The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) is already a severely limited and largely ineffectual law. It applies only to a tiny fraction of the more than 100 million animals exploited in U.S. laboratories every year — and, even for the animals it does cover, its protections are the most minimal.
And, now, even those minimal protections have lost one of their only remaining enforcement mechanisms.
The USDA, through its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), is responsible for administering the AWA through conducting inspections of and issuing penalties for violations to all covered facilities. At least in theory.
In practice, animal research facilities have always received preferential treatment.
Due to what law professor Delcianna Winders calls “animal experimentation exceptionalism”, the AWA actually excludes animal research facilities from certain AWA enforcement mechanisms — including criminal prosecution.
That has left one primary enforcement tool at the USDA’s disposal: civil fines.
But, the USDA has rarely used them, and, when it has, it has routinely used its discretion to weaken them to the point of irrelevance. Far from functioning as either meaningful penalties or effective deterrents, these fines have long been regarded by labs as nothing more than costs of doing business.
The USDA has consistently reduced civil penalties for animal research facilities far below the statutory maximum — even in cases involving serious and repeated violations. Indeed, as Professor Winders cites, an audit of USDA enforcement found that, even for research facilities responsible for “egregious violations like animal deaths”, the USDA reduced potential fines by an average of 86% — meaning that, for every dollar of fine these facilities could have legally faced, the USDA asked them to pay a mere $0.14.
(The resulting fines have been so nominal that the USDA’s Office of Inspector General itself has criticised the USDA’s action, including by accusing the agency of misusing the penalty guidelines to consistently lower fines for serious or repeat offenders).
But, now, research facilities don’t even have to worry about handing over those pennies.
In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in SEC v. Jarkesy, a case that, on its face, had nothing to do with animals. The Court held that it is unconstitutional for federal agencies to impose civil penalties through internal administrative proceedings without affording defendants jury trials.
Because the AWA contains no mechanism for the USDA to bring civil penalty cases in federal court, this ruling effectively eliminated the USDA’s ability to issue fines under the AWA — and, indeed:
Since that decision, the USDA has not issued a single civil penalty to an animal research facility, regardless of the violation.
And, this is not a temporary pause.
As it stands, the USDA cannot fine labs unless and until Congress updates the AWA to authorize such penalties through the courts.
This means that, currently, U.S. animal research facilities are not subject to either civil or criminal penalties for even repeated and egregious violations of federal law.
Disturbing? Absolutely. But, surprising? Not so much.
In many ways, this outcome seems the natural consequence of a broader system in which every branch of government has stopped even pretending to “‘work[] to protect the animals and serve the public”, in favor of “work[ing] on the industry’s behalf.”
But we can still hold labs publicly accountable by increasing transparency.
That’s where ARLO — the Animal Research Laboratory Overview — comes in. ARLO is the nation’s first open source, publicly-accessible database of U.S. animal research facilities. It compiles federal records, inspection reports, photos, correspondence, and whistleblower accounts to show what really happens behind closed doors.
And, together, we can make it an increasing powerful tool in our fight to help animals:
- If you have records (or need help getting them), documents, or firsthand accounts, please contact us!
- And, if you want to know what’s happening in labs near you, explore ARLO and share what you find!
Animal research facilities don’t have to be answerable to the government to be answerable to us.
Let’s work together to make sure they are.
Your call to action: You deserve to know what’s happening to animals in labs in your city, your state, and even your college. Use ARLO to see inside U.S. labs — then share the truth as widely as you can. Together, we can make animal experimentation impossible to ignore.
Share this page on X or Bluesky,
or share this link anywhere else:
riseforanimals.org/news/usda-fines