Legislators are pushing an amendment through the US House of Representatives that could put the brakes on the USDA’s cruel high-speed slaughter program. Add your voice today with a quick, polite call to the agency at 202-720-9113 urging it to scrap this reckless plan (use our sample script below)!
The amendment, sponsored by Representatives Rosa DeLauro and David Price, would block funding of the USDA’s proposed rule to expand high-speed slaughter nationwide until the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) provides findings on the data used to develop this program. USDA must then address whatever issues the OIG raises. But if the USDA is allowed to increase line speeds and reduce accountability, it will be dangerous for animals, workers, and consumers alike.
Compassion Over Killing investigator Scott David has witnessed these high-speed horrors firsthand. Working in a plant operating under this slaughter rate of 1,300 pigs per hour, he documented pigs being beaten, shocked, dragged, and improperly stunned, as workers tried to keep up.
This bill could be a step in delaying--and hopefully ending--this rule, which has been widely criticized by animal welfare, workers’ rights, and food safety groups. The New York Times editorial board even recently took a formal stance against the rule, writing that it “the government — rather astonishingly — has maintained the [fast-speed] pilot program for two decades without proving that it works.”
TAKE ACTION: Call the USDA at 202-720-9113 and urge it to put the brakes on high-speed slaughter! Use our sample below (or your own polite message), and don’t forget to email campaigns@cok.net to let us know how your call went.
SAMPLE SCRIPT:
My name is _____, and I am calling as a concerned consumer to urge you to put the brakes on cruel, dangerous high-speed pig slaughter. A Compassion Over Killing investigation of high-speed pig slaughter plant Quality Pork Processors documented pigs being shocked, dragged, and improperly stunned, as well as pigs covered in feces or pus-filled abscesses being processed for human consumption–with a USDA inspection seal of approval. Please don’t increase animal suffering–and put workers and consumer safety on the line–under the guise of “modernization” of slaughter. Thank you.