Political Quotes

“There are at least 3,000 commercial dog breeding facilities licensed to operate by the United States Department of Agriculture. These facilities are required to comply with the rules and regulations of the Animal Welfare Act, AWA, that sets forth minimal standards for humane handling and treatment. Inspections, to oversee compliance with AWA standards, are performed by the USDA. There are serious inadequacies with the current system that demand our attention and our action. One problem has been insufficient resources for the USDA to perform timely and routine inspections. Second, inspectors have too few tools to make the assessment of proper care that they must. I have worked for several years on strategies to solve these problems through congressional and agency action. I was very pleased to be joined last year by one-third of my Senate colleagues in seeking an increased appropriation for USDA to enforce the Animal Welfare Act. USDA has approximately 80 inspectors to inspect nearly 10,000 USDA federally-licensed facilities involving millions of animals. Increases in USDA's enforcement budget will certainly help the agency fulfill its responsibility to ensure compliance with the AWA.”