Silence is not an option

Edit noon, eastern.

President signs the bill. This bill only funds through the end of Sept and the battle is on for the next budget.

EDIT 8 AM Pacific time, 3/23

President is threatening to veto this bill. It’s not over yet.

EDIT 10P Pacific time, 3/22

The Senate passed the 1.3 Trillion dollar Omnibus spending bill with a vote of 65-32 and has sent it on to the President.

Debates and changes tonight:

Idaho Republican Sen. James Risch had objected to a provision in the 2,232-page bill that would rename a forest in his home state for Cecil Andrus. Andrus, a Democratic governor who died last year. Risch delayed Senate approval of the $1.3 trillion spending bill unless the forest isn’t renamed. A vote removed the language from the bill before the Senate voted.

Funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada was removed from the bill.

These local issues, in an election year, are extremely important and anything could have stalled the the vote through pressure from local constituents.

After the vote a number of nominations for key positions in government were made and passed without objection.

The bill that will add more than $800 million to the deficit after massive tax cuts earlier this year. This bill only funds the government through October 1st 2018.

The bill must be signed by the President to avoid a shutdown midnight tomorrow.

THE ACTION ITEM in this alert is now suspended. The article contains important information and is worth reading.

Edit 3/22: House passes Omnibus. Senate must still vote. If the Senate approves this bill we will call the “escape of the bullet” a victory. However this bill still contains multiple pieces that will effect the land our wild ones stand on, the additional funding to spay is still in there (we need to push that be directed to ground data) and more. It gets complicated. We worked hard to simply clear up confusion as the word “slaughter” was used in direct connection with wild horses, after it had been removed last November. If that one simple word created that much confusion? 

Midterms coming.This spending bill only lasts for 6 months and the next moves forward where we have this exact same fight already beginning. (Click the magazine link further down to read what we were trying to explain in summer of 2017. It will come in handy this summer too).

Edit: 3/21

The fight is not over. We ask that you please read this article. Take the edited action item… and stay tuned. WHE has some big news coming. (please take note: the language to maintain the sale language that would prohibit wild horses from being sold outright to slaughter was in last year even though many orgs kept using the word “slaughter.” Please see magazine in this article from last summer as this debate began in the “normal timeline,” not the one we have experienced).

After the full floor vote and language is maintained that protect wild horses from being killed can we claim a small victory (because the funding to spay is still in the FY18 budget, and the fight has already begun for the FY19 budget that funds the government beginning in October 18, has already begun. There is a small magazine you can download in this article that explains the process).

The $1.3 trillion dollar budget has yet to go to a full floor vote. Right now no one knows if this will pass… or if we face another government shutdown. 

It is vital for you to understand your representatives and how bills become law. Please contact YOUR representative. Your statements on funding extend far into the massive legislative landslide aimed at the environment. Comments you make on the budget bill will have an effect on how your legislator views other bills and your vote in November.

What is included in the Omnibus bill going to the House, and for a vote in full Senate, is the version passed in the Senate last November. It is still vulnerable!   https://wildhorseeducation.org/2017/11/20/senate-appropriations-bill-will-not-kill-wild-horses/

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Wild Horses do not exist in a vacuum. Our wild horses, and the land they stand on, are under assault. That is not an overly dramatic statement to get your attention, it’s fact. A year of a legislative landslide that has created chaos in land management agencies, uprooted long fought for protections for water and air, removed animal welfare standards that took decades to build, and on and on. Everything that lives and breathes is under assault.

At Wild Horse Education (WHE) we are working deep at the core of wild horse and burro management on public lands, it’s why you support us. We are hard at work in the complex weeds that are growing fast.

But we need you to take action today. A simple action that can show the strength of your voice; we need the volume only you can provide. We need you to take this action. Not a petition or sign on letter, that will not create the sound we need.

All bills must go to a full floor vote.

We need you to go to : http://govtrack.us

Type in your zip code and you will find your legislators. Send a FAX or pick up the phone.

“I live in your district and I vote. I will be voting this November. This is important to me.

No federal funding to kill healthy wild horses; no bullet in the head and maintain limitations on the sales program.

No federal funding for experimental spaying in the field. NO “private partnerships” that give away “management to any private party, state or county.”

I am tired of the assault on the air I breathe and the water that flows in my country. I am tired of the assault on our environment. I want public land kept public and wild horses to remain public, no private ‘partnerships’ unless they are volunteers. No transfer of responsibility, transparency requirements, jurisdiction, etc.

Please protect public resources; our air, water, land and wild horses.”

Call YOUR representative, not the committee.

YOU need to make it clear your vote depends on their votes.

If you want to understand more we have an E-Zine that was used for one of our webinars last year when this budget debate began (usually a budget for a fiscal year is approved before the start of a calendar year. This year has been like no other legislatively in recent memory). You can click the image below to read.

Click to read E-Zine

We are asking that you focus on YOUR legislators. All bills, including the federal funding bills, must go to a full floor vote, all members of the House and Senate must vote on a final bill. YOUR representatives talk to committee members. If committee members do not hold their seat in your district their investment in your opinion is minimal, but your representative has a greater investment. Many in various committees also see calls from outside their districts in a negative light; harassment.

Making a call to your representatives will have a larger effect in the big picture.

Politics rule the reality of our wild ones and wild places. The reality of our wild places barely makes the political sphere. This last year it has been silenced more than ever.

Reports are expected to come forward this week. A vote on the FY18 budget is finally coming. The talks for next year, FY19, have already begun and have an intention of fulfilling any agenda item not filled in 2018 by this, frankly, pillage machine.

We remain deep in the complexities. We need you to take this simple action, today. Please show Congress we are many, we care and we will get involved and vote.

Thank you.

A long article from last November that explains much of the real agenda for wild horses; spaying. Mark Amodei (R-NV) practically admits that “killing wild horses” is simply akin to blackmail to get money in the budget for spaying (a practice unsafe on mares in the field). https://wildhorseeducation.org/2017/11/30/wild-horse-ground-zero-killing-slicing-and-taking-control/

Stallion just captured at Triple B. These types of horses, this father and son, will be the first to take a bullet in the head. Do NOT be silent.

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We have a lot of work to do. We have been collecting critical information and passing it on to oversight and Congress. We are doing exactly that, right now. Can you help us to continue?