On Jan. 21, Return to Freedom hosted a wild horse advocacy outlook webinar featuring RTF’s lobbyist, Chris Heyde, discussing what happened in the last Congress regarding wild horses and horse slaughter, what the new makeup of Congress may mean for both issues, and how you can help.

At the time of the webinar, House Republicans had not named their representatives on two important subcommittees. The full committee rosters are now out. They are:

House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee: Reps. Betty McCollum (Chair), Chellie Pingree, Derek Kilmer, José Serrano, Mike Quigley, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Brenda Lawrence, David Joyce (Ranking Member), Mike Simpson, Chris Stewart, Mark Amodei.

House Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee: Reps. Sanford Bishop Jr. (Chair), Rosa DeLauro, Chellie Pingree, Mark Pocan, Barbara Lee, Betty McCollum, Henry Cuellar, Jeff Fortenberry (Ranking Member), Robert Aderholt, Andy Harris, John Moolenaar.

Also since the webinar, Congress has passed — and the president has signed — Fiscal Year 2019 funding that includes language continuing protections against the Bureau of Land Management using taxpayer dollars to kill healthy, unadopted wild horses and burros and against the agency selling them for slaughter.

Take Action

Click here to send a message to your members of Congress urging them to demand that the Bureau of Land Management revoke its new sale policy, which allows a single buyer to purchase up to 24 wild horses or burros per day with no waiting period and no questions asked. This opens the door to kill buyers.

Click here to send a message to urging your representative to support the SAFE Act (H.R. 961), which would permanently ban horse slaughter in the United States and the transportation of American horses across our borders for purposes of slaughter.

Write a letter to Rep. Betty McCollum, the new chair of the House Interior Appropriations Committee, urging her to include protections for wild horses in the 2020 Interior Approprations bill.

Donate to RTF’s Wild Horse Defense Fund, which fuels our advocacy, lobbying, selective litigation and on-range monitoring of roundups