At 2:30 am Monday morning, the Congress released a five month spending bill to keep the Government running until September, 2017. As late as last Friday, the American Wild Horse Campaign was assured that a provision to remove protections for wild horses had been deleted from the bill. House and Senate Appropriations Committees then restored language to the 2017 Omnibus spending bill that amends the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act by stripping the horses and burros of their federal protections and transferring them to state and local governments for use as "work animals". This Section 16 language can be found on page 804 of the bill.

Please hear the voices of Americans who support the federal protections for wild horses and burros. The law to protect these American icons was passed unanimously by Congress nearly 50 years ago. It undermines the spirit of our democratic system to let a handful of special interest people overturn what was unanimously passed by Congress and supported by the American people.