Sec. 3. Findings
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Congress finds that— factory farms owned or controlled by industrial operators— lack systemic resilience; present significant risks, particularly in the event of a disaster; and negatively impact— farmed animals, who suffer tremendously from cruel depopulation methods and without meaningful disaster mitigation efforts; meat and poultry processing workers, who are subjected to exploitative conditions and abusive behavior by employers in depopulation situations— including— being required to spend long hours, over days or weeks, mass-killing farmed animals; and being terminated following the completion of a depopulation event, without financial support; and that lead to long-term psychological impacts, including increased feelings of anger and stress; and neighboring communities and the environment, including through— flood waters overrunning manure lagoons resulting in ecological degradation in the form of soil, surface, and groundwater contamination; algae blooms; and wildlife population crashes; since 2019, more than 60,000,000 poultry and 10,000,000 swine have been depopulated; and those massive cullings are often conducted using incredibly inhumane practices including ventilation shutdown, ventilation shutdown plus, sodium nitrite poisoning, and water-based foaming (as those terms are defined in section 114(a)); since 2019, industrial operators put slaughterhouse workers in jeopardy and cost taxpayers millions of dollars; industrial operators continue to experience record profits, including a 300-percent growth in profits during the COVID–19 pandemic; industrial operators have created a system that allows for the inhumane handling of nonambulatory livestock (as defined in section 3(a) of Public Law 85–765 (commonly known as the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958 )) that causes needless suffering, unsafe working conditions, and the spread of foodborne and zoonotic diseases; industrial operators have abused the use of certain drugs that increase the risk of livestock becoming nonambulatory livestock (as so defined); slaughterhouse deregulation and decreased Federal oversight of meat and poultry slaughter pose significant risks to workers, consumers, and animals;
Federal humane slaughter laws currently exempt 98 percent of animals slaughtered for food; current Federal animal transport laws are ineffective and inherently cruel; and Federal support is needed to create a level playing field for farmers engaged in higher-welfare practices who are struggling to compete in a highly monopolized market controlled by industrial operators.
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- Pub. L. 85-765
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Sec. 3
Findings
Pub. L.Pub. L. 85-765
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