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This will hurt pet owners who travel within the united states

Blueberry

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Sharing this from another forum. This new ACT would affect many of us in the States. IF you are against this and are in the United States please call your Representatives. Please use the links provided for more information. Feel free to share.we

Update: PASSED THE HOUSE NOW GOING TO THE SENATE!


ALERT: America COMPETES Act of 2022 Lacey Act Amendments | USARK - United States Association of Reptile Keepers

usark.org
usark.org


Buried within the 2,912 pages of the America COMPETES Act of 2022 lie Lacey Act amendments that affect all non-domesticated pet owners and the greater pet community. COMPETES is an acronym for Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength. The stated purpose of the Act is to strengthen America’s economic and national security but obviously, this was slipped into the massive bill in hopes to go unnoticed.


The amendments would reverse the USARK federal lawsuit victory by reinstating the ban on interstate transportation of species listed as injurious under the Lacey Act. The bill would also create a “white list” (see #2 below) that could affect millions of pet owners, as well as pet businesses. If your species of interest, even your pet, is listed as injurious (which could happen because it can survive outside somewhere in the U.S.), then it cannot be transported across state lines. That means you could not even take a pet with you if you moved to another state or needed veterinary care across a state border. This does not just ban sales but prohibits all interstate transportation. This will trickle down to hundreds or thousands of common pet species.
The America COMPETES Act may pass in the House next week. If passed in the House, it will then be sent to the Senate to be reconciled with an innovation policy package called the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, or USICA, that passed in the Senate last year. The America COMPETES Act is the House Democrats’ response to USICA (which does not contain the Lacey Act Amendment). The House Rules Committee will hear the America COMPETES Act on February 1, 2022. It may go to a House floor vote the next day. This is the same language we saw introduced by Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Senate Bill 626 in 2021.


Briefly, the amendments will:


Provide that the Lacey Act bans the interstate transport of species listed as injurious. Specifically, it replaces Lacey’s current language ‘‘shipment between the continental United States’’ with ‘‘transport between the States.”Create a “white list” of species that can be imported. This means that any animal (reptile, amphibian, fish,
bird, mammal, invertebrate) that is not on the white list is by default treated as an injurious species and is banned from importation.Create a new authority allowing FWS to use an “emergency designation” that becomes effective immediately after being published in the Federal Register unless an extension of no more than 60 days is allowed. That means no due process, public input, hearings, advanced notice, etc. for injurious listings.Permit FWS to not allow importation if a species has not been imported in “minimal quantities” (to be defined) in the year prior to the enactment of this Act.The effective date would be one year after the enactment of this Act.

Read the relevant amendment text (these are pages 1661-1665) at https://usark.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-HR4521-excerpt.pdf.


We will provide more details on actions to take.

In our landmark court decision, four federal judges agreed that USARK was correct and that the Lacey Act (Title 18 Section 42 of the U.S. Code) did not ban interstate transportation of injurious species based on the original language of the Lacey Act and the intent of Congress. As a result of this fight for our members and the community, this meant animals domestically bred under human care could be moved and sold across state lines (within the continental United States).


The entire America COMPETES Act can be read at https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-117HR4521RH-RCP117-31.pdf
 

sunnysmom

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Wow. That's going to cause a lot of problems for bird owners.
 

A.K

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Wait, I’m confused… What does this mean - In simple English? English isn’t my first language…
 

rocky'smom

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Simple English if want go visit a friend in a another state we can not take our birds with us. If we want to move to another state we can not take our birds with us.
 

rocky'smom

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Holy heck is all I'm going say.
 

A.K

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Simple English if want go visit a friend in a another state we can not take our birds with us. If we want to move to another state we can not take our birds with us.
Omg, really? No way! Can they even do that? I mean, really?! When is this going to be put in effect?
 

Tazlima

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More simple notes:

By "whitelist" they mean a list of pre-approved species.

Any animal NOT on that list would be automatically illegal to transport across state lines (The word "transport" is important. It previously said "ship." Transport can mean anything - put your bird in the car and drive? Illegal. Go for a hike that crosses a state line with your bird in a backpack? Illegal. Last time I traveled with my birds, it was to evacuate for a hurricane. I drove across three states to visit my sister. That would be illegal under this law.

The way it's written, most pet birds, fish, and reptiles would not be permitted on the list, because they're basing the criteria on how many were imported in the past year. They have an exception for animals that were transported across state lines a lot, but there's no good way to measure that; there's barely any documentation... especially in species that are already illegal to ship.

I know, for sure, my Quaker wouldn't make the whitelist, because they're already banned in several states, which would probably automatically disqualify them, so if I wanted to move out of state, I'd have to either break the law or rehome him within the state.

I'm curious about how granular the list would be (e.g. would it permit "finches", or only "zebra finches" and "gouldian finches", making every other species of finch illegal to transport?) Looks like you can ask for an animal to be added to the list, but if that request is turned down, is there any kind of appeal process?

And what about hybrids? Where would they stand?
 
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rocky'smom

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@A.K It hasn't passed the federal senate yet but it was added to another bill and slipped under the radar. This what I said in the other thread in bird Boulevard, dirty pool it's just plain and simply dirty pool.
 

Pepebirdie

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How long will it take to pass/not pass senate? How much time do we have?
 

rocky'smom

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Best thing we all can do is CONTACT your federal U.S. senators and congress people via email, snail mail, any means possible. Let them know your feelings on the issue. Make it loud and clear that most of our beloved birds are born &raised here in the USA. There is darn little imports from other countries.
 

Tanya

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I think the bill overall shouldn't be held up by this, but if possible this section should be removed in the Senate. It is already counter to a supreme court decision, and a challenge in the courts would likely get it stricken (removed from law) pretty fast.

It should be the right of each state to decide what it will and will not allow to be transported in and out of its borders. Plus, enforcement would be a nightmare. They'd have to set up a whole animal transportation inspection network at every state border crossing... And that's not gonna happen without a whole mess of government spending and public outcry.
 

flyzipper

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The preeminent "injurious species" would be the outdoor and/or feral domestic cat.

We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.
(source)

If the attempts to apply that label to our birds weren't so serious, it would be laughable in comparison.
 

Sparkles99

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Cat should be indoors.

As for this, I think any species with a decent chance of getting established may be banned (quakers, as mentioned, but also cherry headed conures).
 

Sparkles!

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Per my legislators:

“The interpretation of this would be commercial ventures only. So long as interstate travel is allowed of your pets, meaning your pet is not CITES or Lacey Act, you will be fine.”

Hmmm. Much thinking to be done.
:yoda:
 

Blueberry

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If anyone one wants to contact their senator, here is a link with a link to Senators and their contact numbers
According to the other forum I'm apart of this bill has been brought to the house multiple times but this year is the first time it passed and has gone to the Senate .
 

sunnysmom

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The potential impact is huge. For instance, our rescue had an emergency situation where we had to find places for 40 birds. The rescue has a good relationship with a rescue in Ohio, and they took half the birds for us. If this passes, that won't be possible. It would impact zoo breeding programs, etc. Even moving to another state with your bird.
 

A.K

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How are breeders going continue their businesses? I mean, how’ll they ship birds to people in other states?
 

rocky'smom

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@A.K. They won't be able to ship birds, reptiles and you will not be able to go pick up your bird either. It will be a stop for all pet Industries such breeding and rescues.
Sadly people irresponsible people will release their birds reptiles into the wild where it will not survive.
 
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