7 U.S.C. § 2143 — Standards and certification process for humane handling, care, treatment, and transportation of animals

(a) Standards, rules, regulations, and orders.

(1) The Secretary^* must issue standards governing the humane handling, care, treatment, and transportation of animals by dealers, research facilities, and exhibitors.

(2) The standards must include minimum requirements—

(A) for handling, housing, feeding, watering, sanitation, ventilation, shelter from extreme weather and temperatures, adequate veterinary care, and separation by species when the Secretary finds separation necessary for humane handling, care, or treatment; and

(B) for exercising dogs, as determined by an attending veterinarian under the Secretary’s general standards, and for giving primates a physical environment adequate to promote their psychological well-being.

(3) For animals in research facilities, the standards must also require—

(A) animal^* care, treatment, and experimental practices that minimize pain and distress, including adequate veterinary care and appropriate use of anesthetic, analgesic, or tranquilizing drugs, or euthanasia;

(B) the principal investigator to consider alternatives to any procedure likely to cause pain or distress to an experimental animal;

(C) for any practice that could cause animal pain—

(i) consultation with a doctor of veterinary medicine when planning the procedures;

(ii) use of tranquilizers, analgesics, and anesthetics;

(iii) pre-surgical and post-surgical care by laboratory workers under established veterinary medical and nursing procedures;

(iv) no use of paralytics without anesthesia; and

(v) when scientifically necessary to withhold tranquilizers, anesthesia, analgesia, or euthanasia, withholding them only for the necessary period;

(D) no animal being used in more than one major operative experiment from which it is allowed to recover, except when—

(i) scientifically necessary; or

(ii) the Secretary determines that other special circumstances exist; and

(E) exceptions to the standards being made only when the research protocol specifies them. Each exception must be detailed and explained in the report described in paragraph (7) and filed with the Institutional Animal Committee^*.

(4) The Secretary must also issue standards governing transportation in commerce^*, and the related handling, care, and treatment, by intermediate handlers, air carriers, and other carriers of animals sent for that transportation by a dealer^*, research facility^*, exhibitor^*, auction-sale operator, other person^*, or a United States, State^*, or local government department, agency, or instrumentality. The Secretary may issue rules and regulations needed to assure humane treatment during transportation in commerce. These may include requirements about containers, feed, water, rest, ventilation, temperature, and handling.

(5) When issuing and enforcing standards under this section, the Secretary may and must consult experts, including outside consultants when appropriate.

(6)(A) Nothing in this chapter—

(i) except as provided in paragraph (7) of this subsection, authorizes the Secretary to issue rules, regulations, or orders about the design, outlines, or guidelines of actual research or experimentation as the research facility determines them;

(ii) except as provided in paragraph (3)(A) and (C)(ii) through (v) and paragraph (7), authorizes the Secretary to issue rules, regulations, or orders about how the research facility conducts actual research or experimentation; or

(iii) authorizes the Secretary to interrupt actual research or experimentation during an inspection.

(B) No rule, regulation, order, or part of this chapter may be read to require a research facility to disclose publicly or to its Institutional Animal Committee during an inspection any privileged or confidential trade secret or commercial or financial information.

(7)(A) The Secretary must require each research facility, during inspection and at least once a year, to show and report that it follows this chapter and professionally acceptable standards for caring for, treating, and using animals during actual research or experimentation.

(B) To comply with subparagraph (A), a research facility must provide—

(i) information about procedures likely to cause pain or distress to an animal, and assurances showing that the principal investigator considered alternatives;

(ii) assurances satisfactory to the Secretary that the facility follows this section’s standards; and

(iii) an explanation of every deviation from standards issued under this section.

(8) Paragraph (1) does not prevent a State or its political subdivision from issuing additional standards.

(b) Research facility Committee.

(1) The Secretary must require each research facility to establish at least one Committee. The facility’s chief executive officer appoints the Committee. It must have at least three members. The members must be able to assess animal care, treatment, and experimental practices as required by the facility’s needs, and they must represent society’s concerns about the welfare of animal subjects used at the facility.

(A) At least one member must be a doctor of veterinary medicine.

(B) At least one member—

(i) must not be affiliated in any way with the facility other than as a member of the Committee;

(ii) may not be an immediate family member of someone connected with the facility; and

(iii) is intended to represent general community interests in proper animal care and treatment.

(C) If the Committee has more than three members, no more than three may come from the same administrative unit of the facility.

(2) A quorum^* is required for every formal Committee action, including inspections under paragraph (3).

(3) At least twice each year, the Committee must inspect all animal study areas and animal facilities of the research facility. As part of each inspection it must review—

(A) practices involving animal pain; and

(B) the animals’ condition, to ensure compliance with this chapter’s requirements for minimizing animal pain and distress.

The Secretary may make an exception to inspecting a study area when animals are studied in their natural environment and the area is too difficult to access easily.

(4)(A) The Committee must file an inspection-certification report for each inspection at the facility. The report must—

(i) be signed by a majority of the Committee members who took part in the inspection;

(ii) report violations of the Secretary’s standards or required assurances, including deficient animal-care or treatment conditions, deviations from originally approved research proposals that harm animal welfare, notices given to the facility about those conditions, and later corrections;

(iii) include any minority views of the Committee; and

(iv) include other information relevant to the Committee’s activities.

(B) The facility must keep the report for at least three years. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and any Federal agency^* funding the project may inspect it.

(C) To give the facility a chance to correct deficiencies or deviations found under paragraph (3), the Committee must notify the facility’s administrative representative. If they remain uncorrected after notice and an opportunity to correct them, the Committee must notify the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the funding Federal agency in writing.

(5) Department of Agriculture inspectors may review inspection results during their inspections. They must send Committee inspection records reporting uncorrected deficiencies or deviations to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and to every Federal agency funding the project connected with those deficiencies or deviations.

(c) Federal research facilities. Each Federal research facility^* must have a Federal Committee with the same composition and responsibilities described in subsection (b). But the Federal Committee reports deficiencies or deviations to the head of the Federal agency conducting the research, rather than to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. That agency head is responsible for—

(1) all corrective action at the facility; and

(2) granting all exceptions to the inspection protocol.

(d) Training. Each research facility must provide training required by the Secretary for scientists, animal technicians, and other personnel involved in animal care and treatment there. The training must cover—

(1) humane animal maintenance and experimentation;

(2) research or testing methods that minimize or eliminate animal use or limit animal pain or distress;

(3) use of the information service at the National Agricultural Library established under subsection (e); and

(4) ways to report deficiencies in animal care and treatment.

(e) Information service. The Secretary must establish an information service at the National Agricultural Library. Working with the National Library of Medicine, it must provide—

(1) information relevant to employee training;

(2) information that could prevent unintended duplication of animal experiments, as determined by the research facility’s needs; and

(3) information about improved animal-experiment methods, including methods that could—

(A) reduce or replace animal use; and

(B) minimize animal pain and distress, such as anesthetic and analgesic procedures.

(f) Suspension or revocation of Federal support. If a Federal agency funding a research project determines that animal-care, treatment, or practice conditions in a particular project do not comply with standards issued under this chapter, and the Secretary or agency has notified the facility and given it a chance to correct the problem, the agency must suspend or revoke Federal support for the project. A facility that loses support this way has a right to appeal under sections 701 through 706 of title 5.

(f) Veterinary certificate. No dealer, research facility, exhibitor, auction-sale operator, or United States, State, or local government department, agency, or instrumentality may deliver a dog, cat, or additional kind or class of animal designated by the Secretary’s regulation to an intermediate handler^* or carrier^* for transportation in commerce. Such a person or government entity also may not have the animal received by that handler or carrier for that transportation, unless a licensed veterinarian’s certificate accompanies the animal. The certificate must state that the veterinarian inspected the animal on a specified date no more than 10 days before delivery and that, when inspected, the animal appeared free of infectious disease or physical abnormality that would endanger the animal, other animals, or public health.

The Secretary may make regulatory exceptions to this certificate requirement, under conditions set in the regulations, for animals shipped to research facilities for research, testing, or experimentation that requires animals unable to receive this certification. Intermediate handlers and carriers must keep received certificates as the Secretary’s regulations require, consistent with section 2140.

(g) Age of animals delivered to registered research facilities. No person may deliver a dog, cat, or additional kind or class designated by the Secretary’s regulation to an intermediate handler or carrier for transportation in commerce, except to a registered research facility, if the animal is younger than the age the Secretary sets by regulation. The Secretary must designate additional kinds and classes of animals and may set different ages for particular kinds or classes of dogs, cats, or designated animals when the Secretary finds that doing so is necessary or adequate to assure humane treatment during transportation in commerce.

(h) C.O.D. arrangements. An intermediate handler or carrier transporting an animal in commerce may not take part in an arrangement or practice under which the animal’s cost or transportation cost is paid and collected when the consignee receives the animal. The exception is that the consignor gives a written guarantee to pay transportation charges for an animal not claimed within 48 hours after the consignee is notified that the animal arrived. The guarantee must cover, when necessary, return transportation and enough money to reimburse the carrier for all out-of-pocket costs of caring for, feeding, and storing the animal. This section does not define “dealer,” “research facility,” “exhibitor,” “intermediate handler,” “carrier,” “transportation in commerce,” “professionally acceptable standards,” “principal investigator,” “Institutional Animal Committee,” “animal study area,” “Federal support,” “infectious disease,” “physical abnormality,” “registered research facility,” “consignee,” or “consignor.”