Prevent All Soring Tactics Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the PAST Act. This legislation attempts to eliminate the Walking Horse industry, which is prominent in my congressional district. The vast majority of the Tennessee Walking Horse industry is located in Tennessee and Kentucky.

The Tennessee Walking Horse is the most inspected horse in the world under current law, with both pre-show and post-competition inspections performed by both USDA inspectors and horse industry organization inspectors. The PAST Act eliminates the industry inspection entities and replaces them with new employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Justice Department, increasing bureaucracy and cost to the taxpayer.

The PAST Act is not widely supported by the horse industry. In fact, the vast majority of the active Tennessee Walking Horse industry stakeholders in my district oppose this bill and instead support Representative Scott DesJarlais' commonsense reforms and modernization of the Horse Protection Act contained in H.R. 6341, of which I am a cosponsor.

This bill fails to promote objective, science-based inspections. I oppose the PAST Act and how it will lead to the hiring of more government bureaucrats while failing to protect the horse industry from biased inspections. I encourage my fellow Members to vote against this bill.

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