FIXING THE PROBLEM CAUSED BY THE BURNS AMENDMENT

 

If you are asking what you can do – how you can personally help keep the BLM from removing horses and burros – Consider working to change the law that allows them to use helicopters and motorized vehicles.  Change the law which modified the 1971 Act so that the removals can be expedited without mercy. 

 

What To Do:

 

Put pressure on Congress to reverse the Burns Amendment.  If you donate to an organization, make sure your funds are directed to this purpose.  Write your representatives about this problem. 

 

The Facts:

1) The Burns Amendment was unlawfully entered into the 2025 Interior appropriations bill by Conrad Burns.

2) The 119th Congress never voted to approve the sections Burns slipped into the legislation in the dark of night.

3) Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid led both the House and the Senate at the time.

4) It is a simple matter of a few carefully crafted sentences in ANY current legislation to reverse the effect of the poisonous Burns Amendment.

 

The FIX:  An amendment into any current legislation.


The following Sections of Public Law 108-447 shall have no force or effect:

 

a) SEC. 119; b) SEC. 142 and c) SEC. 803 d) None of the Funds made available under the resulting statutes by these sections of Public Law 108-447 may be may be reprogrammed without the advance approval of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations in accordance with the reprogramming procedures



The References:

 

In 2004 the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horses and Burro Act was stripped of its central purpose when Republican Senator Conrad Burns of Montana placed into the record as part of his Senate Appropriations Committee ‘Report’ on Interior funding for 2005 what is now widely known as “the Burns Amendment.”

 

Taking advantage of his position as chair of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, Burns slipped his language in with complete secrecy, knowing that committee reports cannot be amended. The bill amending the 1971 Act was never introduced to Congress; it was never discussed or voted on.

 

The Burns Amendment created today’s Sale-to-Slaughter pipeline for America’s Wild Horses and Burros.  By allowing helicopter roundups the amendment facilitates removal of large numbers of equines from public lands.

 

The 2004 Burns Amendment regarding wild free-roaming horses and burros was enacted via Section 142 of Division E (the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005) within the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2005, Public Law 108-447