"Our inhumane treatment of livestock is becoming widespread and more
and more barbaric. Six-hundred-pound hogs--they were pigs at one time--
raised in 2-foot-wide metal cages called gestation crates, in which the
poor beasts are unable to turn around or lie down in natural positions,
and this way they live for months at a time.
On profit-driven factory farms, veal calves are confined to dark
wooden crates so small that they are prevented from lying down or
scratching themselves. These creatures feel; they know pain. They
suffer pain just as we humans suffer pain. Egg-laying hens are confined
to battery cages. Unable to spread their wings, they are reduced to
nothing more than an egg-laying machine.
Last April, the Washington Post detailed the inhumane treatment of
livestock in our Nation's slaughterhouses. A 23-year-old Federal law
requires that cattle and hogs to be slaughtered must first be stunned,
thereby rendered insensitive to pain, but mounting evidence indicates
that this is not always being done, that these animals are sometimes
cut, skinned, and scalded while still able to feel pain.
A Texas beef company, with 22 citations for cruelty to animals, was
found chopping the hooves off live cattle. In another Texas plant with
about two dozen violations, Federal officials found nine live cattle
dangling from an overhead chain. Secret videos from an Iowa pork plant
show hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the
boiling water that will soften their hides, soften the bristles on the
hogs and make them easier to skin.
I used to kill hogs. I used to help lower them into the barrels of
scalding water, so that the bristles could be removed easily. But those
hogs were dead when we lowered them into the barrels.
The law clearly requires that these poor creatures be stunned and
rendered insensitive to pain before this process begins. Federal law is
being ignored. Animal cruelty abounds. It is sickening. It is
infuriating. Barbaric treatment of helpless, defenseless creatures must
not be tolerated even if these animals are being raised for food--and
even more so, more so. Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread
and is dangerous. Life must be respected and dealt with humanely in a
civilized society.
So for this reason I have added language in the supplemental
appropriations bill that directs the Secretary of Agriculture to report
on cases of inhumane animal treatment in regard to livestock
production, and to document the response of USDA regulatory agencies.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies have the authority and
the capability to take action to reduce the disgusting cruelty about
which I have spoken.
Oh, these are animals, yes. But they, too, feel pain. These agencies
can do a better job, and with this provision they will know that the
U.S. Congress expects them to do better in their inspections, to do
better in their enforcement of the law, and in their research for new,
humane technologies. Additionally, those who perpetuate such barbaric
practices will be put on notice that they are being watched.
I realize that this provision will not stop all the animal life in
the United States from being mistreated. It will not even stop all
beef, cattle, hogs and other livestock from being tortured. But it can
serve as an important step
toward alleviating cruelty and unnecessary suffering by these
creatures."