Details of substitution bill to define horses as livestock and protect private property rights not available except to legislators
 |
| A driver on New Mexico Highway 48 heading into Ruidoso caught this shot of the herd before they were rounded up last year.(Photo: Courtesy/Melissa Babcock |
State Sen. Pat Wood, a Republican from Quay County, submitted Senate Bill 126, which was scheduled initially to be heard Tuesday in Santa Fe by the Senate Conservation Committee on which Woods is the ranking member. He said Friday the bill was aimed at protecting private property rights. Others saw it differently. A copy of the substitution bill was not online Monday and details about the changes were not available. "The only ones to get to see it are the legislators," a committee spokesman said.
“The proposed amendment to the definition in the livestock code is very significant,” a Santa Fe attorney with experience in government said Friday about the original bill. “The effect is to completely abolish the category of wild horses. It would have the effect of overruling the opinion of the court of appeals. It would have the effect of designating all horses found anywhere in the state as ‘livestock’. That means no more wild horses and possibly no more personal horses. It also means that all horses whose owner is unknown shall be considered estray. The changed definition of livestock would automatically apply to estrays. The New Mexico Livestock Board disposes of estrays, which means it would now dispose of formerly wild horses.”
Last year, advocates for several wild horse herds that roam the Alto and Eagle Creek area of Lincoln County came to verbal blows with officials from the state livestock board when the livestock staff rounded up about a dozen members of one herd and hauled them to Santa Fe. Trying to keep the horses in a “wild” definition to be released again, litigation was filed challenging the board’s jurisdiction over the herd and asking the court for a temporary injunction to stop the sale of the horses. That case remains in the 12th Judicial District Court. The horses were returned to the county where they are being kept together as a “herd,” with as little human interaction as possible.
The Court of Appeals ruling was produced as a result of litigation over some wild horses in Placitas filed by an advocacy group known as the Wild Horse Observers Association (WHOA). Patience O’Dowd, who heads that group, was concerned Friday about more than the effect of the bill on wild horses. She contended it also could impact safeguards on meat for food consumption.
“I would have hoped to see either the attorney general’s office or the New Mexico Livestock Board in doing the fiscal analysis would have highlighted the issues this (original) bill raises,” she said. “The definition of livestock at the state level goes against the definition on the federal level and does not make it stricter, but looser. I am quite surprised.
“At the federal level, livestock is defined as domestic and owned, which gives some control over what we end up eating. The way they have it written, how do we know it is not road kill?”
“(Livestock board officials) have gone into court and the appellate court ruling let them know clearly that all horses are not livestock,” she said. “The attorney general’s office is (the livestock board’s) lawyer and they should be clear on that decision. Even if they pass this law, all horses will not be livestock in this state, because there are federal horses in the in Cibola National Forest in Socorro. So again, they are going against federal law and the state does not have that right. They can make stricter laws, like if they wanted to say horses are wild in forest, but stop helicopter round ups. But especially involving food safety, it’s almost an insult to New Mexico. What do they think we are?”
During a short break in the legislature’s session Friday, Woods told the Ruidoso News that his bill had nothing to do with conflicting state and federal laws about wild horses.
“After reading some articles in the newspapers and talking to some brand inspectors, I began to wonder if a private landowner had a horse that strayed on him, who does he call,” Woods said. “Who takes jurisdiction over that horse when (the property owners) has something impacting him that is not his and he’s wanting to get it off his property. I think the courts kind of left that up in the air. What I intended to do with my bill is simply give the livestock board jurisdiction over horses. That way that guy out in the country wherever in New Mexico has one place to call to let them deal with a stray horse.”
Woods said he’s been contacted by people who are concerned about the wild horse herds, “But really, that’s got nothing to do with the bill I’m running. What I’m trying to do is protect private property rights.” The senator said the livestock board seemed to him as the logical agency to handle such horses, but others point to state Game and Fish, which operates wildlife refuges across New Mexico.
“This has nothing to do with federal lands, it has nothing to do with any of that, it’s just to do with private property rights,” Woods said. “They want to bring up the fact that there are federal and state laws that deal with wild horses. I’m not talking about any of that stuff. I’m talking about what a private property owner, and what does he do.”
In an analysis of the (original) bill, the AG’s office stated that SB126 “will assist the livestock board in the successful enforcement of existing laws regarding the health, ownership and transportation of livestock in the state by eliminating inconsistencies in the statutory definitions.” The AG’s staff noted that it may be worth investigating the legal implications of adding “carcasses” to the definition of livestock to persons who trade in animal carcasses, among them butchers, whose job is to remove meat from carcasses, and people who traffic in hides.
However, Department of Game and Fish officials asserted that to remove “domestic or domesticated” from the state law could create ambiguity in the management authority between two statutes, one for protected wildlife species and game fish, especially as it pertains to the management authority of certain species of poultry, sheep and goats.
In the Legislative Finance Committee’s analysis of the bill, no fiscal impact was noted. In the bill’s synopsis, the authors wrote that existing language includes domestic animals used or raised on a farm or ranch, but the amendment would remove that wording. “Language including the carcasses of animals covered in those definitions, as well as exotic animals in captivity, is added,” they note.
Former state senator Steve Komadina weighed in on the original bill in a letter supplied to the Ruidoso News dated Jan. 27, and addressed to the conservation committee chairman. He pointed out that legislation on a state level could not preempt federal law and also had to be compatible with state law.
"This SB126 is fraught with legal issues as it conflicts with at least four laws and regulations at the same time risking food safety in New Mexico," he wrote, adding that the bill appeared to have been "hastily written and hastily reviewed." The attorney general caught neither the issues put forward by game and fish nor those he noted, Komadina wrote. He also disagreed that no fiscal impact would be involved, noting that the state already spent thousands of dollars fighting horse slaughter since 2013. "The unintended consequences of passage of this bill by removing domesticated language would be to allow nondomesticated animals feral or wild equines to be slaughtered for food in New Mexico and jeapardize our food source."
The bill "would raise further ethical issues of disenfranchisement, judicial branch interference and even malfeasance," he wrote. Komadina noted that wild horses are a big tourism draw. He asked that the bill be tabled for the 2017 session of the legislature.
Reviewing the court of appeals decision, the Santa Fe attorney who ask not to be identified, cited several conclusions of the court finding that wild undomesticated horses are not estray, because they are not livestock. State code defines a “wild horse” as “an unclaimed horse on public and that is not an estray,” and livestock is defined as “all domestic or domesticated animals that are used or raised on a farm or ranch and includes horses” and a list of other animals.
The association contended the Placitas horses were not livestock, because they never were domesticated or used or raised on a farm or ranch, a definitional requirement. The livestock board and intervenors contended that the “plain and unambiguous definition of livestock means and includes all horses everywhere in New Mexico.” They argued that carving wild horses out of the definition of livestock would be illogical, impractical and unfeasible to implement, because wild horses would be exempt from cruelty, sale and transportation provisions of the livestock code.
The court wrote that it agreed with the association and concluded that livestock does not cover the five undomesticated animals in Placitas that were the subject of the litigation. The judge wrote that other animals are excluded from the definition such as bighorn sheep and bison, turkey, deer and elk commonly found in New Mexico.
“The board is required to search for the owner of estray livestock, publish notice of the impoundment of estray livestock and eventually, sell estray livestock for the benefit of the owner. Surely, the legislature did not intent to require that the board search for the owner of wild animals, including sheep, bison, turkey, deer, elk and other wild animals that are not domesticated, impound them proceed to publish notification of the impoundment and then proceed to sell them,” the appeals court wrote. The judge went on to conclude that to avoid an unreasonable result, “we interpret the definition of livestock to include only domestic or domesticated animals, while game animals includes only wild animals, thus we reject the argument that all horses anywhere in New Mexico are livestock because horses are included within the definition of livestock.”
O’Dowd urged those opposed to the proposed changes to the existing language defining livestock or seeking more information to contact the chairman of the Conservation Committee Joseph Cervantes, a Democrat from Dona Ana County, at 505-986-4869 or 505-986-4393, and Attorney General Balderas at 575-490-4060. Lincoln County is represented in the Senate by Sens. William Burt, a Republican from Alamogordo, in District 33 and Elizabeth Stefanics, a Democrat in Santa Fe from in District 39.
No comments:
Post a Comment