Political Quotes

“since I came to Congress, I have been fighting to put an end to taxpayer-funded animal cruelty. We have seen great successes, including successfully eliminating these painful and inhumane animal experiments across the VA, Department of War, and more. Today, we seek to build on the significant progress with this amendment. Based on our bipartisan bill, Violet's Law, which we named after a hound dog which was rescued from a government lab, our amendment would ensure the humane treatment of lab animals once they are retired. Each year, thousands of animals like Violet are used in Federal labs, many of them in noninvasive and nonterminal testing. Too often, when that research ends, these animals, despite being healthy, are killed simply because there is no policy in place to retire them. Our amendment fixes that. Rather than being euthanized, my amendment would ensure Federal research facilities establish procedures to facilitate the adoption or nonlaboratory placement of dogs, cats, nonhuman primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits used in government labs. It would allow agencies to place these precious animals with animal rescue organizations, animal sanctuaries, and animal shelters to facilitate finding their new home or with an individual looking to adopt the animal. This is a commonsense idea which is already working. We have already seen some Federal agencies adopt policies allowing lab animals to be retired and rehomed.”