Extreme animal cruelty can now be prosecuted as a federal crime.
The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act was authorized by President Trump this week.
All 50 states have felony provisions against animal cruelty.
And in 2010, Congress made illegal the creation and distribution of “animal crush videos”—in which people film the brutal killing, mutilation, and torture of creatures for sale and distribution online.
Yet, the underlying acts of brutality remained constitutional.
Introduced earlier this year by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), the PACT Act helps close this loophole by prohibiting certain cases of animal abuse—crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling, etc.
After passing unanimously in the House and Senate, the legislation was enacted on Monday.
“Animal cruelty is no longer just unacceptable, it is now illegal,” Deutch said in a statement. “We can now finally say that animal abuse is a federal crime in the United States.”
Those convicted will face federal felony charges, fines, and up to seven years in prison.
The law contains exceptions for normal veterinary care, hunting, and conduct necessary to protect life or property from threat caused by an animal.
“Animals are deserving of protection at the highest level,” according to Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.
“The approval of this measure by the Congress and the president marks a new era in the codification of kindness to animals within federal law,” she said in a statement. “For decades, a national anti-cruelty law was a dream for animal protectionists. Today, it is a reality.”
“We cannot change the horrors of what animals have endured in the past, but we can crack down on these crimes moving forward,” Humane Society Legislative Fund President Sara Amundson said. “This is a day to celebrate.”
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