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Ensign’s slaughterhouse amendment survives

Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005 | 6:45 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- After a long day of lobbying by horse activist groups, Republican leaders opted not to scrap legislation designed to halt horse slaughter, sources said.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., would prohibit the spending of federal money for federal inspectors at the nation's three slaughterhouses that process horses, which would effectively shut down the plants, bill advocates say.

The provision was part of a broad Agriculture Department spending bill. Republican leaders of a House-Senate conference committee, negotiating final details of the bill Tuesday night, left themselves the option of quietly stripping out the horse legislation at a later time -- outside of a public meeting. Supporters of Ensign's measure said that was an abuse of parliamentary rules.

But the panel's leaders on Wednesday agreed to preserve the Ensign amendment, his spokesman Jack Finn said Wednesday night. Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Jenny Manley confirmed that the language remained in the bill.

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