Originally published 2019-11-06.
On 22 October 2019, the US House of Representatives passed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, better known as the PACT Act. The Senate followed on 5 November, and President Donald Trump signed it on 25 November 2019. Since then, deliberately crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling or otherwise seriously injuring certain animals has been a federal felony in the United States when it falls under federal jurisdiction, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Before PACT, every state already had its own animal cruelty laws, but there was no general federal offence for the cruelty itself. This guide explains what the law covers, why supporters pushed for it for years, what it does not do, and how people reacted at the time.
How the bill passed
The House version, H.R. 724, was introduced in January 2019 by two Florida representatives from opposite parties, Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Ted Deutch. It gathered more than 300 co-sponsors, an unusually broad coalition. A matching Senate bill was introduced in February 2019 by Senators Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat.
The House passed it by voice vote, meaning no member's individual vote was recorded and no one forced a roll call. The Senate then cleared it by unanimous consent. That is why early headlines described the bill as passing "unanimously". It became Public Law 116-72.
Maine representative Chellie Pingree marked the House vote with this post, linking animal abuse to domestic violence:
71% of #domesticviolence victims said their abuser also attacked their pets, but did you know that cruelty against animals is NOT a federal offense? Today we voted to change that by passing the #PACTAct! pic.twitter.com/CngjbP0g5j
— Chellie Pingree (@chelliepingree) October 22, 2019
The 71 percent figure in her post comes from survey research with women in domestic-violence shelters, many of whom reported that their abuser had threatened, hurt or killed a pet. It is one of the statistics that convinced law-enforcement groups to back the bill.
What the PACT Act actually makes illegal
The law rewrote section 48 of Title 18 of the US Code. It now makes three things federal crimes:
- Animal crushing: purposely crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling or otherwise causing serious bodily injury to a living non-human mammal, bird, reptile or amphibian, where the conduct is in or affects interstate or foreign commerce, or takes place on federal property and other areas of federal jurisdiction.
- Creating crush videos: knowingly making an obscene video or image of such cruelty intended for distribution across state or national borders.
- Distributing crush videos: selling, advertising, exchanging or sharing such material through interstate or foreign commerce, including from abroad into the United States.
The penalty for a violation is a fine, up to seven years in prison, or both. Fish and invertebrates are not covered, because the definition is limited to mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.
The loophole PACT closed
Congress first tackled the issue in 1999 with a law against so-called crush videos, in which small animals are trampled or crushed to death for a fetish audience. In 2010, in United States v. Stevens, the Supreme Court struck that law down by 8 votes to 1 as too broad, ruling that it could sweep in protected speech such as hunting videos.
Congress quickly passed a narrower replacement, the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010. But that law only banned making and selling the videos. The act of torturing the animal itself was still left entirely to the states. The PACT Act fills that gap by making the underlying cruelty a federal crime too.
What the law does not cover
To win such wide support, the bill includes clear exceptions. It does not apply to:
- customary veterinary, farming and animal-management practices;
- slaughter of animals for food;
- hunting, trapping, fishing, lawful sport, and predator or pest control;
- medical or scientific research;
- actions needed to protect someone's life or property;
- humane euthanasia;
- unintentional harm, and handing a video to police so a crime can be reported.
The law also says it does not override state or local animal-protection laws. In practice, most cruelty cases are still investigated by local police and animal control and prosecuted under state law. PACT gives federal agencies such as the FBI a tool for cases that cross state lines, happen on federal land, or involve online distribution.
Why supporters wanted a federal law
Animal-welfare groups had pushed for years for a federal statute. Their main argument was practical: cruelty that spans several states, or that takes place in places like national parks and military bases, was hard to prosecute under a patchwork of local laws. Law-enforcement organisations, including the National Sheriffs' Association and the Fraternal Order of Police, endorsed the bill, citing research linking extreme cruelty to animals with violence against people.
Kitty Block, head of the Humane Society of the United States, said that "PACT makes a statement about American values." Senator Blumenthal said the "barbaric torture of animals has no place in a civilized society and should be a crime."
How people reacted
When the news spread on social media, most commenters welcomed the bill, but many used it to make wider points. A selection of public comments from Facebook at the time:
The comments fall into a few groups. Some were simply surprised that a divided Congress agreed on anything. Some wanted more, such as a registry to stop convicted abusers from adopting pets. Others asked why similar urgency was not shown for children, women's rights or school lunches. And one commenter thought the bill only dealt with crush videos, which is a common misunderstanding: that was the 2010 law, and PACT went further by criminalising the cruelty itself.
Common myths about the PACT Act
- "Animal cruelty was legal before 2019." No. Every US state already treated cruelty as a crime, and all states had felony provisions for serious cases by 2014. PACT added a federal layer.
- "Any cruelty anywhere is now a federal case." No. Federal jurisdiction depends on a link to interstate commerce or federal territory. Most cases are still local.
- "It bans hunting or farming." No. Those activities are expressly exempted.
If you see an animal being abused, contact your local animal control service or the police. Note the time and place, and if it is safe, take photos or video to help investigators.
Sources: NPR, 25 November 2019; GovTrack: H.R. 724 (116th Congress); 18 U.S. Code § 48, Cornell Legal Information Institute; Wikipedia: Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010. Post by Rep. Chellie Pingree (@chelliepingree), 22 October 2019. Reader comments: public Facebook screenshots, 2019.
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