KNOXVILLE, TN – 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. Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, and Diana Harshbarger, R-Kingsport, for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives.
“We are proud to endorse Tim Burchett and Diana Harshbarger for Congress and applaud their tireless work for animals and Tennesseans alike,” said Marty Irby, executive director at Animal Wellness Action, and a past president of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ & Exhibitors’ Association. “Tim and Diana are both a refreshing breath of fresh air in Congress who have integrity and real guts. They are friends to animals who continue to support practical legislation to protect the voiceless and drive down drug costs for consumers.”
Reps. Tim Burchett and Diana Harshbarger have cosponsored and backed a broad range of important reforms:
- Burchett and Harshbarger are working to stop needless, costly, and inhumane animal testing as cosponsors of the FDA Modernization Act. The Senate companion bill introduced by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and 11 other bipartisan Senators passed the Senate by Unanimous Consent in September. The measure 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, allow for alternative methods when validated, and help reduce drug costs and time to market for Tennesseans.
- Burchett and Harshbarger both cosponsored and voted in support of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, that would bar private citizens from keeping dangerous carnivores like lions and tigers in our communities;
- Burchett and Harshbarger supported a bipartisan measure that passed the House by a voice vote in 2021 and would have ended the transport of horses bound for slaughter for human consumption in countries like China, Japan, and North Korea.
- Burchett voted in support of the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act in 2019, that would end the soring of Tennessee Walking Horses, going against the grain, and the rest of the Republican Congressional Delegation from Tennessee;
- • Burchett cosponsored an appropriations amendment in 2020, to provide more funding for the USDA’s Office of Inspector General to crackdown against cockfighting and horse soring that runs rampant in the Volunteer State;
- Harshbarger joined a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2021 to address a terrible policy implemented by the Biden Administration that banned the import of canines from 113 countries and has separated countless American heroes in the military, American citizens, and Diplomats from their pets.