ASPCA Commends Senate Agriculture Committee for Including Critical Animal Welfare Provisions in Senate Farm Bill

WASHINGTON, DC - The ASPCA^® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals^®) celebrated the animal-related provisions in the Farm Bill unveiled today by the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, which would directly impact billions of farm animals, dogs, and cats.

The draft bill released by the Senate Agriculture Committee includes provisions requested by the ASPCA to accelerate the transition away from cruel factory farming, including groundbreaking funding to support farmers in their conversion from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to more humane and climate-friendly practices. The bill also calls for much needed oversight of industrial animal agriculture by requiring annual reporting on the depopulation of farm animals, ensuring more transparency from the corporations that have so far received hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded reimbursements. Additionally, the Senate bill includes important provisions that would improve enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), a need the ASPCA has advocated for to ensure the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) does its job to protect animals in commercial breeding facilities.

"We applaud the Senate Agriculture Committee for using this critical opportunity to provide meaningful reforms to systems that have long perpetuated cruelty to dogs in puppy mills and billions of animals raised for food on factory farms," said Nancy Perry, senior vice president of Government Relations for the ASPCA. "We urge Congress to ensure that the final Farm Bill upholds state farm animal protection laws, institutes much-needed funding and transparency measures to support a more humane food system, improves enforcement of the laws that protect dogs and other animals in commercial breeding facilities, and additionally includes a ban on sending American horses to slaughter."

The Senate's draft bill is a marked improvement from the disastrous House Farm Bill, which includes language based on the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act, a dangerous overreach of federal power that would eliminate existing state and local animal welfare laws, including bans on extreme confinement systems for farm animals. Additionally, the House bill not only fails to provide critically needed enforcement advancements to protect dogs in puppy mills, it actually makes it harder to help dogs who are suffering. Neither the House nor the Senate bills include the bipartisan Save America's Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act, missing a key opportunity to protect the tens of thousands of American horses who are exported for slaughter each year.

The ASPCA encourages members of the public to contact their U.S. senators and representatives to urge them to pass a more humane Farm Bill that protects animals, people, and the planet. To contact your member of Congress, please visit www.aspca.org/farmbill.