What do you think about the possibility of regulatory rather than legislative change? It seems like there is a ton of room within existing legislation (humane slaughter act, 28 hour law, the animal welfare act, and horse protection act) to improve enforcement and apply the existing legislation to more species. For example, AWA recently expanded to include non-farm birds—rodents (e.g. used in research) could be next. The humane slaughter act has terrible enforcement and my (possibly incorrect) reading of the law itself is that it leaves room to expand to more species if FSIS decide sto. It also seems like there is a lot of room to improve, for example, the process of how diseased animals are killed, which would fall under APHIS. Why aren’t regulatory actions discussed as much as corporate or legislative actions? What are your thoughts on how they can be influenced?
I think there’s a lot of potential in regulatory reform, though I’m probably more optimistic about its prospects outside the US. E.g. I think DEFRA in the UK or the European Commission are more likely to make meaningful regulatory changes than the USDA.
My top priority US regulatory reform would be to get the USDA to interpret the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act to apply to birds too. Courts have held that its within the USDA’s discretion to decide this, but decades of on-and-off advocacy by HSUS and AWI have failed to get them to do so. I do think it’s worth trying again if we get a more sympathetic USDA secretary (I’m confident Vilsack wouldn’t do this).
I think the options under the other laws are more limited. My understanding is that few animals are transported for more than 28 hours anymore, so the 28 Hour Law’s protections aren’t that helpful. And I don’t think the Animal Welfare Act or Horse Protection Act could be extended to apply to farm animals (though better enforcement of the AWA could help a lot of lab animals).
Finally, we looked into the potential to move APHIS on the inhumane methods use to kill animals during disease outbreaks. Unfortunately it seemed pretty intractable at the present time.
What do you think about the possibility of regulatory rather than legislative change? It seems like there is a ton of room within existing legislation (humane slaughter act, 28 hour law, the animal welfare act, and horse protection act) to improve enforcement and apply the existing legislation to more species. For example, AWA recently expanded to include non-farm birds—rodents (e.g. used in research) could be next. The humane slaughter act has terrible enforcement and my (possibly incorrect) reading of the law itself is that it leaves room to expand to more species if FSIS decide sto. It also seems like there is a lot of room to improve, for example, the process of how diseased animals are killed, which would fall under APHIS. Why aren’t regulatory actions discussed as much as corporate or legislative actions? What are your thoughts on how they can be influenced?
I think there’s a lot of potential in regulatory reform, though I’m probably more optimistic about its prospects outside the US. E.g. I think DEFRA in the UK or the European Commission are more likely to make meaningful regulatory changes than the USDA.
My top priority US regulatory reform would be to get the USDA to interpret the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act to apply to birds too. Courts have held that its within the USDA’s discretion to decide this, but decades of on-and-off advocacy by HSUS and AWI have failed to get them to do so. I do think it’s worth trying again if we get a more sympathetic USDA secretary (I’m confident Vilsack wouldn’t do this).
I think the options under the other laws are more limited. My understanding is that few animals are transported for more than 28 hours anymore, so the 28 Hour Law’s protections aren’t that helpful. And I don’t think the Animal Welfare Act or Horse Protection Act could be extended to apply to farm animals (though better enforcement of the AWA could help a lot of lab animals).
Finally, we looked into the potential to move APHIS on the inhumane methods use to kill animals during disease outbreaks. Unfortunately it seemed pretty intractable at the present time.