Last month I provided a look at our 2011 congressional year in review for animals, and noted many of the achievements and setbacks during the first half of the 112th Congress. We made progress for animal protection on a number of fronts, especially increased funding to crack down on puppy mills and horse soring despite a very tough budget climate, and laid the groundwork for important policies to be considered in 2012.
As the first year of the 112th Congress draws to a close, the Humane Society Legislative Fund takes stock of how animal protection fared in 2011. Despite congressional gridlock, budget standoffs, and deepening partisan divides, we were able to win some important victories for animals, set the stage for further progress in 2012, and demonstrate again that animal welfare is a core American value.
A new HSUS investigation released last week exposed Purebred Breeders LLC (PBB), thought to be the nation’s largest online seller of puppies, peddling sick dogs to unsuspecting consumers. The company owns nearly 800 Web domains for the purpose of leading online shoppers to believing that they are dealing with responsible local breeders.
Among the most important animal protection laws passed by Congress over the last few years have been those to crack down on dogfighting and cockfighting, closing loopholes on commerce in fighting birds and weapons attached to them, upgrading the penalties for all animal fighting to a felony offense, and barring the possession and training of fighting animals.
This past August in Gresham, Oregon, the McCurtain family’s 7-year-old Border collie named Maggie was strangled after being caught in a body-gripping kill trap that had been set for aquatic fur-bearing nutria along a lake front in an affluent residential neighborhood by the U.S.
A conference committee has finished its work on the “minibus,” a combination of three out of the twelve appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2012, covering departments including agriculture, commerce, and transportation. The final package, which also includes a continuing resolution to keep the rest of the federal government operating through mid-December, will now go to the House and the Senate for an up or down vote this week, with no opportunity for amendments.
The House and Senate have passed different versions of the agriculture spending bill for 2012, and a conference committee of key lawmakers is now working to iron out the differences and pass a final bill in the coming days. One key issue to be decided is whether Congress will potentially add millions of tax dollars in new spending to allow foreign-owned horse slaughter plants to re-open on American soil.
The dogs are finally getting their day. In recent weeks, there have been two major actions that will step up federal enforcement to crack down on the worst puppy mill abuses in the country.
