WASHINGTON (KMOX) - This is at least the third time Congress will vote on a bill to make animal cruelty a crime punishable "to the fullest extent of the law." Two Florida congressmen reintroduced a bipartisan bill that would make malicious acts of animal cruelty and bestiality a felony under federal law.
The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, sponsored by Rep. Ted Deutch, D-West Boca, and Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, would make "crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating and impaling animals" a crime that carries a sentence of up to seven years. The PACT Act also included the sexual exploitation of animals them, reports the Orlando Sentinel.
The measure has been passed by the Senate multiple times in recent years, but was blocked from vote by former Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, who is no longer in Congress.
The Humane Society of the United States is in agreement with the bill, hoping it would close a loophole from a 2010 law, which only applied when a video was being produced.
The Humane Society Legislative Fund believes the bill has a better chance of passage this time around and thinks it could reduce other types of crime.
"Decades ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recognized the seriousness of animal cruelty and its link to escalating violence toward humans," president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund Sara Amundson said.
Currently, all U.S. states carry varying lengths of jail time for those convicted of animal cruelty, although some penalties are considered a misdemeanor, according to the Humane Society.