Today is the first day that the the USDA is prohibited from paying for mandatory meat inspections at the horsemeat plants as well as border inspections for the (remainder of ) fiscal year of 2006.

Originally, it should have been the entire FY 2006 (Oct 05 - Oct 06), but thanks to conference committee chairman Bonilla's (may he rot) insertion of "effective 120 days after date of enactment", it didn't become effective until today.

In theory, this should force the horse meat plants to shut down at least until the next fiscal year (Oct 06).  But, in a last minute dodge, the USDA issued an interim regulation that permited the horse slaughter companies to pay for their own inspectors.  A lawsuite was filed against the obvious end-run by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, Society for Animal Protective Legislation, Doris Day Animal League, and American Humane Association.

I still haven't been able to find out if they actually did stop slaughter today or not.  I imagine that if the slaughter houses had been closed today, it would have been big news on the email lists that I'm on, so I'm assuming that they might still be in operation.