The following is from the American Wild Horse Campaign:

News & Alerts

We wanted give you a quick update about this morning’s hearing in Congress.

Unfortunately, the House Appropriations Committee voted to move the Interior spending bill on to the full House for a vote without the amendment to rein in BLM wild horse roundups. We’re disappointed that the Committee turned its back on requests made by senior appropriator Marcy Captor (D-OH) and House Natural Resource Committee Chair Raúl Grijlava to require the BLM to implement humane fertility control and to ban brutal surgical sterilization procedures on wild horses and burros.

The news is not all bad, however: The bill passed out of Committee does continue the ban on slaughtering wild horses and burros under the jurisdiction of the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service, and it rejected the Administration’s request for a budget increase of $13.5 million on top of the $102 million appropriated last year.

The report accompanying the bill indicates that the Committee believes that the BLM’s plan for wild horse management lacks sufficient detail and suggests that members will be working with the Senate on satisfactory language. This presents another opportunity for AWHC and our supporters to hold Congress’ feet to the fire regarding the need to force the BLM to reform its unsustainable and inhumane wild horse and burro roundup program.

The upshot is: Stay ready — they’ll be more opportunities soon to make our voices heard!

— The AWHC Team

*Original email below*

Tomorrow, the House Appropriations Committee will vote on the FY 2021 Interior Appropriations bill. This bill will fund the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) Wild Horse and Burro Program and determine whether limits are placed on the agency’s mass roundup plan for America’s mustangs.

You are in a unique position to influence this legislation because your Representative and/or Senator is on the Appropriations Committee that will vote on this bill. We have one day — TODAY — to push Congress to add critical language to the bill before it’s too late. 

If passed in its current form, the bill would allocate $102.6 million for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program. This is a 27% increase over 2019 budget levels.Several key members of Congress have requested that language be included in this bill to require the BLM to implement PZP fertility control to humanely manage wild horses and burros in the wild and to prohibit surgical sterilization, including the brutal ovariectomy via colpotomy procedure.

Currently, this language is not in the bill, but it could be added via an amendment to the House bill during the full committee hearing Friday. Since the Senate bill is still pending, there’s still time to convince Senators to incorporate this language in its version of the Interior spending bill.

TODAY is the last day to take action before the Committee vote. Please join me in calling your members of Congress to urge them to include language in Fiscal Year 2021 appropriations legislation to rein in BLM roundups and include funding for PZP to humanely manage our nation’s wild horses and burros, who 80% of Americans want to protect.

There’s a lot at stake — if Congress doesn’t put the brakes on the BLM, the agency will round up as many as 90,000 wild horses and burros from public lands over the next five years — that’s every horse and burro living free today and more!

So please call Congress today!

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