For nearly 60 years, the landmark Animal Welfare Act (AWA) has provided minimum standards of care for animals who are commercially bred or transported, exhibited or sold to the public, and used in research, teaching or testing. But a law enacted and a law enforced can be two very different things, and the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) decades-long failure to enforce the AWA and hold violators accountable has resulted in thousands of these animals needlessly suffering and dying across the country.
For years, the ASPCA, where I serve as president and CEO, and others have sounded this alarm bell as egregious cases of animal suffering stack up, including recent examples of cruelty against dogs, cats and other animals in Alabama, Iowa, Michigan, Virginia and Tennessee while the USDA merely stands by.
The hopeful news is that a bipartisan bill, Goldie’s Act, is gaining traction. This bill would ensure that animals in USDA-licensed operations — including a quarter of a million dogs in commercial breeding facilities — finally receive the protections they need, deserve and are owed under federal law.
Named in honor of a dog who endured months of agony and suffered a preventable death in a USDA-licensed puppy mill in Iowa, Goldie’s Act requires the USDA to conduct more frequent and meaningful inspections, provide lifesaving intervention for suffering animals, impose effective penalties for violators and regularly communicate with local law enforcement agencies to improve awareness and action. In other words, do its job.
Championed by Reps. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), Goldie’s Act has been endorsed by more than 100 animal welfare, law enforcement and shelter organizations that have asked the leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to include the bill’s protections in the upcoming farm bill.
Reforming the USDA through Goldie’s Act could not be more urgent. Insufficient USDA oversight and enforcement is well documented in its own reports, including accounts of dogs who were sick and injured, received no veterinary care, kept in extreme temperatures and found living in filthy, cramped cages without enough room to turn around. The current wave of bitter cold means that dogs exposed to the weather in outdoor cages with frozen water bowls are suffering even more.
Despite documenting more than 1,000 violations at licensed dog dealer facilities in the last fiscal year and their indisputable authority to issue fines, revoke licenses and remove suffering animals, the USDA took enforcement action against dog dealers only a handful of times. When they did act, they issued minimal fines and short suspension — but never removed a single dog.
Congressional intervention is immediately required, and there may be no better time than now. Inserting language from Goldie’s Act into the federal farm bill — which is renewed by Congress every five years — is the best opportunity in years for our government to take decisive action. Almost every amendment made to the AWA in the past 40 years was passed through the farm bill, making it a uniquely powerful and appropriate vehicle for animal protection.
With millions of animal lives at stake and the farm bill atop Congress’s to-do list, it’s time for federal lawmakers to approve the measures in Goldie’s Act, hold the USDA accountable and deliver to animals long overdue protections Congress intended to establish when it enacted the Animal Welfare Act six decades ago.
Matt Bershadker is president and CEO ASPCA.