The Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act, introduced in the House on February 21, 2025, as H.R. 1477, is a bipartisan bill that would create a dedicated Animal Cruelty Crimes Section inside the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute federal animal cruelty offenses. It would not create new crimes. It would build a permanent unit whose only job is enforcing the animal protection laws already on the books, and it would require that unit to report its charging and conviction numbers to Congress every year.
What the Bill Would Do
The new section would sit within the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. That division already handles federal animal welfare litigation through the Environmental Crimes Section and the Wildlife and Marine Resources Section, but neither is focused exclusively on animal cruelty.1U.S. Department of Justice. Animal Welfare Under H.R. 1477, the Animal Cruelty Crimes Section would be the first DOJ unit dedicated solely to that mission.
The section would be required to coordinate with the Department of Agriculture, the USDA Office of Inspector General, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.2Congress.gov. H.R. 1477, Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act of 2025
The bill also builds in an accountability mechanism. Beginning one year after enactment, the section would submit annual reports to Congress disclosing the number of charges filed, broken down by the specific federal statute involved and the state where the alleged violation occurred, along with the number of convictions obtained. The reports would also have to disclose how many investigations did not result in charges.2Congress.gov. H.R. 1477, Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act of 2025
Who Introduced It and Where It Stands
The bill was introduced by Representatives Dave Joyce of Ohio, Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, Joe Neguse of Colorado, and Steve Cohen of Tennessee, two Republicans and two Democrats.3U.S. House of Representatives – Dave Joyce. Joyce, Ciscomani, Neguse, Cohen Reintroduce Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Animal Cruelty As of mid-2026, it has attracted 51 cosponsors: 38 Democrats and 13 Republicans.4Congress.gov. H.R. 1477 Cosponsors It remains pending in the House. No Senate companion of the ACE Act itself has been introduced.
Representative Joyce, in announcing the bill, said a dedicated section would improve the government’s ability to “crack down on animal cruelty and hold perpetrators accountable in a timely, efficient manner.” Representative Cohen said the bill would protect “wild animals, pets and farm animals” by ensuring enforcement across all categories.5Animal Wellness Action. Bipartisan Legislation Introduced to Establish Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act
The bill has been endorsed by more than 55 law enforcement organizations across 17 states, including county sheriff’s offices, district attorneys, and state police chiefs’ associations, along with D.A.R.E. America.6Animal Wellness Action. 50 Law Enforcement Agencies Urge Congress to Pass Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act
The Enforcement Gap the Bill Targets
The argument driving the ACE Act is that existing federal animal cruelty laws are rarely enforced. Sponsors point to DOJ data showing that between 2015 and 2019, fewer than 200 defendants were charged, convicted, or sentenced for animal welfare offenses at the federal level.7Animal Wellness Action. Animal Cruelty Enforcement Wayne Pacelle, who leads Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, the two primary advocacy organizations behind the bill, said “without enforcement, our laws are just aspirations, and criminals ignore them.”5Animal Wellness Action. Bipartisan Legislation Introduced to Establish Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act
The federal statutes the section would enforce already exist. They include the Animal Welfare Act (1966), the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act (2007), and the PACT Act (2019), along with laws covering horse protection, humane slaughter, and livestock transport.1U.S. Department of Justice. Animal Welfare The PACT Act, signed in November 2019, made extreme acts of animal cruelty (purposely crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, or impaling animals) prosecutable as federal felonies punishable by up to seven years in prison. It contains exemptions for veterinary and agricultural practices, slaughter for food, hunting and fishing, medical research, and actions necessary to protect life or property.8Harvard Law Review. Palliative Animal Law: The War on Animal Cruelty
Advocates argue that having these statutes has not been enough. A specialized section, they say, would mirror DOJ’s existing specialized divisions for environmental protection and organized crime and provide the focused personnel and institutional knowledge needed to pursue complex cases.7Animal Wellness Action. Animal Cruelty Enforcement
How the Bill Compares to DOJ’s Current Initiative
On February 18, 2026, Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced a five-part initiative to prioritize animal welfare crimes across the department. It includes a training summit for federal prosecutors and agents, a new Animal Welfare Executive Strategy Committee chaired by the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s principal deputy, a law enforcement “Tiger Team” to execute search warrants and seizures, the use of asset forfeiture funds to cover the cost of caring for seized animals, and grant funding for state and local enforcement.9U.S. Department of Justice. Attorney General Bondi Announces Department of Justice Prioritization of Animal Welfare The DOJ is also partnering with USDA to strengthen enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act against chronic violators.
The initiative overlaps substantially with what the ACE Act envisions: interagency coordination, focused personnel, and systematic prosecution. The difference is durability. Bondi’s initiative operates through executive policy and can be rescinded by a future administration. The ACE Act would codify a dedicated section into statute, making the structural change permanent. Sponsors have made that point directly: administrative prioritization has moved some of the bill’s goals forward operationally, but only legislation can lock in the enforcement structure.
Criticisms
The ACE Act has not drawn significant organized opposition in Congress, but broader critiques of federal animal cruelty enforcement suggest where objections could come from.
Legal scholars have argued that the PACT Act and similar measures represent “over-federalization” of criminal law, duplicating state statutes that already cover the same conduct. A Georgetown American Criminal Law Review analysis warned that federal animal cruelty prosecution risks undermining the traditional division of authority between federal and state governments, adding burden to federal courts, expanding prosecutorial power, and raising constitutional questions about overlapping criminal jurisdiction.10Georgetown Law – American Criminal Law Review. Do We Need to Make a Federal Case Out of It? The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act as Over-Federalization of Criminal Law All 50 states already classify dogfighting as a felony, and every state has some form of anti-cruelty statute.11ASPCA. A Closer Look at Dogfighting
From a different direction, some animal welfare scholars have criticized the whole approach of pursuing individual criminal prosecutions as “palliative” rather than systemic. Writing in the Harvard Law Review, one critic argued that laws like the PACT Act reinforce an animal hierarchy by exempting large-scale industrial practices (factory farming, slaughter, animal testing) while focusing enforcement resources on individual offenders. Under this view, felony prosecutions create an illusion of progress while the majority of animal suffering continues unchecked.8Harvard Law Review. Palliative Animal Law: The War on Animal Cruelty
The bill’s primary advocacy organization has drawn scrutiny of its own. Wayne Pacelle resigned from the Humane Society of the United States in 2018 following allegations of sexual misconduct. Industry-aligned critics have characterized Animal Wellness Action as a “fringe special interest.”12InfluenceWatch. Animal Wellness Action
A Separate but Related Senate Bill
If you’re looking for the ACE Act in the Senate, it isn’t there. What exists is a different bill on similar themes: the Better Collaboration, Accountability, and Regulatory Enforcement for Animals Act (Better CARE for Animals Act), introduced on April 30, 2025, as S. 1538 by Senators Richard Blumenthal and John Kennedy, with a House companion sponsored by Representatives Nicole Malliotakis, Mike Quigley, Guy Reschenthaler, and Sharice Davids.13U.S. Senate – Richard Blumenthal. Blumenthal, Kennedy, Malliotakis, and Quigley Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Hold Animal Abusers Accountable14Congress.gov. S. 1538 – Better CARE for Animals Act It addresses enforcement, but it is not the same bill and would not necessarily create the same dedicated DOJ section that H.R. 1477 proposes.