What is the Animal Welfare Act and what does it do?

The Animal Welfare Act is a federal law that was passed in 1966. It regulates certain animal activities, chiefly by mandating that practitioners be licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Those activities include:

• commercial dog and cat breeding;
• dealing in dogs or cats—buying the animals from breeders and selling them to pet stores or other resellers;
• exhibiting animals (including in circuses); 
• operating a research laboratory that uses live animals.

The Animal Welfare Act also addresses animal fighting with a provision that prohibits certain animal fighting-related activities when they have involved more than one state or interstate mail services, including the U.S. Postal Service. In 2007, the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act expanded the list of illegal animal fighting activities—adding to those already named in the Animal Welfare Act—and increased penalties for violators.

The Animal Welfare Act is the closest thing we have to a federal cruelty law in the United States, but it does not make it illegal to perform individual acts of cruelty like torturing, beating or neglecting an animal. Those types of acts are regulated by the states, not the federal government.