Animal-protection bills up to House

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003 | 8:21 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Animal protection measures approved by the Senate late last week still have legislative hoops to jump through in the House before they can become law.

On Friday, the Senate approved a bill introduced in January by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and other senators that bans shipments of large cats such as lions and tigers across state lines to anyone other than zoos, exhibitors and those qualified to handle and care for the animals.

A similar bill in the House, introduced in February by Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif. passed through the House Resources Committee in September and awaits a floor vote.

Brian Kennedy, committee communications director, said Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., supported the bill in committee and now it is up to the leadership to determine when the bill would move to the floor.

He discounted rumors that Pombo was holding up the bill because of interests by an animal entertainment company, which some people say sees the bill as a slippery slope for other big-cat trade restrictions.

Kennedy said Pombo is "not doing anything in any way, shape or form to hold up the bill" and said the bill has nothing to do with entertainers but instead aims to limit unqualified people from buying and selling the animals.

He cautioned that this bill would not have prevented the attack on magician Roy Horn last month.

The majority whip's office did not return calls about where the bill was on the House vote schedule.

Meanwhile, the Senate also also approved Ensign's effort for tougher penalties for raising and transporting animals for the purpose of fighting. The Senate included an amendment in the Healthy Forest bill passed last Thursday.

The language makes transporting animals across state lines a felony punishable by a prison sentence of up to two years. It also bans the transportation of tools designed for animal fighting such as cockfighting.

In the House, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., and Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., have a similar bill still pending.

A Bartlett spokeswoman said his bill has 119 cosponsors and he is working with members of both parties in the House to get it through Congress.

She called the Senate's action "very helpful" for the bill and said that Bartlett is "optimistic on final approval during this Congress."

A spokeswoman for the House Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction on the bill, said no hearings or votes on the stand-alone bill have been scheduled and that is was too early to tell what would come out of the conference with the House on the final bill.