Funding for USDA inspections at horse processing plants would be eliminated under a request contained in the total $3.8 trillion budget proposal revealed by President Barack Obama earlier this week.

Prior to 2005, USDA personnel carried out horsemeat food safety inspections at U.S. processing plants. In 2006, Congress voted to strip the USDA of funding for inspections at facilities that processed horsemeat for human consumption. Congressional funding bills contained amendments denying the USDA revenue for 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 horsemeat inspections at processing plants.

No horse processing plants are currently operating in the United States, however processing operations have been proposed in several states, including New Mexico. There, the Valley Meat Co., LLC, in Roswell, is currently awaiting a USDA Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) permit that would allow the placement of USDA personnel at the processing plant to carry out horsemeat inspections. In addition, according to published reports, operators of prospective plants in Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee, and Iowa have also applied for FSIS inspection permits.

Last year, U.S. Rep. Jim Moran introduced and the U.S. House Appropriations Committee passed an amendment that deprived the USDA of funds to inspect U.S. horse processing plants. Last month, Congress passed HR 933, the Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, which did not contain the Moran Amendment. President Obama subsequently signed the measure into law. On March 25, Moran submitted a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asking him to include language prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars for horse processing plant inspections in the in the Department of Agriculture’s 2014 budget proposal