APA Services and the APA Committee on Animal Research Ethics offered language to help shape a letter and summary to protect ethical animal research in congressional appropriations. Each year members of Congress who are allied with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and other organizations that oppose all federal research with non-human animals, advocate within the appropriations process to end or limit specific areas of research, even when it conforms to ethical and institutional guidelines. APA was proud to collaborate with the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and other scientific associations in an effort to head off any congressional appropriations language that limits research on non-human animals. The cosigning organizations will continue to work together through the congressional appropriations cycle to ensure that language that limits or ends certain lines of research does not become law.
The House Appropriations Committee has written and approved all twelve appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2023, but most have not been considered by the full House. The Senate is still developing its legislation. These bills are required to pass (or a temporary bill to fund the government) by September 30, 2022. Because appropriations bills must pass in order to fund the government, the bills are often targets of amendments or language that would limit federal funding for certain purposes. Anti-animal research organizations and their congressional supporters, as well as pro-science organizations and their supporters, try to engage with that process. Additional information will be available as the funding bills are passed and conferenced.
For more information contact Pat Kobor.