NEW ORLEANS, LA – Animal Wellness Action announced its endorsement of U.S. Rep. Troy Carter in his re-election effort for the 2nd Congressional District of Louisiana, hailing him as one of the leading animal welfare advocates in the entire Congress.
Within weeks after he took office in 2021, Congressman Carter offered a bipartisan amendment in a legislative markup of the $1 trillion national infrastructure bill to ban the live export of horses for human consumption that was ultimately adopted as a House floor amendment. Unfortunately, a House-Senate conference committee on the infrastructure bill dropped the anti-slaughter provision, but the passage of the bill in the House was the first successful effort in that chamber since 2007 to ban live export of American horses to Canada and Mexico for slaughter. Carter’s Animal Wellness Action-backed amendment saw more than 325 equine and animal groups, organizations, rescues, and businesses in support of the measure including the parent company that operates the New Orleans Fairgrounds Racecourse.
In 2022, Rep. Carter initiated a campaign to address the dairy industry’s monopoly in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) that is forcing a food staple onto the breakfast and lunch trays of millions of kids of color. Because about three-quarters of African Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans and Latinos are lactose intolerant, children are getting sick or they are throwing away the product, undercutting the purposes of nutrition assistance and contributing to a massive food waste problem in schools. It is also an animal welfare issue because cows have been re-engineered to produce massive volumes of milk in excess of 25,000 pounds a year) that taxes their health and produces lameness, mastitis, and shortened lifespans. You can read his letter here, with 30 other signatories in the House. His campaign has been endorsed by Animal Wellness Action, Switch4Good, the Congressional Black Caucus, National Urban League president and CEO and former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
“Troy Carter has quickly emerged as one of the leading lawmakers in the Congress on animal welfare issues, continuing the leadership he showed on these issues when he served in the Louisiana Senate,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action. “He’s fighting to stop large-scale mistreatment of animals and identifying the intersection of these concerns with children’s nutrition, food waste, and social violence. He is making things happen in Congress.”
- Needless Animal Testing. He is a cosponsor of the FDA Modernization Act to stop costly, inhumane, and often counterproductive animal testing. The measure would end an animal testing mandate for all new drug development protocols and allow for alternative methods when validated, helping reduce drug costs and time to market for palliatives and cures. Senator John Kennedy is a co-lead of the Senate companion bill, and that measure has passed the Senate and is expected to gain final clearance in the House before the year ends.
- Banning Mink Farming. Rep. Carter cosponsored the MINKS Are Superspreaders Act to ban mink farming in the U.S. With Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., they passed this provision in the U.S. House as an amendment to the USA COMPETES Act. The larger bill is being negotiated by key House and Senate lawmakers.
- Shark Finning. The Congressman cosponsored the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act to ban the trade in the fins of sharks destined for soup pots. This bill cleared the House and the Senate as an amendment and also stands a strong chance of enactment.
- Combating Horse Show Abuses. He is a cosponsor of the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act that would end one of the most egregious abuses in the equine show world, the painful practice of ‘soring’ Tennessee Walking Horses.