SAVANNAH, GA – Today, Animal Wellness Action, a Washington, D.C. non-profit focused on promoting legal standards to halt cruelty and to enforce those laws, formally endorsed U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., for re-election to the First Congressional District against Wade Herring.
“We are proud to endorse Buddy Carter for Congress and applaud his tireless work for animals, and the great people of the First District,” said Marty Irby, executive director at Animal Wellness Action. “Buddy Carter knows how to get results in Washington and his hard work and dedication to animal issues helped secure the enactment of the first federal horse protection legislation in half a century, and passage of the FDA Modernization Act to end animal testing mandates at the FDA that drive up drug costs and time to market.”
Buddy Carter has been a leader on numerous animal protection measures in the U.S. House:
- Carter championed the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act in a 2020 House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing and was a key player in securing enactment of the new law to end doping in American horseracing and create a national standard for drug testing and whipping issues. That legislation was the first new federal law enacted since 1971.
- Carter is working to stop needless, costly, and inhumane animal testing. He joined veterinarian Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore. in securing passages of the FDA Modernization Act, H.R. 2565, through the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee and full House Energy and Commerce Committee this year. Following Carter’s lead, subsequently, Senators Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., led the charge to pass the measure through the U.S. Senate that would end animal testing mandates at the FDA by amending the 1938 statute – a Depression-era requirement for animal testing for all new drug development protocols and allow for alternative methods when validated.
- Carter led the House floor debate in support of the U.S. Senator Joseph D. Tydings Memorial Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act in 2019. That legislation would end the painful practice of intentionally injuring of Tennessee Walking, Racking, and Spotted Saddle Horses to achieve an artificial high step known as the ‘Big Lick’ that’s prized in the Southeastern U.S., and ultimately cleared the chamber by a vote of 333 to 96. Carter also voted in support of the measure in a committee hearing again last month.
- Carter is one of the original coauthors of the Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act that would establish a dedicated division at the U.S. Dept. of Justice to better enforce anti-cockfighting laws, the Horse Protection Act, and numerous other anti-cruelty laws on the books.
Buddy Carter has cosponsored and backed a broad range of other important reforms:
- Carter cosponsored and voted for the Big Cat Public Safety Act, that would bar private citizens from keeping dangerous carnivores like lions and tigers in our communities;
- Carter cosponsored the Veterans for Mustangs Act that would help prevent abuses of our iconic American wild horses and burros living on federal lands by the federal Bureau of Land Management and provide an outlet to help veterans with Post Traumatic Stress.
- Carter joined a letter to the U.S. Postal Service Inspector calling on the Inspector to crackdown against illegal animal fighting shipments to Guam and other countries throughout the world. Dogfighting and cockfighting, are often bound up with illegal gambling, narcotics trafficking, and human-on-humane violence.
- Carter cosponsored the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act that would ban the trade in shark fins in the U.S;
- Carter cosponsored the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act that President Donald J. Trump signed into law in 2019 – the very first animal cruelty statute enacted in American history;
- Carter joined a letter calling on the USDA to crackdown against the painful practice of soring at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, the event where most of the abuse occurs in the showring.