I am writing to express my strong opposition to a change made in Bureau of Land Management policy that now enables a buyer to purchase 24 wild horses or burros with no specified wait time between purchases.

This new policy, outlined in memorandum IM 2018-066, and quietly posted online on July 3, 2018, opens wide a back door to kill buyers who will transport these animals to Mexico or Canada for slaughter. It is yet another stealth maneuver on the part of BLM to lift sale restrictions without oversight and make it easier for those who wish to do so to dispose of federally protected wild horses and burros.

These new instructions replace a policy put into place in 2012 that allowed an individual to buy only four horses ever six months in response to hundreds of wild horses being shipped to slaughter. I urge you and your colleagues to demand that BLM immediately restore that policy to guard against the purchase of wild horses and burros by kill buyers.

This change made by the agency flies in the face of the wishes of the American people and of Congress:

-Polls have consistently shown that 80 percent of Americans -- across the political spectrum -- oppose horse slaughter and support the conservation of wild horses and burros.

-Congress has included protective defund language repeatedly in Agriculture Appropriations bills, including for FY18, prohibiting the U.S. Department of Agriculture from hiring horsemeat inspectors to effectively block slaughter within our borders.

-At present, 214 members of the House and 29 members of the Senate are also listed as co-sponsors of the bipartisan Safeguard American Food Exports Act (H.R. 113 / S. 1706), which would ban horse slaughter and the transportation of horses for slaughter.

- Congress has included protective language in Interior Appropriations bills, including for FY 2018, barring BLM from using tax dollars to kill healthy unadopted wild horses and burros - and barring the agency from selling them for slaughter.

Congress has demanded a long-term management plan from BLM, yet the agency continues to press forward with actions and proposals that are neither politically viable nor in keeping with the spirit of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.

The American people have invested tens of millions of dollars annually in the conservation of the wild horses and burros and are willing to invest more, but demand humane, on-the-range solutions. To allow BLM to look the other way while these animals are shipped to their deaths is the ultimate betrayal of the American people's trust in Congress, which they hope will force this agency to protect America's wild horses and burros as intended by the 1971 Act.