The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), through its quest to become a mainstream organization, has again resorted to “backdoor” tactics by partnering with—or possibly forcing its agenda on—the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Those HSUS efforts to infiltrate USDA regulations were recently exposed on the floor of U.S. Capital with testimony by Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kansas).
Moran noted in his Nov. 2, 2011 comments that he discovered U.S. Department of Agriculture memos authorizing the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to hold a forum—at taxpayer expense—on animal rights and agriculture. In fact, another memorandum noted that a prior meeting with HSUS and USDA staffers was held to “set the agenda” for the upcoming forum. Moran noted in his Senate testimony that USDA met with HSUS despite it being an animal rights organization and “no friend to rural America, farmers or ranchers.”
“HSUS spends their dollars lobbying against rural America and farmers and ranchers,” stated Sen. Moran. “Tax documents show that HSUS spends less than one percent of its budget on animal shelters.”
In a March 2011 HSUS news release, the group applauded the U.S. Department of Agriculture for launching a new database to increase public access to information regarding research facilities and other entities regulated under the Animal Welfare Act. The new database came about, however, as a result of a lawsuit settlement agreement between USDA and the HSUS about access to animal research records under the Freedom of Information Act.
Many other HSUS actions showcase their efforts to attack and infiltrate the agriculture industry.
Another September 2011 HSUS news release reveals that other groups are joining the HSUS in their costly and bitter ballet initiatives directed at farms, ranches and agriculture.
“In Ohio, in 2010, The HSUS—and many of our traditional allies such as Farm Sanctuary, Mercy For Animals, the Toledo Area Humane Society, the Ohio Environmental Stewardship Alliance, and others—waged a campaign to place a measure on the statewide ballot to phase out a variety of the most inhumane factory farming practices,” reports HSUS’s Wayne Pacelle in a blog about Ohio and farming.
The HSUS has also focused their agriculture “sights” on Nebraska.
A Sept. 14, 2011 blog by HSUS’s Wayne Pacelle decried Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman as “ill-informed and patently dishonest.” This was because the Governor held a series of meetings with ranchers and farm groups across the state to tell them that HSUS was attempting to force its way into the state and is definitely no friend to farming or the agriculture industry.
HSUS also boasted it had “…hammered out agreements in California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio on farm animal welfare….” Of course those agreements were often the results of lawsuits or threats of costly ballot initiatives by HSUS.
In May 2011, another HSUS release noted the group’s pleasure when Florida’s “lawmakers chose not to enact agribusiness’ proposal to criminalize taking photographs or videos of farm animals.” Seems HSUS videos being taken by “planted” HSUS employees at farms have appeared on television shows as documentaries or in national news programs as actual news. Yet, according to HSUS in an April 14, 2011 release, “undercover investigations of the meat industry have a long and important history in the United States.”
“All sportsmen and American’s should be concerned that the nation’s largest animal rights group has become advisors and partners to the agriculture industry,” warns Bud Pidgeon, U.S. Sportsmen Alliance president and CEO. “This group’s recent pushes to pass animal rights legislation that affects farms nationwide should be a warning of what to expect in the future—and that these recent actions by HSUS are very suspect.”
