In the Congress, in the courts, in the media-in short, wherever we have to carry the fight-we have been pushing for robust enforcement of the federal law against horse soring for many years. The case was remanded to the lower court for further proceedings. Circuit found that the USDA did violate federal law by withdrawing the rule without the notice and comment required under federal law when agencies repeal final rules. While the District Court sided with the agency and dismissed the suit, on appeal the D.C. In the lawsuit, we argued that the USDA’s withdrawal of the rule violated the procedures agencies must follow under federal administrative law. No implementation of the 2017 rule, and no reform, for four years, stalling progress in this work to protect horses from soring. His incoming administration withdrew the rule without explanation. That Office posted the rule for public inspection but failed to publish it in the Federal Register before Donald Trump took office as president. The Obama administration submitted the signed final rule to the Office of the Federal Register.
The 2017 rule scrapped this failed industry self-policing system and replaced it with a network of independent, third-party inspectors who would be licensed, trained and overseen by the agency. That scheme, on which the agency still relies, gives enforcement responsibility to some of the very parties with an incentive to perpetuate soring. The 2017 rule also eliminated an industry inspection program that USDA’s Inspector General said wasn’t working and needed to be abolished. The fight against horse soring requires vigilance in ensuring that people do their jobs to enforce the law. The 2017 rule featured important changes to protect horses in the Tennessee walking and racking horse breeds from soring, including a ban on the use of “stacks” (heavy platform shoes), chains and other cruel and painful devices and practices intended to produce the showring gait called the “Big Lick.”
#Number of pages federal register 2017 upgrade#
We believed our own efforts to strengthen those regulations had succeeded when, in the last weeks of the Obama administration, the USDA announced a final rule to upgrade its enforcement protocols under the Horse Protection Act. That law and the agency’s regulations under it contain loopholes that have allowed dishonest parties within the walking horse community to continue soring horses while chasing ribbons at shows and competitions-loopholes that must be closed if we are to realize the intended purposes of the Act and finally shut down soring. Congress for about a decade, and the pressure we and others have brought to bear on the USDA and its enforcement of the Horse Protection Act of 1970. But it’s been difficult to achieve, despite hard-hitting investigations and exposés, a damning audit by the agency’s own Inspector General, sweeping bipartisan support for strong legislation in the U.S. Along with several individual plaintiffs, we filed a lawsuit that challenged the USDA’s withdrawal of the rule, which had been finalized and publicized by the agency, and we prevailed.įor many decades, humane organizations have been trying to root out soring-the intentional infliction of pain on a horse’s legs or hooves to force the animal to perform an artificial, exaggerated high stepping gait. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the United States Department of Agriculture had unlawfully withdrawn a 2017 rule designed to fix the agency’s weak regulations that have allowed horse soring to persist within the Tennessee walking horse industry. Some really good news from a federal courtroom on a fight we’ve long been waging for horses: Last Friday, the U.S.
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