Earlier this fall, Congress designated today,
December 13, as the "Day of the Horse," commemorating that noble beast's
large role in U.S. economic and cultural history, and its continuing
unique place in the hearts of most Americans.
Not long after that
resolution passed, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) slipped a provision into the
giant omnibus appropriations bill that rumbled through Congress and onto
the president's desk last week, seriously undercutting a landmark 1971
federal law protecting wild horses and burros from being wantonly
slaughtered. In response to that law, the Bureau of Land Management set up
a program to promote adoption of wild horses and burros grazing on
public lands, and about 203,000 have in fact been adopted to date.
Burns' amendment would allow "excess" horses and burros being held
by BLM awaiting adoption opportunities to be sold to foreign-owned
slaughterhouses for consumption overseas, particularly in France,
Belgium, and Japan. When his amendment came to light -- too late to be
removed without a wholesale deconstruction of the omnibus appropriations
bill -- it spurred a widespread call-and-letter campaign among horse
enthusiasts throughout the country.
Burns tried to rationalize his
midnight amendment as a humanitarian and fiscal step aimed at dealing with
the BLM's failure to properly coordinate the roundup of wild horses and
burros with the demand for adoptions, leading the agency -- which has
never been fond of the adoption program -- to warehouse the animals at a
relatively high cost. Burns also claimed that the remaining wild horses
still roaming free were damaging public lands.
The deceptions and
ironies surrounding the Burns "Shoot Horses" amendment are pretty rich and
deep.
First of all, this simply isn't a problem in Burns' home state;
As of 1997, there were only 189 wild horses on public lands in
Montana.
Secondly, the obvious way to deal with BLM's
poor coordination of round-ups and adoptions is to instruct the agency to
round up fewer horses, and to release unadoptable horses back onto the
range. There are also more cost-efficient and humane ways, including
sterilization, to limit the wild horse population than selling the
animals to slaughterhouses.
Thirdly, wild horses are not any big
threat to public lands: a General Accounting Office report on the subject
found that horses and burros damage the land far less than over-grazed
cattle.
Lastly, it's odd to say the least that a rigorous conservative
like Burns is willing to gut a 33-year-old federal policy in order to
make sure the restaurant tables of France are supplied with equine
Freedom Filets.
But don't take our word for it: the
hyper-conservative Washington Times published an editorial last week that
blasted the Burns amendment as "unnecessary pork;" and identified with the
National Day of the Horse resolution that called horses "a living link to
the history of the United States," and "a vital part of the collective
experience of the United States."
Moreover, Burns'
Republican Senate colleague John Ensign of Nevada, where the vast majority
of wild horses are found, has introduced legislation, cosponsored by Joe
Lieberman (D-CT) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in the Senate (S. 2352), with a
companion bill in the House (H.R. 857), that would ban sale of any and all
horses for human consumption.
It's unclear why Burns has
championed this disreputable measure, though some believe he is acting on
the behalf of selected western cattlemen who think of wild horses as
competition for scarce grazing lands. Just last week the Progressive
Policy Institute released a report on state and local environmental
initiatives that discussed "New Ranch" techniques that can conserve and
promote scarce grazing land and help overcome the ancient rivalry of
ranchers and farmers, of sheepherders and cattlemen, and of settlers
and wildlife, that has so often blighted the politics of the West.
In any event, the Burns amendment deserves to be overturned,
especially on the Day of the Horse. And it deserves additional
opprobrium as yet another example of the practice of accomplishing
controversial legislation that would normally never see the light of
day through the dark and secret processes of big, undebated, unread
appropriations bills. The recent omnibus spending bill was held up for
days when it was discovered that somebody -- it's unclear to this day
which somebody -- inserted language allowing congressional appropriations
staffers to peruse any federal income tax return they chose for review.
And now it transpires that the same bill authorizes the slaughter of wild
horses for the first time in 33 years. Sen. John McCain is right: the
appropriations process is a "broken system." And maybe a nation that
truly loves horses will learn from the Burns amendment that the system
needs fixing.
Related Material:
Bureau of Land Management's Wild
Horse and Burro
Program: <http://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/index.php>
"Save
the Wild Horses," Washington Times editorial, December 6,
2004: <http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20041205-100543-4450r.htm>
"Four
Ideas for the Next Four Years: A Blueprint for Environmental
Stewardship," By Jan Mazurek and Tom Mirga, PPI Policy Report, December
9,
2004: <http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=116&subsecid=900039&contentid=253061>
"Congress
Cooks A Thanksgiving Turkey," New Dem Daily, November 23,
2004: <http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=253033>
