For Immediate Release:
February 11, 2015
Denver – After hearing from thousands of PETA supporters who took action by writing in and voicing their opposition, Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg (R-Sterling) announced that he would shelve Senate Bill (S.B.) 42 indefinitely at this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. This makes Colorado—the fourth-largest beef exporter in the U.S.—the 18th state in which “ag-gag” bills have been scrapped in recent years.
If passed, S.B. 42 would have required that suspected abuse videotaped in the animal agriculture industry be reported to law-enforcement authorities within 48 hours, making it difficult for eyewitness investigators to gather evidence and document patterns of cruelty that police and prosecutors require in order to make a case. PETA works with eyewitnesses and law enforcement to uncover abuse: For example, PETA’s investigations of pig-breeding facilities in North Carolina and Oklahoma revealed horrific conditions and daily abuse of pigs, including the fact that one pig was skinned alive, leading to the first-ever felony indictments of farmworkers.
“People across the U.S. oppose ‘ag-gag’ bills, both for their threat to animals and their threat to our First Amendment rights,” says PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews. “These bills are on their way out—but PETA will continue to oppose them wherever they pop up.”
More details about this bill are available on PETA’s blog.
