On the recordJuly 28, 2022
I thank Representative Case for the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 263, the Big Cat Public Safety Act. The bill is a long-overdue fix to a public safety and animal welfare problem that has been with us for too long. I hear from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, my Republican friends, that not only is it duplicative, but it is unnecessary and a waste of time. Unfortunately, my colleagues have undertaken a potted plant strategy in terms of how they do business in the House: just water us, we are just going to sit there, and we are not going to do nothing. They are using legislation like this one to sustain a blame game more political than substantive regarding decisions being made by the administration or the majority in this House. I understand that. But it is a selective blame game. We don't talk about the threat to our democracy, we don't talk about the criminalization of a woman's right to make health decisions, and we don't talk about the creeping authoritarianism that we see in our country. We don't talk about those things. I think that if we are going to have a discussion and assess blame, that the discussion is open on all sides. So there are more big cats in private ownership and in captivity than in the wild. Private ownership of tigers, lions, leopards, and other big cats does absolutely nothing to help these endangered and threatened species recover in the wild.…
