“The Rules Committee blocked four GOP-led amendments on animal welfare that were headed to passage, including the Luna-Costa-Garbarino amendment to nix a provision to federally preempt state laws to combat extreme and inhumane confinement of breeding pigs,” said Pacelle. “The Agriculture Committee should not be allowed to wipe out the votes of 10 million American voters and sidestep a vote in the House. What the committee did amounts to a doubling down on anti-democratic action. Foreign interests, including China’s Smithfield Foods, should not be giving direction to GOP leadership of the Agriculture Committee.”
There were a series of amendments that were not made in order, even though they command broad-based support within GOP and Democrat ranks.
- The Luna-Costa-Garbarino Amendment #28 strikes Section 12006 of the Farm Bill to nullify state laws put in place by 10 million voters who decided to establish more humane housing standards for breeding sows and sales standards for fresh pork. Not a single farmer in Iowa, Kansas, or any other state will need to invest in new housing systems because of these state laws because pig farmers already have overwhelming capacity to accommodate demand in California and Massachusetts with their existing housing systems. A diversifying pig industry has been dismantling gestation crates over two decades (starting with a ballot measure in Florida that banned gestation crates) and now about 45% of sows live in group housing. Challenged by the trade association representing China’s Smithfield Foods, these state animal welfare and food-safety law were upheld by a conservative Supreme Court as constitutionally sound. Protect American farmers and American elections and put a stop to this Chinese takeover of American farms by supporting the Luna amendment.
Cosponsors: Luna, Costa, Garbarino, Fitzpatrick, Van Drew, Lawler, Panetta, Escobar, Takano, McBride, Doggett, Amo, Mace, Matsui, Mullin, Pelosi, Jacobs, Buchanan, Lieu, DeSaulnier, Titus, Gottheimer. Resources: Fact sheet, Summary of Legal Casework to Overturn Consequential State Farm Animal Welfare Laws, and Report-Rebranded EATS Act Eliminates Nation’s Most Important Farm Animal Welfare Laws.
- The Buchanan-Schakowsky amendment # 24 builds on a congressional prohibition on domestic slaughter of horses for human consumption and forbids live exports of horses for slaughter to Canada and Mexico. There has been an enormous decline in the number of American horses butchered for meat — from nearly 400,000 horses sold for slaughter in 1990 to 150,000 in 2010 to 25,000 today. The shriveling of the North American horse slaughter trade has been in motion for years because of cascading consumer interest, documented abuses of equines, and illegal drugs in the meat. Injured animals never get treatment, they slip on manure- and urine-soaked floors on transport trucks and fall and get trampled, they are subjected to temperatures of minus 30 Fahrenheit in unprotected holding pens outside of the Bouvry Ltd (Alberta) and Viande Richelieu slaughter plants in Canada. We don’t allow slaughter of dogs and cats for human consumption, and we shouldn’t do it for horses, either. Cosponsors: Buchanan, Schakowsky, Schweikert, Titus, Barr, Mfume, Malliotakis, Fine, Mace, B. Fitzpatrick, Van Drew, Tonko, Joyce, Cohen, Bilirakis, Adam Smith LaLota, Ciscomani, Doggett. Resources: Fact Sheet and Investigative Report- Horse Slaughter in North America: U.S. Live Exports Fade as Foreign Demand Abates
- The Nehls-T. Carter anti-animal fighting Amendment #22 strengthens enforcement of existing federal law against dogfighting and cockfighting and builds on the bipartisan FIGHT Act, which has 145 House cosponsors and more than 1,100 endorsers, including leading law enforcement and agriculture organizations. The amendment closes key enforcement gaps by stopping the shipment of fighting birds through the U.S. Postal Service and into foreign countries by commercial airlines—while preserving exemptions for legitimate agricultural transport—and by allowing criminal forfeiture of property used to facilitate animal fighting crimes after conviction. These provisions target large-scale trafficking operations tied to organized crime, which move tens of thousands of fighting birds overseas each year and are linked to illegal gambling, narcotics trafficking, weapons offenses, and the spread of avian diseases that threaten U.S. poultry production and consumer prices. Cosponsors: Nehls, Troy Carter, Doggett, Carson Schweikert, Fine, Gooden, B. Fitzpatrick, Van Drew, Buchanan, Fitzgerald, Titus, Gottheimer, Ciscomani, Laurel Lee. Resources: Fact Sheet and Law Enforcement Poster.
- The Fitzpatrick–DeLauro Amendment #39 removes Section 3201(d) from the Farm Bill to preserve a longstanding federal prohibition on using taxpayer funds to promote the mink fur industry. It makes little sense to keep afloat a dying, subsidized mink industry – with about 50 farms, producing a record-low number of pelts—that threatens human and wildlife health for a luxury fashion item. With almost zero commercial sales of fur in the U.S., mink are factory-farmed for pelts for export, with nearly all pelts sold to high-end consumers in China. Farmed mink are highly susceptible to and readily transmit and amplify avian-, human-, and mammalian- (e.g. swine) influenza A strains Elites in China get the coats and they outsource the viral risk to our homeland. Why are Americans going to start paying for foreign fashion shows when Congress cut this subsidy 30 years ago? Cosponsors: Fitzpatrick, DeLauro, Van Drew, Salazar, Mace, Buchanan, Doggett. Fact Sheet, Mink Farming in Decline, and Report-Mink Farming and SARS-CoV-2