The House Interior Appropriations Committee has scheduled a markup for the 2018 Interior Department spending bill on Wednesday, July 12, 2017. This will provide our first insight into where House members stand on the Interior Department’s budget request to lift the ban on destroying healthy wild horses and burros and selling them for slaughter.

We hope that the subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), will reject the Interior Department’s budget request to allow horses to be slaughtered.

The push for slaughter within the subcommittee appears to be coming from Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) on behalf of a small number of ranchers who view wild horses as competition for cheap, taxpayer-subsidized grazing on our public lands. 

Even if Stewart has the votes to get this through subcommittee,  this is not the end of the fight for our wild horses, far from it! After subcommittee markup, the bill goes to the full House Appropriations Committee for consideration and approval. The full committee contains a number of members who should be more responsive to the will of the American people. Then the bill will go to the House Floor for a vote.

The 2018 Interior spending bill will also have to make its way through the Senate where our wild horses have many powerful allies, including Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Tom Udall (D-NM), who have always stood strong against slaughter, as has the chair of the Senate Interior Appropriations Committee Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

So, even if the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee strips the slaughter ban from the 2018 spending bill, we have other chances to defeat this devastating legislation and restore the protections for our wild horses and burros that have been in place for almost 50 years.

Here’s how you can help today:

1.      Call your Representative’s office and tell them to maintain the ban on slaughtering wild horses in the 2018 appropriations bill. Also, set up an appointment to meet with staff in their district offices and contact us for talking points and materials to share at the meeting.

2.      Share this video to spread the word far and wide about what is at stake in this fight.

3.      Donate to support our #NoHorseSlaughter campaign aimed at beating back the forces that want to destroy our magnificent wild horses and burros, both in holding facilities and on the range.

Thank you for keeping up the pressure to save our wild horses and burros. America can’t be great if these national symbols of freedom are destroyed! #NoHorseSlaughter!