Meatpackers in Texas, Illinois petition to pay inspectors
themselves
WASHINGTON – The Bush
administration is trying to end-run Congress and circumvent a new law designed
to halt the slaughter of horses at meatpacking plants in North Texas and
Illinois, congressional sponsors and animal-protection groups charge.
A measure signed into law last
November by President Bush bars the Agriculture Department, effective March 10,
from paying for inspections of horses before slaughter. Since federal law
requires pre-slaughter inspection of cattle and other livestock, congressional
sponsors say they clearly intended to end the slaughter of horses in the U.S.
But the nation's three
horsemeat plants – in Kaufman, Fort Worth and DeKalb, Ill. – may have found a
loophole to keep their $41 million-a-year industry alive. They are offering to pay
the inspectors' salaries under a fee-for-services system used for elk,
reindeer, rabbits and other more exotic fare.
"We are fighting to save
our business," said Jim Bradshaw, a lobbyist who represents Dallas Crown
Inc. in Kaufman and Beltex Corp. in Fort Worth. "That's natural."
The Agriculture Department is
weighing the companies' proposal, made in a Nov. 23 petition that urges swift
adoption of the plan without soliciting public input. Failure to do so would
probably force the slaughterhouses out of operation, "causing substantial
economic damage contrary to the public good," the companies said.
In a Dec. 21 letter to several
members of Congress, the department's acting general counsel said the new law
doesn't thwart the government's ability to provide inspectors.
"In fact," counsel
James Michel Kelly wrote, the law "does not prevent horse slaughter at
all."
That stance is rejected by the
Humane Society of the United States, other animal welfare groups and the law's
congressional sponsors.
"This agency is bending
over backwards to accommodate an industry that Congress and the American people
want shut down," said Nancy Perry, the Humane Society's vice president for
government affairs. "There is far too much concern about perpetuating horse
slaughter on the part of USDA."
Rep. Edward Whitfield, a
Kentucky Republican at the center of the effort to end the horse meat trade,
agreed.
"It's disappointing that
the U.S. Department of Agriculture has adopted this culture over there that
they do not want to stop the slaughtering of horses and they want to continue
to protect these French-owned and Belgian-owned companies," he said
Tuesday.
He and others in Congress are
working for a permanent ban on the annual slaughter of more than 85,000 horses,
whose meat is sold for consumption in Europe, Japan and other markets. Mr.
Whitfield said he hopes lawmakers will take up a pending bill early this year.
The Agriculture Department's
willingness to explore ways to keep the horse meat plants open will only give
new momentum to a permanent ban, he said.
Even as House and Senate
negotiators were finalizing the deal to de-fund the horse inspectors, the
Agriculture Department was "already talking about how they were going to
circumvent [the measure] and already had intended to issue these regulations to
allow slaughtering to continue," Mr. Whitfield said.
The Agriculture Department did
not return calls Tuesday seeking comment.
But Mr. Bradshaw said he
interprets the Dec. 21 letter to members of Congress as a sign that the
fee-for-service inspections will be approved.
"It's our understanding
that their legal people have said, 'Yes, they are entitled to that service,'
" he said. "That's pretty clear-cut."
Dallas Crown and Beltex
already use fee-for-service inspections for the slaughter of emus, ostriches
and wild boars, Mr. Bradshaw said.
Mr. Whitfield is circulating a
letter, already signed by several others in Congress, demanding details of how
the Agriculture Department would implement the new inspection program. He said
he also would examine whether the Agriculture Department is fulfilling its
mandate to check whether prohibited drugs are found in horse meat destined for
human consumption. "It's not very clear that they are doing a very good
job of enforcing this act," he said.
While horse meat represents a
tiny sliver of U.S. slaughterhouse production, Mr. Whitfield suggested the
Agriculture Department may be listening to the powerful cattle industry.
"There is a group that
makes the argument that this is a slippery slope, that if you stop slaughtering
anything, then eventually you might stop slaughtering cows," he said.
"That certainly never would happen."
E-mail mmittelstadt@dallasnews.com