Rob Bishop: “Once again it is my pleasure to try to say a couple of other elements. As I said, there were five concerns that we have…”

“Once again it is my pleasure to try to say a couple of other elements. As I said, there were five concerns that we have with this particular bill. The first one, as I mentioned, is it really does not solve the problem. This bill does nothing that the BLM is not already doing in common practice. That is why I said if this bill were to pass, it simply would have no more impact on horses than it does now. No horse would be safer. If it doesn't pass, no horse is going to the slaughter, and no horse is going to be consumed by someone in France. This bill is very, very narrow. It only deals with a portion of the public lands and a portion of the number of horses that are there, not the overall situation. But it does do one thing that is harmful. This is the second element. It takes away the tool, as the gentleman from Colorado clearly enunciated, that is used for the management of wild animals, wild horses, on public lands. There are only two things that we can do. You can either allow these horses that are excess, that are destroying the habitat, that have to be taken off the land, roughly 7,000 last year. About 28,000 are being held in pens right now as we speak that are excess horses, about half of everything the Federal Government actually controls. You can either adopt them, which is a year-long practice and individuals are limited to four adoptees per individual. Or you can sell them.”