REPORT: EPA to cut funding for animal tests, close labs
03 July 2019 | Newsworthy
Following a White Coat Waste Project campaign and leadership from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reportedly hatching a bold plan to dramatically cut funding for "horrific and inhumane" animal testing opposed by a supermajority of taxpayers.
Earlier this year, Congress and President Trump enacted WCW-backed legislation urging the EPA to cut its internal animal testing, which includes forcing animals to breathe truck fumes, eat lard, and other wasteful, expensive, and abusive experiments.
Now, according to a new report, EPA head Andrew Wheeler has announced in an internal memo that the agency "will cut its funding for experiments on mammals in half by 2025" and that "the EPA plans to stop using mammal studies for the approval of new chemicals by 2035 and that it will aim to eliminate all mammal studies."
Additionally, the EPA is reportedly dissolving its dedicated animal testing labs, including the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL) that WCW exposed and has been campaigning against since early last year.
WCW's Tax Week 2018 billboard targeting the EPA's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory in North Carolina.
On Capitol Hill, the bipartisan effort to curb wasteful EPA animal testing has been led by Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Ken Calvert (R-CA), David Joyce (R-OH), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Scott Perry (R-PA), David Cicilline (D-RI), Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Brendan Boyle (D-PA).
If you haven't yet, tell the EPA and Congress to cut all funding for EPA animal testing!
Suzan Woychuk, July 4, 2019 Reply
It should not take that long to stop using animals in experiments that are horrendous and very cruel. 15 years is way too long to put an end to the torture that these animals go through.
Dennis Goodman, July 4, 2019 Reply
But the point is WCW is making a difference now. What was, was. The past cannot be changed. Just like veganism, people are waking up to the heinous acts that are done to these helpless creatures. WCW is leading a charge that has to be reckoned with. God Bless 🙏.