Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns is mulling over a petition from three European companies to allow them to hire private inspectors to inspect horsemeat slaughtered at their three slaughterhouses in the US.
This link takes you to an action alert from the Society of Animal Protective Legislation and gives more detail:
Horse Slaughter Ban At Risk
More background below the fold...
As some of you are aware, over the Summer and Fall of last year, both houses of Congress passed identical amendments to the 2006 Agricultural Appropriations Bill that would defund USDA inspectors at the remaining three horse slaughter plants in the US. This would effectively stop the slaughter of horses in the US for the fiscal year of '06, giving anti slaughter proponents the chance to pass a more permanent ban on the practice.
Despite both amendments having the exact same language, some members of the conference committee (Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tx) and Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mt) to name two of the "humans" involved)attempted to cut the amendments out of the bill in a backdoor move to circumvent what a large majority of Congress had already approved. Major public outcry forced an end to this backdoor power play, but not before Bonilla and his gang had exacted a concession from the anti slaughter group: there had to be a 120 day delay in the implementation of the ban. As things stand now, the ban was to take effect on March 1.
I am posting here today to ask that those of you who object to horse slaughter in general, backdoor deals that subvert the democratic process, and/or the idea that it's okay for private companies to police themselves (and for FOOD in this case) to please contact Johanns office let them know that it's not okay to let this happen (his contact info in found by following the link).
Thanks for reading (and yeah, if you don't care or think that the cause at the base of this issue isn't important, then no, you don't have to do anything other than hit the back button and ignore this).