Good News! The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee voted in favor of a provision that would prevent any efforts to resume the slaughtering of horses for human consumption on U.S. soil.

The bipartisan amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill, offered by Senators Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and approved by the committee 18-12, disallows spending by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2015 on inspections at prospective horse slaughter plants. If there are no government inspections of the horse slaughterhouses then there can be no sales under the law.  The bill also passed Congress, and President’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year also included a provision to block these inspections. Commenting on the new law, House Representative Moran says “The American public has made clear they oppose horse slaughter, and today’s vote reflects the will of the people.”

A similar spending prohibition in the 2014 omnibus spending bill halted aggressive attempts by horse slaughter proponents to open plants in New Mexico, Iowa and Missouri.

Michael Markarian, chief program and policy officer of The Humane Society of the United States, hailed the successful bill protecting horses and says “The American people will never accept the idea of cruelly slaughtering our horses to be served up on dinner…plates. Horses are not raised for food, and they are typically dosed with a variety of drugs not appropriate for human consumption.”

From the vegetarian point of view, laws such as this, along with the new vegetarian caucus in Congress, gives us reason to hope for more good work ahead.