From the President

Dear FOSH Friends and Supporters,

Happy 2021! We hope you and your equine friends are surviving the rough and tumble of the recent winter weather. Of course, some people take this opportunity to enjoy their horses in an entirely different manner just like in our cover photo.

With the new administration installed, I want to bring you up to date on what is transpiring on our work to end soring. First up, FOSH strongly supports the adoption of a USDA Horse Protection Act regulation which would end the use of chains within 30 days and stacks and industry self-inspections in one year. This Rule received over 100,000 supporting comments in 2016 and unfortunately was shelved in January 2017. The Rule is ready to go, and FOSH communicated its support of Rule adoption to Biden’s USDA transition team in mid-December. At that time, we expressed our deep concerns about the pseudo anti-soring bill being promoted by some groups in Congress. Thankfully, that bill did not pass. It was our opinion that the bill completely gutted the Horse Protection Act and would have made it much worse for the horses than the current situation. We are closely monitoring the current situation with the Rule as are various members of Congress. If we need your support to contact either the USDA or Congress to support the regulation, we will let you know.

As you are probably aware, the PAST Act must be reintroduced in this 117th Congress—both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. At this time, the members of Congress who will introduce the Bill have not been identified. Congressman Ted Yoho (FL-R) retired, and because this is a bipartisan bill, another Republican will be introducing the PAST Act with a Democratic Congressperson. After the bill is introduced, we will ask you to contact your congressional representatives for their support. As the House vote in 2019 was overwhelmingly in favor (333-96), we hope this is a sign that many will quickly sign on again to cosponsor the bill. Regarding the Senate vote, our chances are better now that Senator Mitch McConnell is no longer the Senate Majority Leader; however, we will know more later in the