Recent history of state legislative action promoted several state senators and representatives to sponsor new legislation, called the Aware Act, to extended coverage to animals, including farm animals. Representative Mike Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, sponsored the bill in the House, along with Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, and various Senator sponsors including Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat. The bill intends to extend Federal AWA to cover cows, pigs, sheep’s, and other utilized for agricultural research at federal facilities, including the United States Meat Animal Research Center in Nebraska. Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture, has increased protections farm animals. These small steps are vital towards increasing legislations to …show more content…
In 2002, the Farm Sanctuary lead the ban of gestation crates in Florida. In 2004, they fostered the ban of both production and sale of foie grad in California. In 2006, the Farm Sanctuary with HSUS lead the ban of gestation and veal crates in Arizona. Towards the beginning of this year, 9 states no longer engage in gestation crates, 8 states banned the use of veal creates, and 5 states ban or restricted the use of battery cages. Even though, more states are joining in the fight against cruel farming practices there has been pushback with anti-animal legislations. The series of anti-legislations, called "Ag Gag" or "whistleblowers suppression," are orchestrated to criminalize undercover investigations in order to cover-up the truth of inhumane practices that occur in farms. The Ag Gag bills is a rebuttal from the meat industries to any individual who tries to investigate farmed animals. Likewise, the federal government has tried to push for legislations addressing the issues of animal confinement and farmed animals but it was meet with intense