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H.R. 1684: PAST Act of 2025
119th Congress · introduced 2025-02-27 · Animals · Latest: Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
federal
Official title
PAST Act of 2025
Plain summary
Prevent All Soring Tactics Act of 2025 or the PAST Act of 2025 This bill increases protections for horses at shows, exhibitions, sales, or auctions (horse events) to prevent the practice of soring horses. Generally, the soring of horses includes certain actions taken on horses' limbs to produce higher gaits that may cause pain, distress, inflammation, or lameness. Specifically, the bill expands existing soring prohibitions under the Horse Protection Act, including by banning the use of certain action devices (e.g., nonprotective boots) on specified horse breeds. The bill also requires soring inspectors at horse events to be assigned by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the Department of Agriculture rather than appointed by the management of horse events. APHIS must also license, train, and oversee inspectors to detect and diagnose soring at such events. Additionally, the bill increases penalties for violations of the act. It also directs APHIS to disqualify horses found to be sore from being shown or exhibited for specified periods. Further, APHIS may permanently disqualify violators from participating in horse events after the third or any subsequent violation. By way of background, APHIS issued a rule in 2024 to increase efforts to protect horses from soring practices. However, in 2025, a court vacated parts of the rule as exceeding APHIS' statutory authority (e.g., prohibiting the use of certain action devices) while deeming other parts acceptable (e.g., establishing APHIS-designated inspectors). APHIS subsequently delayed the effective date of the rule to December 31, 2026.
Congressional Research Service summary (Introduced in House), quoted unchanged (nonpartisan). Read the source.
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Officials and money
Sponsor: Rep. Fitzpatrick, Brian K. [R-PA-1] · 207 cosponsors
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Words on this page, explained (2)
- Bill
- A proposed law. It becomes law only if it passes the legislature and is signed by the president or governor (or a veto is overridden).
- Statute
- A written law passed by a legislature. A statute can be changed by a later law; changing a constitution needs an amendment.
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Sources
- Congressional Research Service summary (Introduced in House)
- Congress.gov
- Data: GovInfo BILLSTATUS bulk data (Library of Congress), BILLSTATUS-119hr1684.xml <https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/BILLSTATUS/119/hr>
Record fed-us-cong119-hr1684 · catalog fed-us-congress-bills-cong119 · updated 2026-11-03 by psicol fed-bills