Before the U.S. Senate adjourned on August 2, members advanced several key federal funding bills with significant implications for animals. We’ve been working hard to ensure the best possible outcomes – and we want to share some of the results with you, since we’re going to need your help to lock in the important gains we’ve secured.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
In his dystopian novel Animal Farm, George Orwell uses the pig, Squealer, to show how those in power use language, rhetoric and misdirection to spread propaganda, bend the truth and ensure their continued political and social dominance.
Orwell would have had a field day with the July 23 hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives’ Agriculture Committee, which was called “An Examination of the Implications of Proposition 12."
After court losses, faction of pork industry again seeks congressional bailout to override farm animal welfare laws
New GOP bill and House hearing seek to nullify California’s Proposition 12, notwithstanding similar voter-approved laws across red, blue and purple states
Not only is it hot—very hot—in Washington, DC, this month, but we’re quite literally involved in a blistering fight to preserve federal funding for crucial animal protection concerns.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
Images of a lion so thin that ribs, spine and hip bones were prominently visible. Inspection reports noting a lioness confined to a dark den with no light, ventilation or bedding, instead an accumulation of water, urine and feces. A male chimpanzee housed in isolation for nearly a year and a half, which must have been a torment for an animal of such a social species.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
We watched with dismay this week as the House Natural Resources Committee passed the Grizzly Bear State Management Act (H.R. 281), sponsored by Representative Harriet Hageman (R-Wyoming), by a party-line vote of 20-19.
Update August 1, 2025: The Senate passed the FY 2026 federal funding bill for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration with a bipartisan vote of 87-9. The bill awaits further action in the U.S. House of Representatives.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
More than 94.9 billion land animals are kept and killed for food worldwide. This is staggering. And it’s a number that has continued to rise in recent years.
Fighting to change the lives of all these billions of animals—who are essentially born or hatched into the world just to suffer before they are killed—is an issue many people find overwhelming. And fighting to prevent more animals being born just to suffer and feed this cruel system seems like a goal too out of reach.
Right now, Congress is acting on its FY 2026 appropriations bills to provide funding and direction to federal agencies, and we are campaigning hard to help the countless millions of animals whose fate depends on this process.
