Animals in Research

Today, the Humane Society Legislative Fund releases its preview version of the 2017 Humane Scorecard for the first session of the 115th Congress. The Humane Scorecard is a snapshot of each federal legislator’s votes on key matters that affect the lives and well-being of animals, along with their efforts to help animals through cosponsorship of priority bills and support for adequate funding of animal welfare enforcement, as well as extra credit for pro-animal leadership.

The White House yesterday released President Trump’s budget for Fiscal Year 2018, providing more detail on the spending proposals for federal agencies than what was forecast earlier this year. One of the most troubling aspects of the package is the administration’s desire to allow the commercial sale of an unlimited number of wild horses and burros rounded up from federal lands.

President Trump’s preliminary budget proposes major cuts in programs related to foreign aid, poverty relief programs, and the environment, and the budget proposal eliminates entire programs supporting public broadcasting, the arts, and humanities. From our lane at HSLF, the one burning question is why there aren’t any cuts in factory farming subsidies, lethal predator control, and other giveaways of American tax dollars to coddled special interests?

The 115th Congress convenes today, and it’s set to be a busy next few months as legislators take up appropriations for FY17 and FY18, as well as many other presidential and congressional priorities. It’s going to be hectic, and at times contentious, but we’ll be there every day on the front lines driving change for animals.

One of the core objectives we have at the HSLF is to make it simple and efficient for voters to determine how federal lawmakers have sided on crucial animal protection legislation across a range of issues. With the end of the 114th Congress approaching, HSLF has posted a preview version of the 2016 Humane Scorecard, so you can see how your U.S. senators and U.S. representative have performed so far in this Congress on animal protection issues.

The House of Representatives today debated H.R. 2576, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, a compromise bill produced after months of negotiation between key parties in the House and Senate to modernize and reform the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The House will vote on the bill tonight and the Senate is expected to take it up as soon as tomorrow. 

Editor's note: This post was originally published on December 29, 2015 at 12:17 p.m. and has been updated to include the list of legislators who led the way on these important measures and the updated cosponsor numbers on our priority bills for 2016.

As the year winds down to a close, I’m pleased to report that 159 new animal protection laws have been enacted this year at the state and local levels. That continues the surge in animal protection policymaking by state legislatures, and in total, it makes about 1,200 new policies in the states since 2005, across a broad range of subjects bearing upon the lives of pets, wildlife, animals in research and testing, and farm animals.

The U.S. House this morning passed the $1.1 trillion spending package for 2016, which includes a number of important provisions to prevent the opening of U.S.-based horse slaughter plants, retain Endangered Species Act provisions for gray wolves, and allow restrictions on the domestic ivory trade to protect elephants from poaching.

Here are some pretty painful examples of your government at work. Monkeys on a treadmill, sheep in microgravity, and a fight club for shrimp? All of that and more amounts to a smackdown of American taxpayers.