House votes to end sales of wild horses, burros

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, May 20, 2005 | 11:22 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- House members voted Thursday to block a law that forces the Bureau of Land Management to sell wild horses and burros as part of the Interior Department spending bill passed Thursday.

Horses sold through the program had wound up in slaughterhouses -- horse meat is sold to foreign countries -- causing an uproar from animal activists.

House members approved an amendment on a 249-159 vote that would not allow the bureau to use any money for the horse sale program.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., voted for the amendment, agreeing to ban the sales and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., voted against the amendment, which would have kept the sales in place.

Congress passed a law in December that allowed the agency to sell wild horses and burros that are more than 10 years old or have been passed over for adoption three times. The bureau has sold and delivered 1,000, with another 1,000 still waiting for delivery until the agency review their agreements.

In April, the bureau learned that 41 horses it had sold had been turned an sold to slaughterhouses. It suspended sales until Thursday when it announced it would resume sales with added rules.

BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said new language on the bill of sale will hold people to criminal penalties if they buy a horse knowing that they are just going to turn around and sell the horse. The new bill of sale also says the buyer will not knowingly sell or transfer ownership of the horses to anyone that would process them into commercial products.

Berkley voted to stop the sales, despite the changes offered Thursday from the BLM. She said without a law dictating those changes be made, the bureau could change them again, and horses could end up back in the slaughterhouse.

"This was a horse program, not a gourmet-food-in-Europe program," Berkley said. "It's suspicious, the timing on how they came up with this, the timing of those changes. ... I smell a rat."

Gibbons spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said he voted against the amendment because he felt the new rules changes will provide enough protection to get the horses into good homes rather than slaughterhouses.

"Sale authority itself is not evil," Spanbauer said. "This allows for them to be sold to good homes."

Porter also objected to blocking the sales entirely.

"I disagree with the actions of individuals who purchased horses under the act and then sold them to a slaughter plant; however, I do not believe that we should prohibit responsible people from purchasing wild horses due to the actions of a few," Porter said.

Porter said he is working on a bill that would offer incentives for people who adopt or purchase a horse under the Wild Horse and Burro Act. The exact details are still being developed, but incentives would be based on the animals not going to slaughter.

Also in Thursday's bill, the House kept language requiring a study detailing how the government has spent money earned through public lands sales in Clark County.

The move is seen as a way to keep the Bush administration's proposal alive to shift 70 percent of public land sales money in the state to the national treasury while leaving only 30 percent in Nevada.

Currently, under the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act all the money from public land auctions in Nevada stays within the state and different percentages go to the education fund, water treatment efforts and federal land conservation projects.

Berkley voted against the spending bill's final passage because of this provision. Gibbons and Porter voted for the bill's final approval.