On the heels of a contentious House Agriculture Committee hearing on California's Proposition 12 and U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson's introduction of the Save Our Bacon Act this week, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16) has reintroduced the Pigs and Public Health Act. First introduced in July 2024, the current bill would require a joint report by the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that tracks pathogens associated with nonambulatory, or “downed” pigs. The bill aims to establish improved, species-specific regulations ensuring proper handling and humane treatment of downed pigs – swine that cannot stand or walk unassisted– during transport, slaughter and on-farm with the goal of reducing downed pigs from entering the food supply and threatening public health.
“For years, Congress has failed to support regulations in the U.S. pork industry that ensure safe working conditions, the prioritization of public health, and humane treatment for farmed animals," said Congresswoman Escobar. "The risk that downed pigs pose to public health continues to be unaddressed even as we see the rise of animal-based illnesses like bird flu and maintained use of a factory farming model that increases the likelihood of infectious diseases in humans from animal origins. That is why the Pigs and Public Health Act is such an important step in the right direction.”
The 2024 legislation, H. R. 8994, directed only the Secretary of Agriculture to remove nonambulatory pigs from the United States food system as well as establish an online portal for confidential complaints and for other purposes.
This is not the first PIGS Act the congresswoman has introduced. In 2022, Escobar along with Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), presented bi-partisan legislation to ban gestation crates nationwide. H.R.7004, also referenced as the Pigs in Gestation Stalls (PIGS) Act, aimed to "amend the Animal Welfare Act to prohibit the confinement of pregnant pigs, and for other purposes."