USDA Industry Abuse

Mar 19th, 2015 | By | Category: News

In 1971, the USDA began to implement the Horse Protection Act (HPA) by inspecting Tennessee Walking Horses, the only show breed they have inspected in almost 45 years, even though the HPA applies to all show breeds. From the very beginning of the first USDA inspections there has been a bias toward the Tennessee Walking Horse, even with this bias the USDA inspectors (VMO’s) in the early years exhibited a much different attitude in their inspections than they currently exhibit. There was an attitude of we will help you comply with the law while they were enforcing the HPA. They enforced the HPA as a regulatory agency should, that is with an approach to help the industry regulated be in compliance with the law. There was a give and take philosophy where the USDA listened to feedback from the industry and the industry listened to the USDA and as a result the industry began on its own to inspect horses at every Walking Horse event to make sure that the HPA was complied with.

The USDA could have never inspected every horse show or event but the Walking Horse Industry was determined to see that all horses were in compliance with the HPA and did about 95% of the USDA’s work for them. No other industry has ever self regulated and done the regulatory agency’s (USDA) work for them. As a result of the Walking Horse undustry instituting its own Horse Industry Organization (HIO) for inspecting horses the HPA compliance rate for all Tennessee Walking Horses was approximately 98%.

Instead of being appreciative of the work and end result achieved by the Walking Horse Industry through their HIO, the USDA became combative and adversarial in their dealings with the Industry. The adversarial and combative nature of the USDA is the exact opposite of the way a regulatory agency is supposed to operate. The USDA stopped being a regulatory agency to see that an undustry thrived and did well but instead became a regulatory agency that was a bureacratic gestapo on a mission to kill the Tennssee Walking Horse as an industry regardless of the ancillary fallout and devastating consequences.

The US Court Of Appeals recently rendered a decision to help quell the USDA’s bureacratic abuse of the Tennessee Walking Horse Industry, however there has to be more effort to stop this abuse which is worse than anything the VA or the IRS has done to any individual as this bureacratic abuse effects specific individuals as well as a whole industry.

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