[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 21]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 29855]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 1904, HEALTHY FORESTS RESTORATION ACT 
                                OF 2003

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ROBERT E. ANDREWS

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 18, 2003

  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join with my colleague, the 
Honorable Bartlett in asking the members appointed as conferees of H.R. 
1904 to preserve the language, approved by our Senate colleagues, 
enhancing the penalties for interstate commerce in cockfighting and dog 
fighting. Our freestanding legislation (H.R. 1532), which I have co-
sponsored with Mr. Bartlett, already has the bipartisan support of 122 
cosponsors, and we are confident of the strong support for this 
legislation in the House. The House has also previously approved an 
amendment to the farm bill that covered the core provision of our 
legislation: increasing the maximum jail time to allow for the 
imposition of felony-level penalties for violations of Section 26 of 
the Animal Welfare Act.
  We are not aware of any organizational opposition to the legislation, 
except from groups and individuals directly involved in dogfighting and 
cockfighting activities. On the other hand, we have secured 
endorsements from a wide range of veterinary, animal welfare, 
agricultural, and law enforcement organizations. In fact, more than 80 
state and local law enforcement agencies have endorsed this 
legislation, as a necessary complement to their law enforcement 
efforts.
  We believe that animal welfare warrants passage of the legislation. 
Both dogfighting and cockfighting involve animals pumped up with 
stimulants to make them more aggressive, whose handlers force them to 
keep fighting even as they suffer terrible injuries. Children are often 
exposed to these violent spectacles and taught that such animal 
suffering is enjoyable entertainment. Some dogfighters steal family 
pets to use as bait for training their dogs. Others abandon their 
fighting dogs, leaving them to roam and wreak havoc in our 
neighborhoods, or end up at animal shelters where they cannot be 
adopted due to their aggressive training. All in all, animal fighting 
is a brutal business that merits serious penalties.
  However, there is also an economic reason to enact this legislation. 
In the fall of 2002, there was an outbreak of Exotic Newcastle Disease 
in southern California. The California state veterinarian has 
documented that the network of cockfighting enthusiasts in the 
Southwest was primarily responsible for the dramatic spread of this 
avian disease--which resulted in quarantines in California, Arizona, 
Nevada and Texas, and an extreme disruption of normal agricultural 
practices. Before the containment effort was completed, the federal 
government spent $200 million on containment and compensation, and 
ordered the killing of 3.8 million birds, primarily from commercial 
poultry operations. As a result, the Texas Poultry Federation and other 
agricultural organizations have embraced our legislation. By increasing 
the penalties for animal fighting, we may be able to shrink the size of 
the cockfighting industry and prevent future outbreaks of END, or other 
diseases that jeopardize our agriculture industry.
  I thank the conferees for their consideration and hope that they will 
agree to include the Senate-passed animal fighting provisions in the 
final Healthy Forests legislation.

                          ____________________