive a notice from ( Animal Protection of New Mexico) go to there Web site they have a address to write to NM Environment Dept. contact name and web address to try and stop the water permit AND the Gov. Email again…. I tried to copy it but had difficulty, anyway the more people who write and voice there disgust the better got to try….
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I am terribly confused. This is just like any other govt. shenanigans I have tried to understand. Like Debbie, my head is spinning too.
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We need to find out who buys meat from this company and boycott them as well. This is outrageous that on one listens to the will of the people anymore and they use our tax dollars to help commit this insane cruelty.
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Why are they so determined to act like monsters. The Administration and the Dept. of Agriculture needs to step in and put a stop to this once and for all. I don’t understand how this can proceed for just a couple of small proposed plants. This is bad for our country’s reputation which is already damaged, and for any workers to have to do this kind of dangerous, and mind-numbingly cruel work. It goes without saying what a barbaric practice it is for horses. Why are they so determined to go through with this. The worst administration in history.
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Barb and everyone, post your distaste on the CONGRESS facebook, I just did, also I read which I am sure you have by now too that HSUS and Front Range I believe are going to sue the gov over this fingers are still crossed but everyone GO to CONGRESS FACEBOOK WRITE 🙂
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The HSUS and FRER and no telling who else will keep this in court for months. NO WAY any of these plants are going to open anytime soon,. If Congress will get a move on and pass the Budget the inspections will be defunded and won’t open at all. Tell Congress to PASS THE BUDGET and then PASS THE SAFE Act so we won’t have to do this EVERY year!
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You will be eating horse meat sold as beef.They will mix it into the hamburger meat and call it beef.If you don’t want to eat the horse meat stop eating all red meats!
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New labelling could read something similar to Peanut Allergy warning or just simply..
This package of meat may or may not contain actual beef.
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It’s all about the money!! To add insult to injury – If they are allowed to proceed – “WE THE TAXPAYERS” will foot the USDA inspection bill to kill these poor animals for foreign countries AND Valley Meats/Dunn will still sue “US THE TAXPAYERS” for $9 million dollars because it’s the American way!
Valley Meat said, however, that it would continue to press the lawsuit. “Given the unjustifiable failures of U.S.D.A. to comply with the law for a period extending well over 14 months, Valley Meat intends to continue to pursue the case,” the company said.
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Actually i’m feeling disheartened right now , as seeing the reason they are targeting all our wild horses ,because weve made a stink about the meat being tainted , so they can say oh this meat is organic so now we know why all the wild horses that disappeared cant be accounted for. And I hate to say this but I actualy can see in the future so called ranchers raising horses just for slaughter and say these have no drugs in them and get more money. we already have big ranches sending preg mares that are full term to slaughter ,hell look at how many foals are born on feed lots waiting to ship ..really I wouldn’t spit on a person to put a fire out that can and does do that. I also bet they are using those mares for tax write offs as losses . It makes my heart so sad that a American icon our horses are the target of blood money. I only pray there is a end to all of this …. as no ones listening to the AMERICAN People
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There us something to do today! Via Jim West: VIA Jim Hart ‘CRITICAL!! RESPONSE NEEDED TODAY TO NEW MEXICO GROUND WATER DEPARTMENT. THEY STATE THEY NEED PUBLIC COMMENTS AND LETTERS TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING. PLEASE COMMENT WHY THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE HORSE SLAUGHTER AND WHAT IT WILL DO TO THE GROUND WATER.”
URGENT!!!! Jim West: “TODAY IS THE DEADLINE!!!!!!! I just talked to Jerry Shepner at New Mexico’s ground Water dept. He says they need public comments and letters to hold public meeting. Please comment as to why NM shouldn’t have horse slaughter and your opinion of what it will do to the ground water. SEND EMAILS TO: KIM KIRBY kimberly.kirby@state.nm.us TODAY ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!! ”
.” Make sure they get a copy of Paula Bacon’s letter to legislators, which is here: http://animallawcoalition.com/open-letter-to-state-legislatures-considering-pro-horse-slaughter-resolutions/
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As an American, &, as a horse owner, I am completely horrified, appalled, disgusted & angered beyond words, beyond belief! Our government & our so-called “leaders” must be the dumbest idiots on this earth. I can tell you right now, the beef & maybe pork industry too, WILL suffer if this is allowed. I do NOT want MY daughter to go out to a restaurant, or anywhere, & order a hamburger, or “steakburger”, & end up eating HER BEST FRIEND!! I am SO pissed off right now. So, fellow horse friends & advocates, just what are we going to do now, to really put a stop to this, once & for all?? How about all of us NOT paying our taxes, NOT buying beef or pork products, hit them where it will hurt, stage mass demonstrations & protests, start a major “we’re not gonna take it” revolution, & I AM very serious. I, even as a mom & wife, 50 something, that went through open heart surgery 6 years ago, am willing to go to jail to fight this!!
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