URGENT: Next month, the USDA’s reckless high-speed pig slaughter program will go into effect, allowing profit-driven slaughterhouses to kill pigs as fast as they want and take over many inspection duties. But there’s a last-ditch effort in Congress to put the brakes on the new rule—and we need YOUR help to push it through. Call your elected officials TODAY and urge them to approve the “DeLauro-Price Pig Slaughter Provision” (using our sample script below)!

Despite receiving more than a quarter-million of your signatures, the USDA recently pushed forward a new rule deregulating pig slaughter and eliminating line speed caps under the guise of “modernization.” But this rule is a dangerous step backward at a time when the public is hungry for transparency in the food system: It transfers many federal inspector duties into the hands of employees of plants themselves, where there is a vested interest in keeping the slaughter line running at all costs. And, most alarmingly, the rule obliterates all line speed caps. 

COK has fought this deregulation since our 2015 undercover investigation of Quality Pork Processors (QPP), a supplier of Hormel and one of the fastest slaughter plants in the nation operating under the high-speed pilot program and killing approximately 1,300 pigs each hour—or one pig every 5 seconds. QPP is held up by the USDA as a model example, but COK’s video reveals the horrors hidden behind closed doors: workers beating, shocking, and dragging animals as they struggle to keep up with line speeds, and pigs covered in feces and pus-filled abscesses processed for human consumption—with a USDA inspection seal of approval. 

Your Voice Is Needed:

This barbaric rule will go into effect December 2—unless a last-ditch effort to stop it in Congress succeeds. In June, the U.S. House of Representatives approved language in the 2020 federal appropriations bill that would block funding for the implementation of the new program. Now, as the Senate and House meet on the final bill, we need YOUR voice to ensure they approve this crucial amendment.

Make a quick, polite call TODAY to your senators and representative, urging them to approve the DeLauro-Price Pig Slaughter Provision. You can find their phone numbers right here and then use the sample script below.

SAMPLE SCRIPT: Hi, my name is _____, and I’m urging the senator/representative to approve the DeLauro-Price Pig Slaughter Provision in the 2020 appropriations bill. The USDA’s reckless high-speed slaughter program will put millions of consumers, workers, and pigs on the line by obliterating slaughter speed caps and giving the profit-driven industry a free pass to largely inspect itself. A 2015 Compassion Over Killing investigation of a model plant for this program exposed its dangers, including workers beating, shocking and dragging animals as they struggled to keep up with the high speeds, and pigs covered in feces and pus-filled abscesses processed for human consumption—with a USDA inspection seal of approval. Please stop this cruel program by approving the amendment. Thank you.

Let us know how your call went by emailing campaigns@cok.net. Thanks for your compassion!