Keeping Animals on the Agenda
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Meg McIntire, Friends of Animals (FOA)
June 2015

Despite setbacks and partisan gridlock, there are still areas where progress can be achieved. Together, we can keep the important issues facing animals at the front-lines of Congress by making our voices heard and demanding change so that animals everywhere can be freed from cruelty and exploitation.

In the age of 24-hour news cycles, it sometimes feels like political campaigns never end. With the new 114th Congress finally in place, newscasters and analysts are now focusing on predicting who will finalize their decision to enter the political ring and duke it out for the 2016 presidential election.

A new presidential race certainly holds more interest and intrigue for the media than the glacial pace of Congress and the feeling that progress is barely attainable given the gridlock we often find. Despite the lack of speed, however, it’s undeniable that Washington holds sway over the laws that affect not only our daily lives, but the lives of animals and the state of the environment. That is why we’re taking a look at some of the issues the current Congress finds itself faced with and what we hope they are able to achieve during the coming months.

There were some major setbacks last year, with Congress caving to the trophy hunting, farming and ranching lobbies, and blocking some very common-sense reform bills. And most recently, the omnibus package that was enacted includes some awful provisions that seek to interfere with Endangered Species Act listings, stop regulation of toxic lead content in ammunition and discourage reforms in the agribusiness lobbying sector. The spending bill also blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from requiring the issuance of operating permits for greenhouse gas emissions from animal agricultural sources under the Clean Air Act, giving more leeway to the ranchers who are wiping out our wild horses on public lands for more grazing room for their livestock.

The 113th Congress also closed with quite a few animal-rights issues left unfinished, however, and there is a significant amount of potential progress to be made. Below, we take a look at a few issues left on the table that we hope to see come to a resolution during this Congressional session:

  • We hope to see progress made on the bill introduced by a Californian representative that seeks to “to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to submit to Congress, and make available to the public on the Internet, a report on the animals killed under the Wildlife Services program.”
  • More steps should also be taken regarding a demand by representatives from California, Oregon and Michigan for an audit of the USDA’s Wildlife Services lethal predator control program, including its use of poisoning and aerial gunning, so that the public is able to truly measure the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’s slaughtering of America’s wildlife. Friends of Animals has consistently held government agencies accountable for their reckless and unnecessary killings, including filing a lawsuit over the shootings of thousands of animals at New York airports and fighting to protect mute swans in the state from an outrageous killing plan devised by the Department of Environmental Conservation.
  •  Congress should continue to take action to prevent the removal of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List in 48 states. Many representatives spoke out against this potentially disastrous decision and urged the Department of the Interior to cancel the scientifically flawed delisting proposal.
  •  We hope to continue to see support from Congress on calling for the African lion to be listed as an endangered subspecies, as well as manatees and certain shark species that are threatened due to the shark-finning industry.
  •  It is vital that progress be made on stopping the illegal ivory trade. A bill was introduced to provide for trade sanctions against countries involved in illegal ivory and we hope to see similar legislation enacted during the coming months. Recently, Friends of Animals and the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force filed a motion to intervene in the Safari Club International’s and National Rifle Association’s court case challenging the Zimbabwe African elephant importation ban issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Hopefully, there are some pieces of proposed legislation that stay in the past, however, like the HSUS-backed “Captive Primate Safety Act,” which does not fully represent the best interests of primates and would legitimize the Boston-based, financially struggling organization, Helping Hands Monkey Helpers, which breeds captive capuchin monkeys and employs barbaric training practices.

Despite setbacks and partisan gridlock, there are still areas where progress can be achieved. Together, we can keep the important issues facing animals at the front-lines of Congress by making our voices heard and demanding change so that animals everywhere can be freed from cruelty and exploitation.

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