- Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) takes apart the flawed Big Cat Public Safety Act
Published by -NAWA News Feed- in -Legislation- · Friday 04 Dec 2020
Transcript and video of Rep. Rob Bishop, (R-UT) exposing the
flawed "Big Cat Public Safety Act" on the House floor.
December 3, 2020.
"All right, with apologies Madam Speaker, lions and tigers and bears Oh my, I have to say that before somebody else does it. But we also have to realize, as we're going through the “Kleinanzeigen” of this day's efforts that this is one of those “Kleinanzeigen” and coming again here, and we should also realize that “Oz” was not reality, it was a movie. And that reality TV is not that of which basic base should be the basis of public policy.
This bill, contrary to what I've been hearing so far is not about protecting the public from big cats. It is about hurting small family run zoos across the country it is a power play of some kind, which is one of the reasons why the Zoological Association of America, expressed their grave concerns with this bill in a very pointed letter addressed to the Committee Chairman, that this represents an unwarranted federal intrusion into the rights and responsibilities of wildlife exhibitors and will have significant negative impacts on federally licensed through illogical facilities, like, the issue is that under current law.
Anyone that has one of these exhibitions must obtain a class C exhibitor license, and that is given by the United States Department of Agriculture, under the Animal Welfare Act. So a licensee under the Animal Welfare Act has to abide by all the rules that govern housing and keeping and care of the animals, and are subject to unannounced inspections, under the direction of the Department of Agriculture, and it's doing its job it's doing its job effectively and efficiently.
This bill ignores all of that under the guise of, you know, animal welfare denying responsible federal licensed facilities and predicating these class exemptions on animal rights ideology, not necessarily the policy of what has been taken during the past.
What happens now is that this particular bill has special interest groups have been drafted it now amends the Lacey Act, not the Animal Welfare Act, but the Lacey Act, and now have the Department of Interior, being the ones who are responsible for what is going on here. So what is illegal now, under the Lacey Act changes would be legal under the Animal Welfare Act which is still going to be on the books.
If nothing else, we should actually ask those people who are responsible for this bill, just to complain and try and make sure they write the bill that is consistent so you don't have conflicting acts. Because you have conflicting policy with this, and this bill also provides some huge loopholes for big well funded zoos, and will crush those small, but well regulated private facilities.
That's not the way we should be running that particular policy, but smaller facilities are well regulated. It's done by the Department of Agriculture, there are specific rules and guidelines, the laws are specific and they are there. What this bill will do is put conflicting guidelines, which means passing this bill if you wish, but doesn't well, very little chance of actually going all the way, but even if you want to pass this bill, you're going to have to come back and fix the two because you have now two bills that are still on the books that are in conflict.
So least do it the right way. This bill was pushed by special interest groups, it's poor policy. That is not backed by science but it's backed by right radical ideology, and it does not fit the reality of what is taking place.
The Department of Agriculture is doing their functions properly and effectively and efficiently, and we should not pass this bill, with all the significant things we could be doing. And especially in a lame duck session with all the stuff we could do with the pandemic.
We're both Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate agree on so many things, so much low hanging fruit, we could easily pass something that would have a major impact, something that would be real, or actually put the “NDA” on here and do something that's real, or actually come to an agreement on the, on a “CR” at least if not the resolutions of all our appropriations, that would be big that would be sufficient.
That would be worthy of us actually coming back here to the floor today. But instead, we are coming here coming closer to eight o'clock at night, dealing with the small stuff. The insignificant stuff that's not going to go further.
Throughout this, the process which I guess is one of the reasons I think we should be happy at least we know this will be the last time that this will be discussed here on the in the Capitol building at any time. But we, as a Congress, we could do much better. We ought to do much better. We ought not to spend our time coming up here dealing with the “Kleinanzeigen”.
With that, do you have any more speakers? In case you're going to close. Then I'll yield back.
Thank you Madam Speaker, appreciate."
