NM Attorney General Sues to Halt Horse Slaughter Plant

The lawsuit is intended to prevent Valley Meats Co., LLC, from starting horse processing operations next year.
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New Mexico Attorney General Gary King has filed a lawsuit intended to prevent Valley Meats Co., LLC, from beginning horse processing operations early next year.

Horse processing has not taken place in the United States since 2007, when a combination of court rulings and legislation shuttered the last two domestic equine processing plants, which operated in Illinois and Texas.

Prior to 2007, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (USDA/FSIS) personnel carried out inspections at horse processing plants until Congress voted to strip the USDA of funds to pay personnel conducting federal inspections at those plants. Department of Agriculture funding bills contained amendments denying the USDA of funds to conduct horse processing plant inspections until November 2011, when Congress passed an appropriations bill that did not contain language specifically forbidding the agency from using federal dollars to fund horse slaughter plant inspections.

Shortly after that bill became law, horse process plants were proposed in several states. Most were never developed. However, in June 2013 Atty. Blair Dunn, who represents the owners of the Valley Meats Co., LLC, in Roswell, N.M., announced that, after months of waiting, the company had received an FSIS permit. The permit allows placement of USDA personnel at the meat processing plant to carry out house meat inspections there. According to Dunn, the Valley Meats plant would employ between 40 and 100 workers and would serve markets outside the U.S

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Written by:

Pat Raia is a veteran journalist who enjoys covering equine welfare, industry, and news. In her spare time, she enjoys riding her Tennessee Walking Horse, Sonny.

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