Charles W. Stenholm: “The Animal Welfare Act already contains provisions that forbid needless intentional abuse of livestock anywhere. Also I…”

“The Animal Welfare Act already contains provisions that forbid needless intentional abuse of livestock anywhere. Also I want to make my colleagues aware of the concern of the American Veterinary Medical Association regarding the prohibition on holding downer animals could prevent diagnose and treatment of downer animals. Just because an animal is down does not mean necessarily that it cannot get up, provided you give it medication. Also our veterinarians tell us and USDA tells us that examination of downer livestock at markets and slaughter plants is an important part of our system to monitor for animal diseases such as BSE and tuberculosis. In other words, if we do not give our veterinarians time at livestock markets to examine what is truly wrong with that animal, if you immediately euthanize them, we perhaps may be setting back that which the authors of this amendment intend to happen. Now, I will not oppose the amendment tonight because, again, we all agree that animals should not be abused. That is already against the law. But I would hope as we pursue this through the conference and we work with the gentleman from New York to make sure that this accomplishes everything that he and those who support the amendment intend, but I would point these possible unintended consequences of this amendment that might need further work as we pursue it through the conference.”