Lantos Legislation for Animal-Owner Emergency Evacuation Plans Becomes Law

San Mateo, CA – A bipartisan bill authored by Congressman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo/San Francisco) to protect people who own household pets and service animals in the wake of catastrophes such as last years’ Gulf Coast hurricanes has just been signed into law.

Nobody wants to see people needlessly suffer, and possibly sacrifice their own safety, because they are confronted with the awful prospect of abandoning household animals that are essential to their lives,” Lantos said. “Now nobody will ever have to see it again.”

The Lantos legislation requires local and state jurisdictions to submit disaster preparedness plans that take people with household pets and service animals into account; if they fail to do so, these jurisdictions will not qualify for grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It also allows the Director of FEMA to make financial contributions to States and local authorities for animal emergency preparedness purposes (including the procurement, construction, leasing or renovating of shelter facilities to allow these facilities to accommodate both people an animals). And it instructs FEMA to make necessary changes to the law in order to ensure that Federal assistance provided in a disaster can assist in the rescue, care, and shelter of individuals with household pets and service animals.

This country needs the force of federal law to protect people in large-scale emergencies who own household pets or service animals such as guide dogs,“ Lantos said. “I am overwhelmingly pleased at the wisdom of my colleagues in both chambers of Congress, and with the judgment of the White House, on this issue. Now it is up to local and state authorities to make their disaster preparedness plans conform to our simple requirement: to ensure that they account for the emergency evacuation needs of people with animal companions, through whatever system works best for these authorities.”

Like a lot of Americans, Lantos and his wife, Annette, felt pity for a little boy who was shown on national television not long after Hurricane Katrina, traumatized not only by the wreckage that his family’s life had become after fleeing their home, but also having to suffer the blow of seeing his pet dog abandoned to its fate because authorities would not let it be evacuated with the family.

Lantos and Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) introduced the Pets Evacuation and Transportation (PETS) Act (HR 3858) just days later. It passed the House unanimously and, after amendments by the Senate were approved unanimously, the House also passed the final version unanimously earlier this month. The president signed it into law late on Friday.

The Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Doris Day Animal League and the Best Friends Animal Society emphasized their support for this initiative.

Lantos is a founding member of the Congressional Friends of Animals Caucus and has been an outspoken champion for animal welfare issues since his first term in 1981.