| From | Wayne Pacelle <[email protected]> |
| Subject | Two steps forward, one step back this week in Congress |
| Date | December 19, 2025 11:17 PM |
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͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. To enact good laws, we must elect good lawmakers, and that’s why we remind voters which candidates care about our issues and which ones don’t. If you’d like to unsubscribe, click here. [[link removed]]
act.animalwellnessaction.org/a/awa-donate-em-2025?am=40 [act.animalwellnessaction.org/a/awa-donate-em-2025?am=40]
A Week of Battles on Capitol Hill Yields Two Major Gains for Animals
We came up just short in efforts in the House to defend wolves, but plan to block anti-wolf measure in the Senate
By Wayne Pacelle
It was one of the most consequential weeks of the year for Animal Wellness Action and for our mission to reform federal policy for responsible animal protection, public health, and stewardship of wildlife. We had quite a series of battles on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers considered three major bills—two that advanced our priorities and one that threatened to roll back critical protections for beleaguered wolves.
The good news first on the signature victories: 1) We broke the dairy industry monopoly on the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), and 2) We are accelerating the transition in drug development away from animal testing.
Monday, on the House floor, lawmakers passed S. 222, legislation that includes key provisions of our Freedom in the School Cafeterias and Lunches (FISCAL) Act, which seeks to deliver plant-based milk options to kids in the NSLP. The dairy lobby engineered a “milk mandate” in the 1940s, and it has persisted throughout the first quarter of the 21st century.
This policy is an example of the way special interests curry favor in Congress to the detriment of regular Americans. Perhaps as many as 40% of kids in the NSLP are lactose intolerant. Millions of them toss the milk away that’s placed on their trays. Those who drink milk that makes them sick typically underperform in the classroom, distracted by stomach pain or something much worse. What’s more, cows go through the rigors of production and other hardships just to see the fluid tossed into the trash. Breeders have engineered them for enormous milk yields—a cow is now producing a staggering 25,000 pounds of milk a year—and this output taxes their system and compromises their well-being.
That bill is now awaiting the president’s signature.
In the Senate, members unanimously passed the FDA Modernization Act 3.0 (S. 355), legislation designed to push forward the plan to wind down animal testing in drug development and accelerate the transition to modern, humane, and scientifically rigorous methods. This is the follow-up to the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 that we passed in 2022 to eliminate the 1938 animal-testing mandate in the law.
When the House passes it soon, as we expect it will, the Congress will be affirming the new direction from the FDA Commissioner to move ahead with human-biology-based screening methods and phase out animal testing in preclinical research. And also this week, we worked with 20 House lawmakers who sent a letter to the director of the National Institutes of Health to move with all deliberate speed to halt the use of primates in invasive testing—a second blow this week to the animal research industrial complex.
These wins—reflecting years of effort and persistence—underscore the growing recognition that animal protection, fiscal responsibility, and scientific progress go hand in hand.
U.S. House Votes to Harm Wolves, But We’ll Work to Stop This Bad Idea in the Senate
Yesterday, the House narrowly passed H.R. 845, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lauren Boebert to strip federal protections from gray wolves nationwide. The vote was 211-204, seeking to expand the assault on wolves that’s in progress right now in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
Only four Republicans broke ranks to oppose the measure—Vern Buchanan and Randy Fine of Florida, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey—and we are grateful for their courage.
Five Democrats, however, supported this attack on wolves: Adam Gray and Jim Costa of California, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Henry Cuellar of Texas, and Jared Golden of Maine. Each voted to remove protections for one of America’s most iconic native species.
As we warned lawmakers ahead of the vote, the premise of H.R. 845 is false. There are only about 7,000 wolves across the entire lower 48 states—a total number smaller than the human population of Jackson Hole, Wyo., or Cooperstown, N.Y.—spread across hundreds of millions of acres. Outlandish claims that wolves are marauding the landscape and decimating livestock and pets are out of touch with reality. Not one major dog, cat, or farm animal welfare organization supported this bill, while hundreds opposed it.
The facts tell a very different story.
Coyotes—not wolves—are responsible for 50-70% of sheep and cattle slain by mammalian predators, killing roughly 30 times more sheep and calves than wolves. Wolves are a natural check on coyote populations; when wolves are removed, livestock losses may increase.
Where Congress has already stripped protections, politics has replaced science and cruelty has followed—wolves run down by snowmobiles, caught in steel-jawed leghold traps and neck snares, and attacked by packs of hounds.
Wolves play a critical role in limiting the spread of chronic wasting disease, a fatal, incurable brain sickness now found in 36 states that threatens deer, elk, moose, and the future of hunting itself.
Wolves also prevent deer from overpopulating and causing highway accidents. Deer-vehicle collisions number 1.5 million each year, resulting in $1 billion in damage and roughly 200 human deaths—and they occur primarily in areas without wolves to keep deer populations in check.
Perhaps most troubling, H.R. 845 blocks judicial review of a Congressional decision to revoke Endangered Species Act protections for wolves, preventing courts from hearing a case that wolves are in peril and heading toward a population abyss. That amounts to rigging the system and trampling on the separation of powers.
This fight is not over. As the bill moves to the Senate, we will be deploying the same evidence-based and scientifically rigorous approach emphasizing the public-safety and rule-of-law arguments we developed in the House to stop this reckless legislation and defend America’s wolves.
Taken together, the events of this week underscored the core of our national policy work: dismantling outdated federal mandates that harm animals, undermine public health, waste taxpayer dollars, and calling out special interests who wrongly demonize wildlife.
From pushing Congress to finally end the 84-year-old requirement for animal testing in drug development to challenging the 80-year-old mandate forcing cow’s milk as the only option for children in the NSLP, we are confronting entrenched policies that persist not because they work, but because special interests have protected them. Replacing them with science-based, humane, and fiscally responsible alternatives is exactly why Animal Wellness Action exists.
Thank you for standing with us during a week of high-stakes battles. We will keep fighting—for animals, for science, and for humane, responsible public policy. [act.animalwellnessaction.org/a/awa-donate-em-2025?am=40]
DONATE NOW [act.animalwellnessaction.org/a/awa-donate-em-2025?am=40]
Wayne Pacelle is president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy and a two-time New York Times best-selling author.
[[link removed]] DONATE NOW [[link removed]]
[[link removed]] WEBSITE [[link removed]]
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Animal Wellness Action | 611 Pennsylvania Ave SE #136 | Washington, DC 20003
If you would like to manage your subscription or contribution history, please log into your self-service portal here. [[link removed]]
If you need to you can unsubscribe here: unsubscribe: [link removed]
You can also click here to donate [[link removed]] .
act.animalwellnessaction.org/a/awa-donate-em-2025?am=40 [act.animalwellnessaction.org/a/awa-donate-em-2025?am=40]
A Week of Battles on Capitol Hill Yields Two Major Gains for Animals
We came up just short in efforts in the House to defend wolves, but plan to block anti-wolf measure in the Senate
By Wayne Pacelle
It was one of the most consequential weeks of the year for Animal Wellness Action and for our mission to reform federal policy for responsible animal protection, public health, and stewardship of wildlife. We had quite a series of battles on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers considered three major bills—two that advanced our priorities and one that threatened to roll back critical protections for beleaguered wolves.
The good news first on the signature victories: 1) We broke the dairy industry monopoly on the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), and 2) We are accelerating the transition in drug development away from animal testing.
Monday, on the House floor, lawmakers passed S. 222, legislation that includes key provisions of our Freedom in the School Cafeterias and Lunches (FISCAL) Act, which seeks to deliver plant-based milk options to kids in the NSLP. The dairy lobby engineered a “milk mandate” in the 1940s, and it has persisted throughout the first quarter of the 21st century.
This policy is an example of the way special interests curry favor in Congress to the detriment of regular Americans. Perhaps as many as 40% of kids in the NSLP are lactose intolerant. Millions of them toss the milk away that’s placed on their trays. Those who drink milk that makes them sick typically underperform in the classroom, distracted by stomach pain or something much worse. What’s more, cows go through the rigors of production and other hardships just to see the fluid tossed into the trash. Breeders have engineered them for enormous milk yields—a cow is now producing a staggering 25,000 pounds of milk a year—and this output taxes their system and compromises their well-being.
That bill is now awaiting the president’s signature.
In the Senate, members unanimously passed the FDA Modernization Act 3.0 (S. 355), legislation designed to push forward the plan to wind down animal testing in drug development and accelerate the transition to modern, humane, and scientifically rigorous methods. This is the follow-up to the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 that we passed in 2022 to eliminate the 1938 animal-testing mandate in the law.
When the House passes it soon, as we expect it will, the Congress will be affirming the new direction from the FDA Commissioner to move ahead with human-biology-based screening methods and phase out animal testing in preclinical research. And also this week, we worked with 20 House lawmakers who sent a letter to the director of the National Institutes of Health to move with all deliberate speed to halt the use of primates in invasive testing—a second blow this week to the animal research industrial complex.
These wins—reflecting years of effort and persistence—underscore the growing recognition that animal protection, fiscal responsibility, and scientific progress go hand in hand.
U.S. House Votes to Harm Wolves, But We’ll Work to Stop This Bad Idea in the Senate
Yesterday, the House narrowly passed H.R. 845, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lauren Boebert to strip federal protections from gray wolves nationwide. The vote was 211-204, seeking to expand the assault on wolves that’s in progress right now in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
Only four Republicans broke ranks to oppose the measure—Vern Buchanan and Randy Fine of Florida, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey—and we are grateful for their courage.
Five Democrats, however, supported this attack on wolves: Adam Gray and Jim Costa of California, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Henry Cuellar of Texas, and Jared Golden of Maine. Each voted to remove protections for one of America’s most iconic native species.
As we warned lawmakers ahead of the vote, the premise of H.R. 845 is false. There are only about 7,000 wolves across the entire lower 48 states—a total number smaller than the human population of Jackson Hole, Wyo., or Cooperstown, N.Y.—spread across hundreds of millions of acres. Outlandish claims that wolves are marauding the landscape and decimating livestock and pets are out of touch with reality. Not one major dog, cat, or farm animal welfare organization supported this bill, while hundreds opposed it.
The facts tell a very different story.
Coyotes—not wolves—are responsible for 50-70% of sheep and cattle slain by mammalian predators, killing roughly 30 times more sheep and calves than wolves. Wolves are a natural check on coyote populations; when wolves are removed, livestock losses may increase.
Where Congress has already stripped protections, politics has replaced science and cruelty has followed—wolves run down by snowmobiles, caught in steel-jawed leghold traps and neck snares, and attacked by packs of hounds.
Wolves play a critical role in limiting the spread of chronic wasting disease, a fatal, incurable brain sickness now found in 36 states that threatens deer, elk, moose, and the future of hunting itself.
Wolves also prevent deer from overpopulating and causing highway accidents. Deer-vehicle collisions number 1.5 million each year, resulting in $1 billion in damage and roughly 200 human deaths—and they occur primarily in areas without wolves to keep deer populations in check.
Perhaps most troubling, H.R. 845 blocks judicial review of a Congressional decision to revoke Endangered Species Act protections for wolves, preventing courts from hearing a case that wolves are in peril and heading toward a population abyss. That amounts to rigging the system and trampling on the separation of powers.
This fight is not over. As the bill moves to the Senate, we will be deploying the same evidence-based and scientifically rigorous approach emphasizing the public-safety and rule-of-law arguments we developed in the House to stop this reckless legislation and defend America’s wolves.
Taken together, the events of this week underscored the core of our national policy work: dismantling outdated federal mandates that harm animals, undermine public health, waste taxpayer dollars, and calling out special interests who wrongly demonize wildlife.
From pushing Congress to finally end the 84-year-old requirement for animal testing in drug development to challenging the 80-year-old mandate forcing cow’s milk as the only option for children in the NSLP, we are confronting entrenched policies that persist not because they work, but because special interests have protected them. Replacing them with science-based, humane, and fiscally responsible alternatives is exactly why Animal Wellness Action exists.
Thank you for standing with us during a week of high-stakes battles. We will keep fighting—for animals, for science, and for humane, responsible public policy. [act.animalwellnessaction.org/a/awa-donate-em-2025?am=40]
DONATE NOW [act.animalwellnessaction.org/a/awa-donate-em-2025?am=40]
Wayne Pacelle is president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy and a two-time New York Times best-selling author.
[[link removed]] DONATE NOW [[link removed]]
[[link removed]] WEBSITE [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]]
Animal Wellness Action | 611 Pennsylvania Ave SE #136 | Washington, DC 20003
If you would like to manage your subscription or contribution history, please log into your self-service portal here. [[link removed]]
If you need to you can unsubscribe here: unsubscribe: [link removed]
You can also click here to donate [[link removed]] .
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