Lacey Act 2022

YungRasputin

Arachnobaron
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
403
was hoping to start a thread where we could update and monitor this bill as it passes through the American chambers - for those unfamiliar of what is going on there is a summation below - at the time of writing this USARK reports: “this bill passed in the House and will go to the Senate. We will adjust our alert to contact Senators at the appropriate time. It was a slim margin with the final vote at 222-210”

description:

“Buried within the 2,912 pages of the America COMPETES Act of 2022 (HR4521) lie Lacey Act amendments that affect all non-domesticated pet/animal (i.e. all animals except dogs, cats, and traditional farm animals) owners. COMPETES is an acronym for Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength. The stated purpose of the Act is to strengthen America’s economic and national security but obviously, this was slipped into the massive bill in hopes to go unnoticed.

The amendments would reverse the USARK federal lawsuit victory by reinstating the ban on interstate transportation of species listed as injurious under the Lacey Act. The bill would also create a “white list” (see #2 below) that could affect millions of pet owners, as well as pet businesses. Could your pet or species of interest (not just reptiles) potentially survive in southern Florida or any other location in the U.S.? Then it could be listed as injurious for just that reason! If this passes and your species of interest, even your pet, is listed as injurious, then it cannot be transported across state lines. That means you could not even take a pet with you if you moved to another state or needed veterinary care across a state border. This does not just ban sales but prohibits all interstate transportation and importation into the U.S. This will trickle down to hundreds or thousands of common pet species.”

link:
 

l4nsky

Aspiring Mad Genius
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<CENSORED>!!!

I was hoping it wouldn't advance. I've been watching this since USARK sent out the alert and this is NOT good news. The way they're framing this law as it's sole purpose is to "counter China's influence on manufacturing and research development" is something that both sides of the aisle can bite on and neither side wants to be accused of preventing. IMO, this has a serious chance of passing and honestly I'm deeply concerned about the future of all exotic animal hobbies here in the states.
 

YungRasputin

Arachnobaron
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
403
<CENSORED>!!!

I was hoping it wouldn't advance. I've been watching this since USARK sent out the alert and this is NOT good news. The way they're framing this law as it's sole purpose is to "counter China's influence on manufacturing and research development" is something that both sides of the aisle can bite on and neither side wants to be accused of preventing. IMO, this has a serious chance of passing and honestly I'm deeply concerned about the future of all exotic animal hobbies here in the states.
big same - this seems to have the potential to kill the entire arachnid keeping, snake keeping, etc hobbies outright - there would be no way to recover and only people in specific cities in the US would be able to obtain exotics if at all
 

AvicRugby09

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 31, 2020
Messages
7
Pokie keeping gonna be screwed. I don’t get it, captive breeding is literally what is keeping a bunch of species around. If I own a captive bred species bought through a proper vendor I should be able to move it if I move.
 

CJJon

Arachnokrólewicz
Joined
Oct 28, 2018
Messages
601
If passed, it would allow for banning of animals capable of zoonosis - It's a Covid precaution.

Which means any animal, pretty much.
 

jrh3

Araneae
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Jun 4, 2011
Messages
1,333
This would be very bad for the hobby. I hope it doesn’t come to this but, cocaine is illegal yet its still being sold. The hobby will scar but not die.
 

YungRasputin

Arachnobaron
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
403
This would be very bad for the hobby. I hope it doesn’t come to this but, cocaine is illegal yet its still being sold. The hobby will scar but not die.
shine and cannabis are illegal lots of places too - not a good way to live tbh but i get what you mean

Pokie keeping gonna be screwed. I don’t get it, captive breeding is literally what is keeping a bunch of species around. If I own a captive bred species bought through a proper vendor I should be able to move it if I move.
this would effect virtually every animal that’s not native to the US or considered domesticated (which there exists no cat on earth who is domesticated so what this actually is supposed to mean who knows) - if i am understanding the bill correctly this would even include my beta fish as they’re endemic to Thailand and could be seen as “invasive”
 

Smotzer

ArachnoGod
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5,275
I see this as passing unless we have some secret tarantula/snake/reptile keeping senators
 

YungRasputin

Arachnobaron
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
403
I see this as passing unless we have some secret tarantula/snake/reptile keeping senators
same - shoved into a 3,000 page bill the Democrats are determined to pass and involves an issue no one outside of the exotic animal world is going to care about because it doesn’t effect them - yet another casualty of America’s pathological individualism
 

emartinm28

Arachnoknight
Joined
Mar 29, 2020
Messages
271
This is terrible, but republicans are really hating this bill and dems need 60 votes to bring it out of debate. Plus the fact that two of their own can’t exactly be relied upon. The only way that this bill will pass is with a lot of compromise with the bill the senate passed back in June, which gives us time
 

YungRasputin

Arachnobaron
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
403
This is terrible, but republicans are really hating this bill and dems need 60 votes to bring it out of debate. Plus the fact that two of their own can’t exactly be relied upon. The only way that this bill will pass is with a lot of compromise with the bill the senate passed back in June, which gives us time
in theory perhaps however this would also assume that the parts of the bill which touch upon or involve exotic pet ownership will be noticed or cared about - it’s not that different from legislation put forward by conservatives like Marco Rubio
 

viper69

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
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Dec 8, 2006
Messages
17,851
A bunch of dumb people elected by another bunch of dumb people. I'm sick of people passing laws they don't even read. This is why I tell people, NEVER TELL A SOUL WHAT YOU OWN, except other keepers. SCREW THEM ALL.
 

YungRasputin

Arachnobaron
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
403
A bunch of dumb people elected by another bunch of dumb people. I'm sick of people passing laws they don't even read. This is why I tell people, NEVER TELL A SOUL WHAT YOU OWN, except other keepers. SCREW THEM ALL.
couldn’t agree more
 

l4nsky

Aspiring Mad Genius
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Isn't the Lacey Act largely un-enforced as is? Luckily (?) our gov can't agree on anything anymore.
Interstate prohibitions are rarely enforced (yet), but importation prohibitions for "injurious wildlife", which this bill is aiming to list a lot of exotic animals as, is strictly enforced.

They're looking to use a whitelist, meaning that if it's not on the list, then by default it's injurious wildlife. Further, they're aiming to use historical import data to determine what animals to include on the whitelist to be imported in the future.

I'm not picking on you, but your E. pachypus is a good example. Theoretically they might be able to survive in the extreme southern portion of Texas (and who's going to do the research to say they can't?) so by default they can be considered injurious, so no further importation will be allowed. Even if you do your research and prove without a shadow of a doubt they can't, then it's still not going to be on the whitelist? Why? The historical data. Since it wasn't imported in the year prior to the bill in an amount that will be deemed significant, it won't get added. So, now there's no new blood coming in, but wait, there's more. You can't even transport them across state lines, not even if you move (atleast with the pokies on the ESA, you can gift them or do breeding loans across state lines in addition to moving with them). That's the death of E. pachypus in US collections. It's also the death of any species of exotic animal in US collections that's not considered a hobby staple and a lifetime ban on any new species that enter this hobby or any other exotic animal hobby.

I hope I can look back at this post in a year's time and say it was an overreaction......
 

PanzoN88

Arachnodemon
Joined
Sep 15, 2014
Messages
713
Whelp, guess I’m getting out of the hobby until further notice. Looks like getting a ball python and more Aphonopelma species is out of the question now.

That’s all I can really say on the subject.
 

nicodimus22

Arachnomancer
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Sep 26, 2013
Messages
715
The real-world impact of any and all laws really boils down to enforcement. It's technically illegal to jaywalk and numerous other trivial things, but those laws are rarely, if ever, enforced, mostly because law enforcement has bigger fish to fry. I don't think anyone is going door-to-door with warrants and searching people's homes for tarantulas. It's not practical, and it wouldn't gain the government much of anything. It would require an insane amount of manpower, COVID is still out there, and frankly, the government has much bigger fish to fry, and many of them.

It probably would mean most online vendors closing down, though, so let's hope that doesn't happen.
 

JonnyTorch

Arachnotwit
Joined
May 10, 2020
Messages
329
So apparently the latest news for 2022 is the Lacy Act Amendment with the America Competes Act will be in the house and soon the Senate that is trying to ban any and all import, export or state line transfers (even if you move or non-sales) altogether of whatever they deem "injurious" species of any exotic animal that isn't a cat, dog or farm animal.


If you'd like to contact your senators and bug the crap out of them about this, here's a pre written letter about disagreement with this:


And here's how to contact them:


I'm sure that ideas have floated around for a while about banning species etc, but I've been sober for almost 6 years and collecting tarantulas has been a Godsend for me to focus on more biology and animal life as well as a stress reliever and just a fun hobby. I would hate for this hobby to crack down to become useless or illegal.

Thanks

was hoping to start a thread where we could update and monitor this bill as it passes through the American chambers - for those unfamiliar of what is going on there is a summation below - at the time of writing this USARK reports: “this bill passed in the House and will go to the Senate. We will adjust our alert to contact Senators at the appropriate time. It was a slim margin with the final vote at 222-210”

description:

“Buried within the 2,912 pages of the America COMPETES Act of 2022 (HR4521) lie Lacey Act amendments that affect all non-domesticated pet/animal (i.e. all animals except dogs, cats, and traditional farm animals) owners. COMPETES is an acronym for Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength. The stated purpose of the Act is to strengthen America’s economic and national security but obviously, this was slipped into the massive bill in hopes to go unnoticed.

The amendments would reverse the USARK federal lawsuit victory by reinstating the ban on interstate transportation of species listed as injurious under the Lacey Act. The bill would also create a “white list” (see #2 below) that could affect millions of pet owners, as well as pet businesses. Could your pet or species of interest (not just reptiles) potentially survive in southern Florida or any other location in the U.S.? Then it could be listed as injurious for just that reason! If this passes and your species of interest, even your pet, is listed as injurious, then it cannot be transported across state lines. That means you could not even take a pet with you if you moved to another state or needed veterinary care across a state border. This does not just ban sales but prohibits all interstate transportation and importation into the U.S. This will trickle down to hundreds or thousands of common pet species.”

link:
I've created a new post also, and a pre written letter, and how to contact U.S. senators to inform them of our disagreement.

republicans are really hating this bill
Yes sir. Proud republican here. Give me my guns, my freedom, my liberty, and my Tarantulas.
 
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