Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chair, I rise to speak to amendment No. 1, in favor thereof.
Mr. Chair, this is an amendment that will take the Wild Horse and Burro Program back to the 2019 levels, or about $80.5 million. In just 4 years, this program has gone up 46 percent.
Now, I have always had some questions about this program anyway because what we do, Mr. Chairman, is we rent land or lease Federal land that the Bureau of Land Management has to farmers who bring their cattle in. That is perfectly fine. I am fully supportive of that, but because the wild horses reproduce at such a fast rate, the horses were eating up the grass before the cattle could get to it. Because of that, we came up with this program back in the 1970s. The original idea was that the program would have these wild horses captured and adopted, and there are some adopted.
In fact, we do some birth control measures. Historically, less than 1 percent has been used for birth control, but this year, we are hoping it goes up a little bit higher. That being said, a 46 percent rise in the cost of this program seems to be awfully high.
Further, what do we do with all those horses that don't get adopted or that don't get the proper birth control shot, usually from a helicopter? We take them and ship them to farms and house them for the rest of their lives. Basically, what we have set up is a very expensive retirement home for wild horses and wild burros, and we are on the hook.
I know people love the wild stallions, and it makes people reminiscent of the old West, but I remind them that the horses that exist today are non-native to North America. They were introduced as the Spanish first came in and other European settlers arrived on the two continents, North America and South America.
I have to question, with the debt that this country has and the severe needs we have in other parts of this Nation, on the border, and around the world, why are we increasing spending on retirement homes for wild burros and horses about 46 percent over 4 years?
It just takes the program back. It does not eliminate it. It takes it back to the 2019 levels and starts to put an end to it.
Mr. Chair, I know you are already aware of this, but at $2 a horse in long-term care, $2 a horse per night, there are a lot of other things we could do with that money.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chair, I understand the idea is to control the population, but what we are doing is not controlling the population. What we are doing is putting them into retirement homes that the American taxpayer is paying for.
I am glad to be able to present this amendment today, and I appreciate the opportunity to do that. I thank the Rules Committee for the opportunity to do it because the American people have to take a good hard look at this.
Is this what we ought to be doing? Should we be creating retirement homes for 60,000 wild horses when we are having a hard enough time having folks in retirement homes who are human beings?
In the State of Virginia, we had a recent survey that showed that 41 percent of our facilities are not taking in new people because they don't have the staffing levels. Maybe we should be spending this money on taking care of human beings instead of taking care of wild horses.
We have to figure out another way to control the population. If putting them in retirement homes is appropriate, then I would be surprised if most Americans knew how much money we were spending. We spent $154 million this year on these retirement homes for wild horses and burros. I don't think the American people understand or realize this. I get that they want the horses taken care of, but it costs an awful lot of money.
Mr. Chairman, I think we need to do something, and I think the Bureau of Land Management needs to come up with another idea. If all we do is continue to increase their funding 46 percent over 4 years, they have no incentive to come up with another idea.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chair, it is prohibited by law.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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