Inside D.C.

Nothing historic about this Farm Bill

The Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) and its Washington Post apologist Kathleen Parker, who writes “a twice weekly column on politics and culture,” would have us believe the recently approved 2018 Farm Bill will “do more for animal rights – therefore for humanity – than any previous legislation in recent history.”

Never has a Farm Bill been given such gravitas with so little justification for exaggeration.

Parker asserts flatly this gift to animals and ourselves is “thanks to the unstoppable Wayne Pacelle, former chief executive of HSUS now part of Animal Wellness Action, a political action committee…” Two facts of note:  Pacelle went from apparently selfless championing of animals to start a PAC to raise and spend money on on influencing elections; Parker’s son worked for HSUS until April, 2017.

From the February 2 New York Times: “The chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States resigned on Friday after sexual harassment allegations against him prompted an uprising from staff and donors.”  Parker rightly shares Pacelle’s denials of any untoward behavior toward the women in his office, dating to 2005, but she also goes on to assert he was “the hardest worker in the office and around the globe.”

All things being relative, I’m sure within the animal rights movement, Pacelle was/is a dynamo.  However, when it comes to how animal rights language got into the 2018 Farm Bill, it has less to do with HSUS and a lot to do with agriculture.

There are three chunks of animal language in the Farm Bill.  One is the third run at animal fighting; the second makes it illegal to slaughter dogs and cats for meat or sell said meat, and the third provides federal dollars to a program that facilitates the victims of domestic abuse, allowing them to remove their pets from violent homes, taking those pets with them to shelters.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the presence of this language in the Farm Bill is simply because organized agriculture did not object to it being included, despite the movement’s depiction of farmers and ranchers as insensitive and anti-animal.  Lawmakers asked, and animal agriculture answered:  We don’t have a dog in that fight.

However, when it comes to the animal fighting language, this is the third time HSUS has reopened the federal criminal code using the Farm Bill.  The first was when it sought to make animal fighting a federal crime about a decade or more ago, and then again in 2014 when it amended that first section to make it a crime to attend or take a minor child to an already federally illegal event, and now this pass to extend the original federal criminality to all U.S. territories and protectorates.  The obvious question is why all of this wasn’t done the first time around?

As to dog and cat slaughter and meat sales, by the animal rights movement’s admission, this is a practice essentially unknown in the U.S.  However, Parker explains it thus: “For now, we can be grateful the U.S. is poised to put the rest of the world on notice that we’ll pursue a global ban on the consumption of dogs and cats.”  Okay…

Some argued that procedurally, the pet inclusion in the domestic abuse program is well, not germane to a bill designed to foster food production, nutrition, exports, research, etc.   However, agriculture didn’t object.

The movement needs a win on Capitol Hill as its influence has waned dramatically in recent years. As much as agriculture loathes doing anything that may lend credibility to the animal rights movement,  HSUS’s political strategy to for this low-hanging political fruit caused no one a sleepless night.  It’s the truly stupid stuff that keeps us up at night.

However, in Congress, absent the Farm Bill and agriculture’s willingness to let the animal language ride along, no one’s paying a whole lot of attention to the animal right movement.

There’s something for Pacelle to work on, and Parker to write about.