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Omg, so I’m on another forum, Avian Avenue, and what the -? I’m just copying and pasting. They can’t do that?! Not in U.S right now, but I may be moving there, and this is not right! So wrong. Update: PASSED THE HOUSE NOW GOING TO THE SENATE! ALERT: America COMPETES Act of 2022 Lacey Act Amendments | USARK - United States Association of Reptile Keepers usark.org Buried within the 2,912 pages of the America COMPETES Act of 2022 lie Lacey Act amendments that affect all non-domesticated pet owners and the greater pet community. COMPETES is an acronym for Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength. The stated purpose of the Act is to strengthen America’s economic and national security but obviously, this was slipped into the massive bill in hopes to go unnoticed. The amendments would reverse the USARK federal lawsuit victory by reinstating the ban on interstate transportation of species listed as injurious under the Lacey Act. The bill would also create a “white list” (see #2 below) that could affect millions of pet owners, as well as pet businesses. If your species of interest, even your pet, is listed as injurious (which could happen because it can survive outside somewhere in the U.S.), then it cannot be transported across state lines. That means you could not even take a pet with you if you moved to another state or needed veterinary care across a state border. This does not just ban sales but prohibits all interstate transportation. This will trickle down to hundreds or thousands of common pet species. The America COMPETES Act may pass in the House next week. If passed in the House, it will then be sent to the Senate to be reconciled with an innovation policy package called the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, or USICA, that passed in the Senate last year. The America COMPETES Act is the House Democrats’ response to USICA (which does not contain the Lacey Act Amendment). The House Rules Committee will hear the America COMPETES Act on February 1, 2022. It may go to a House floor vote the next day. This is the same language we saw introduced by Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Senate Bill 626 in 2021. Briefly, the amendments will: Provide that the Lacey Act bans the interstate transport of species listed as injurious. Specifically, it replaces Lacey’s current language ‘‘shipment between the continental United States’’ with ‘‘transport between the States.”Create a “white list” of species that can be imported. This means that any animal (reptile, amphibian, fish, bird, mammal, invertebrate) that is not on the white list is by default treated as an injurious species and is banned from importation.Create a new authority allowing FWS to use an “emergency designation” that becomes effective immediately after being published in the Federal Register unless an extension of no more than 60 days is allowed. That means no due process, public input, hearings, advanced notice, etc. for injurious listings.Permit FWS to not allow importation if a species has not been imported in “minimal quantities” (to be defined) in the year prior to the enactment of this Act.The effective date would be one year after the enactment of this Act. Read the relevant amendment text (these are pages 1661-1665) at https://usark.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-HR4521-excerpt.pdf. We will provide more details on actions to take. In our landmark court decision, four federal judges agreed that USARK was correct and that the Lacey Act (Title 18 Section 42 of the U.S. Code) did not ban interstate transportation of injurious species based on the original language of the Lacey Act and the intent of Congress. As a result of this fight for our members and the community, this meant animals domestically bred under human care could be moved and sold across state lines (within the continental United States). The entire America COMPETES Act can be read at https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-117HR4521RH-RCP117-31.pdf Edit: I know I’ve been posting a lot, but I figured this was pretty important…

To summarise the article above, there is a bill stating that all animals on a to-be-made white-list, can be transported from state-to-state. As African Grey’s are considered endangered, it is very very likely they will be not be listed on the white-list. This means that African Grey’s won’t be able to travel outside of the state they are in. This new bill, if passed is going to cause a lot of trouble for parrots and their owners. By contacting your senator, you can help stop this bill being made. Please, if you are in the U.S, contact your senator, and let your local parrot rescue know about this bill. The more people that know, the more that can stop this bill from passing the Senate. The U.S has tried to pass this bill before, and for the first time, it’s passed the House. Please, please, please, contact your senator, because this is going to cause a huge problem for parrot and exotic animal’s owners.