Overview: The BLM Budget Debate

The ongoing debate over the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) budget has significant implications for the protection of wild horses and burros. This article explores the legislative amendments and their potential consequences on these iconic animals.

The Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act

The Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act has been weakened by amendments over the years, largely due to the influence of the livestock lobby. These amendments allow for the destruction of "excess" horses in the "most humane and cost-effective manner possible." Additionally, they permit the sale without restriction of any horse aged 10 or over, or any horse that has been put up for adoption three times but has not been adopted, opening them up for purchase for slaughter.

Congressional Protections

In most years, Congress includes language in the Interior Appropriations Bill to prevent these lethal provisions from being implemented. This language prohibits the BLM from destroying healthy wild horses and burros and from selling them to anyone who intends to sell them for slaughter.

2018 Budget Request

This year, the Interior Department's 2018 budget request asked Congress to lift both provisions preventing the killing and slaughter of wild horses. The BLM also requested the lifting of the ban on slaughtering and killing wild horses and burros, as detailed in the BLM Budget Justification (relevant language on II-4).

House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee

The House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee reported out the Interior Appropriations Bill to the full committee with the anti-slaughter and killing provisions in place. However, when the bill came before the full House Appropriations Committee, Representative Chris Stewart (R-UT) offered an amendment that stripped the bill of the provision prohibiting the destruction of healthy horses but left in place the prohibition on selling them for slaughter. (See Stewart Amendment on the last page of this link.)

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1. Specified amount of money in support of the project may be carried out by the Bureau on a reimbursable basis. Appropriations herein made shall not be available for the destruction of healthy, unadopted, wild horses and burros in the care of the Bureau or its contractors or for the sale of wild horses and burros that results in their destruction for processing into commercial products, including for human consumption.