2018 'Agricultural Improvement Act,' includes language extending the ban to U.S. states and territories
It's hardly the first time that this longstanding battle has been joined in Washington, D.C. This time however, negotiations between the U.S. House and U.S. Senate produced a bill that would eliminate previous exceptions and extend the cockfighting ban to Guam and other U..S. territories.
As Roselle Romanes reported for Pacific Island Times last December:
"November got underway with a piece of legislation introduced in the nation’s capital that clearly hit a nerve in far away U.S. territories. The bill, extending a long standing ban on animal fighting in the U.S. mainland to the territories, was introduced by Republican Congressman Peter Roskam of Illinois. Elsewhere in Congress, territorial delegates immediately expressed strong opposition. Guam Delegate Madeleine Z. Bordallo said in a press release that she will not support Roskam’s bill because she is concerned that the proposal would be an infringement on the island’s culture."
The language now in the current proposed farm bill is from the Parity in Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act. The PACE Act "ensures that long-standing federal restrictions on dogfighting and cockfighting apply to U.S. territories," according to the advocacy group Animal Wellness Action, which says the provisions will allow a crackdown on both cockfighting and dogfighting in the U.S. territories.