Our final 2024 Humane Scorecard is available, with a look at where federal legislators stood on our core priorities for the second session of the 118th Congress. The scorecard tracks animal-friendly actions by lawmakers while creating greater awareness and increasing legislators’ support for our priorities.
Please consult the records of your U.S. senators and representative, and for members new to Congress, please share the scorecard and let them know that Humane World Action Fund, formerly Humane Society Legislative Fund, closely monitors members’ support for animal protection measures.
Judged by the number of humane bills passed, this session wouldn’t appear particularly significant. In fact, the 118th Congress was an arena for one of the most important animal welfare battles ever fought: the defense of California’s Proposition 12 and related state public health and farm animal welfare laws. We defended these laws against repeated attacks that intensified after a May 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld Proposition 12.
During the session we also backed a new measure to strengthen Animal Welfare Act enforcement. Finally, we doggedly pursued and delivered on funding and regulatory directives with major implications for animals.
Defense of state laws
With 15 states, including Arizona, Ohio and Florida, now banning intensive confinement of farm animals, a backward-facing faction of the pork industry has waged an unrelenting assault on these laws. Unable to move their attacks forward as free-standing legislation, the National Pork Producers Council focused on blocking state reforms via the federal farm bill, a multiyear package for agriculture policy. We fought them off, building an enormous coalition with more than 200 members of Congress from both major parties, 5,000 farms (including pork producers that have adapted to higher animal welfare standards), 200 organizations, constitutional law professors and conservative thinkers and political figures. As a result, these state laws remain in force.
For now, that is. There’s a hard fight ahead, with the farm bill still awaiting resolution. We are working hard with our partners to uphold the rights of states to legislate on matters of public health and animal welfare and defend against an obvious power grab by large corporations, many of them foreign-owned entities.
Better CARE for Animals
We garnered wide bipartisan support for the Better Collaboration, Accountability, and Regulatory Enforcement (CARE) for Animals Act to address serious problems with AWA enforcement. First introduced in the 118th Congress, this bill would provide the U.S. Department of Justice with additional tools to bring actions against violators (including commercial breeders, roadside zoos and research facilities). With our compelling evidence of the need for more robust collaboration between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the DOJ, the measure gained 220 co-sponsors in the House and 39 in the Senate.
We also succeeded in cultivating bipartisan backing for four other measures that each gained more than 200 House co-sponsors: the Puppy Protection Act, Humane Cosmetics Act, Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act (which gained 54 Senate co-sponsors, too) and Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act. These strong expressions of support bode well for the 119th Congress.
Funding successes
While the funding legislation for fiscal year 2025 is still pending, many priority requests we made of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees appear in the versions they released in 2024. The annual horse slaughter defund language, which prevents horse slaughter plants from operating in the U.S., is incorporated in both the House and Senate FY 2025 Agriculture appropriations bills. Moreover, the committee reports accompanying those bills include language directing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allocate funds to reduce animal testing and advance non-animal methods.
Report language accompanying the House and Senate Interior-Environment and Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bills directs the robust enforcement of the Big Cat Public Safety Act and full implementation of the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act. Both Commerce-Justice-Science reports also direct the DOJ to continue to collaborate with the USDA to ensure it receives prompt notice and referral of potential violations.
As the 119th Congress begins, there’s crucial work ahead, especially for wildlife and farm animal protection. We’ll be there, working under our new name—Humane World Action Fund, now the lobbying arm of Humane World for Animals (formerly called the Humane Society of the United States).
While our name has changed, our goal remains the same: to deliver the best outcomes possible for animals in the political arena. You can count on it, and we hope to count on you as we meet the challenges ahead.
