Health, Animal Welfare, and Environmental Advocates Raise Ruckus Over Senate Bill 249
For Immediate Release:
April 7, 2011
Contact:
Kristin Richards 240-678-9933
Honolulu — With Hawaii's House of Representatives poised to vote on controversial Senate Bill 249—which would make Hawaii the first state to own a slaughterhouse—PETA is urging its supporters to contact Hawaii's legislators and call on them to vote against setting this dangerous precedent. The bill defies current thinking about climate change, rising health-care costs, and badly needed cruelty-to-animals reforms—and is a waste of taxpayers' money.
"What planet are these legislators on that they expect taxpayers to sit quietly while the state pours their money down the drain of a failing, cruel, and toxic enterprise?" asks PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "Have they not heard anything about the health costs associated with meat-related diseases—such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity—or read the United Nations report on the environmental devastation caused by meat production? Have they never seen a PETA video of cruelty to animals at slaughter?"
SB 249, which would allocate $1.6 million in taxpayer dollars for the state to purchase the Hawaii Livestock Cooperative slaughterhouse in Kapolei, has passed the state Senate and two House committees. The full House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the proposal on April 12. The many objections to the bill include the following:
- The slaughterhouse is in an environmentally sensitive area, and its wastewater—so close to the ocean—is a potential source of pollution that could create dead zones in the water, suffocate coral reefs, and kill fish.
- The slaughterhouse, which has been in financial trouble for years, has already received millions in loans and grants from the government, and the slaughterhouse subsidy would be added to Hawaii's $1 billion deficit.
- In slaughterhouses, workers sometimes resort to beating, scalding, skinning, and dismembering fully conscious pigs and cows in order to keep production lines moving.
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