By MICHAEL MARKARIAN, Times Guest Columnist
Horses are many things to Americans: They helped us settle this country. They have served us faithfully in battle. They have entertained us in racing and competition. For 400 years, they were a primary means of transport for Americans. And they are beloved companions to millions today.
There’s one thing to Americans that horses are not: Food.
Thankfully, U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-7 of Upper Darby, is leading the fight to protect horses with legislation he introduced: H.R. 1094, the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act. A provision similar to Meehan’s legislation — which prevents federal spending to allow horse slaughter plants to open on U.S. soil — was successfully included in the comprehensive federal spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law last month.
The provision bars funding for placement of federal inspectors in horse slaughter plants, during fiscal year 2014, and prevents the certification of horse meat for human consumption.
Such a restriction had been part of the federal budget bill since 2005 but was removed in 2011, paving the way for horse slaughter profiteers to attempt to open in Iowa, Missouri and New Mexico. For the foreseeable future, no horse will meet an untimely and inhumane death on a kill floor in the U.S. thanks to Meehan’s leadership and Congress’ bipartisan action.
Americans do not want to see scarce tax dollars used to oversee a predatory, inhumane enterprise. The horse slaughter industry doesn’t “euthanize” old horses, but precisely the opposite: They buy up young and healthy horses, often by misrepresenting their intentions, and kill them to sell the meat to Europe and Japan.
While our tax dollars won’t be used to open equine abattoirs in the U.S. any time soon, we still need a more comprehensive solution to the problem, and an end to the export of live horses for slaughter in Canada and Mexico. This will be accomplished by Meehan’s SAFE Act, which has 164 bipartisan co-sponsors in the House. American horses are currently trucked across our borders by the thousands each year, most of them perfectly healthy and not a single one raised for human consumption
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