Amendment to the 2006 Agriculture Spending Bill
The amendment takes away all USDA funding to pay for mandatory meat inspections at the horsemeat plants as well as border inspections for the fiscal year of 2006. This will force the horse meat plants to shut down for not quite a year. The start date to enforce this law was postponed to about March 10, 2006.

The amendment was modified by the conference committee due to chairman Bonilla insertion of "effective 120 days after date of enactment" as followed:

SEC. 794. Effective 120 days after the date of enactment of this
Act, none of the funds made available in this Act may be used to
pay the salaries or expenses of personnel to inspect horses under
section 3 of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 603) or under
the guidelines issued under section 903 of the Federal Agriculture
Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (7 U.S.C. 1901 note; Public
Law 104–127).

According to Section 610 and 695 of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) and Title 7, Chapter 38 of the US Code, which contains the provisions of the 1946 Agricultural Marketing Act, the horse meat plants in the US are prohibited to pay for the cost of mandatory USDA inspections.

· http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/7C38.txt Title 7, Chapter 38 of the
1946 Agricultural Marketing Act
· Ensign-Byrd Amendment, Senate version of Amendment
· Sweeney-Spratt, House version of Amendment