AWI Quarterly Articles | Government/Legal

HB 3231, a bill proposed by AWI that provides for additional penalties when animal abuse is committed in front of a minor, passed the Illinois legislature (unanimously, in both chambers!) and was sent on June...

Two bills recently signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott mean good news for animals. HB 1579 prohibits buying and selling shark fins in the state, and makes Texas the 10th state to institute such a...

The North Carolina legislature really doesn’t care to know about animal abuse on farms. In May, it sent an ag-gag measure (HB 405) to Governor McCrory for his signature, but at the urging of thousands...

“That’s a wake-up call.” These words were uttered by the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), after hearing about the numerous animals killed by horrific body-gripping traps.

In December 2014, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued an audit that was highly critical of the department’s enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act (as described in the Winter...

As reported in the Winter 2015 Quarterly, USDA’s Meat Animal Research Center (MARC), in Clay Center, Nebraska, has come under intense scrutiny after a January 19 article in The New York Times described indefensible acts...

The appropriations process offers an opportunity to press for policies that can be implemented by providing or withholding funds for agency activities. On this front, AWI has been working to ensure that any funding increase...

A number of bills have been introduced in the 114th Congress that would undermine animal welfare; many of them take aim directly at endangered species (such as wolves), or at the Endangered Species Act itself...

Responding swiftly to the New York Times exposé of cruel experiments involving farm animals at the US Department of Agriculture’s Meat Animal Research Center (MARC) in Nebraska, members of Congress introduced bills to provide protection...

Approximately 305 million egg-laying hens live in the United States at any given time. Between 90 and 95 percent of these birds are packed into tiny, barren wire cages that are stacked in rows, one...