PAST Act reintroduced in Senate
Thursday, June 24, 2021
U.S. Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) have once again filed the PAST Act in the U.S. Senate. The senators, who have very limited knowledge of the industry or the current state of the Tennessee Walking Horse, failed to modify the PAST Act which has failed to move forward at any previous point.
The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) recently competed an independent study that outlined many of the needed improvements to the inspection process. The current inspection process, which is highly subjective and had its scar rule deemed “unenforceable” by the experts assembled by NAS, is left in place in the PAST Act. Senators Crapo and Warner chose to ignore the experts and science and rather chose to appease the radical animal rights group and introduce an antiquated bill that doesn’t address the issues with the HPA.
The newly introduced PAST Act has little chance to move forward in the Senate and will again gain little to no support from lawmakers that are familiar with the industry. The co-sponsors consist of senators from states with very little, if any, Tennessee Walking Horse activity.
Industry leadership remains committed to following the science and incorporating improvements based upon the recommendation of NAS and other equine experts that help eliminate soring and allow the Tennessee Walking Horse to continue to compete on a level playing with other competitive show breeds.
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