Amended agriculture appropriation bill would eliminate Class-B dealers

On 20 September 2005, the United States Senate agreed by voice vote to accept Senator Daniel K. Akaka's (D–HI) amendment to the 2006 agriculture funding bill (Agriculture, Rural Development, food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006, H.R. 2744 (ref. 1)) to “prohibit Federal funding of research facilities that purchase animals from Class-B dealers^2,3.”

Class-B animal dealers supply random source animals to research facilities. They obtain these animals from pounds, shelters, dog owners who wish to surrender their ownership, and other legitimate sources, and, in keeping with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) animal welfare regulations, must keep identification records linking each random source animal to its original owner. Because the public is concerned that Class-B dealers may deal in stolen animals, the USDA audits research facility and dealer records in order to ensure that the dogs and cats that these dealers sell originate from legitimate sources⁴.

Several organizations, including the National Association for Biomedical Research⁵, the American Physiological Society⁶, the the Society of Toxicology⁷, have released statements objecting to the intended and unintended consequences of this amendment, and have petitioned the Senate to reconsider it. They believe that Class-B dealers are already well regulated and do not steal animals for research, that eliminating Class-B dealers would deprive researchers and teachers of larger, older, and more genetically diverse animals than those that Class-A dealers (those licensed dealers who breed their animals) may be able to provide, and that research facilities would have to pay higher costs for their animals. Research facilities receiving funds from the USDA or United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would lose them should they obtain animals from Class-B dealers.