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Change The 150-Year-Old Law Leaving Livestock Unprotected on the Road

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Sponsor: The Animal Rescue Site

A 150-year-old law governs how millions of livestock travel today — and nobody is enforcing it.

A shaggy animal peers through the metal bars of a teal-painted livestock transport trailer.

The "Twenty-Eight Hour Law" has been on the books since 1873. It requires that livestock transported across state lines be unloaded, fed, watered, and rested for at least five consecutive hours after every 28 hours of continuous travel. The law was written for the era of the steam locomotive. Today, tens of millions of cattle, pigs, sheep, and horses move by truck — and the statute meant to protect them has barely changed in a century and a half.1

In June 2026, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a detailed report on the state of livestock transport oversight. The findings were stark: the law is outdated, enforcement is broken, and Congress has the power to fix it.1

Nobody Is Actually in Charge

Three federal agencies — the USDA, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Justice — share jurisdiction over the Twenty-Eight Hour Law. None of them has a clearly defined mandate to inspect vehicles, investigate violations, or pursue penalties. The result is a system where violations go undetected and unaddressed.1,2

The penalty structure makes things worse. Fines cap out at $500 per violation — a figure set in 1994 and never adjusted. For large commercial shipping operations, that number is not a deterrent. The GAO specifically identified the inadequacy of current penalties as a barrier to meaningful compliance.5

The Law Ignores Basic Welfare Conditions

The Twenty-Eight Hour Law says nothing about the physical condition of the animals being loaded. There are no standards for vehicle sanitation, no clear definition of what adequate food and water must look like during a rest stop, and no explicit prohibition on loading animals that are injured or unfit for travel.1,3 Other countries have moved well beyond these baseline standards.6

Farm animals are largely excluded from the Animal Welfare Act, which makes the Twenty-Eight Hour Law one of the only federal statutes that applies to them at all.4 That makes its gaps especially consequential. The Animal Welfare Institute has long called for enforceable transport standards covering fitness for travel and vehicle conditions — and the GAO report validated those recommendations directly.7

Congress Has a Clear Roadmap

The GAO identified specific steps: clarify enforcement authority across the USDA, DOT, and DOJ; raise penalties to a level that creates real accountability; and add explicit welfare standards for animal fitness and vehicle sanitation.1,3 Those recommendations now sit with Congress. The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is positioned to act on them.

Millions of animals travel across state lines every year under a law written before the automobile existed. That is a policy gap — and policy gaps can be closed.

Sign the petition now to urge the Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee to pass legislation that modernizes the Twenty-Eight Hour Law, closes the enforcement vacuum, and gives livestock the basic protections they deserve.

More on this issue:

  1. U.S. Government Accountability Office, U.S. Government Accountability Office (4 June 2026), "Animal Transport: Congress Should Consider Modernizing the Law to Better Protect Livestock."
  2. Animal Welfare Institute, AWI Quarterly (Fall 2026), "GAO Confirms: Animal Transport Oversight Needs Overhaul."
  3. Christine Won, AVMA News (25 August 2026), "GAO urges Congress to modernize animal transport law."
  4. Jessica Scott-Reid, Tucson.com (via Sentient) (13 October 2026), "Trump's ‘new era of animal welfare’ excludes almost all farm animals."
  5. Grace Miller, Agri-Pulse (10 June 2026), "GAO recommends updating animal transport law to prevent cruelty."
  6. Jenny Gesley, In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress (Library of Congress) (25 March 2026), "Law Library Publishes New Report on the Protection of Livestock During Transport."
  7. Animal Welfare Institute, Animal Welfare Institute Newsroom (22 June 2026), "AWI’s Animal Transport Recommendations Corroborated by Federal Agency."

The Petition

To the Chairman, United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry,

We are writing to urge you to act on the Government Accountability Office's recommendations and pass legislation that modernizes and strengthens the Twenty-Eight Hour Law for livestock transport.

The Twenty-Eight Hour Law dates to 1873 — an era when cattle and hogs moved by rail. Today, tens of millions of animals travel by truck across state lines every year, governed by a statute that has barely been touched in over 150 years. The June 2026 GAO report made clear, in precise terms, how badly the law has fallen behind.

Enforcement is the most immediate problem. Three federal agencies — the USDA, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Justice — share jurisdiction over the law, but none of them has a clearly defined mandate to inspect vehicles, investigate violations, or impose penalties. In practice, this means violations go unaddressed. The penalty cap of $500 per violation, unchanged since 1994, offers no meaningful deterrent to large commercial shipping operations.

Equally troubling is what the law simply does not cover. There are no explicit standards governing whether an animal is physically fit to be loaded for transport, no requirements for vehicle sanitation, and no clear definition of what adequate food and water during rest periods must look like. Animals that are injured or ill have no explicit legal protection from being placed on a truck. Farm animals are largely excluded from the Animal Welfare Act, making the Twenty-Eight Hour Law one of the only federal statutes that applies to them at all. That makes its shortcomings especially consequential.

Compassion for animals in our care is not a marginal concern. These are living creatures capable of suffering, and the conditions of long-distance transport — confinement, stress, heat, and deprivation — can cause serious harm when no enforceable standards exist. A modern society can and should do better than a Civil War-era railroad statute.

The GAO has already provided a clear roadmap: define enforcement authority across the relevant agencies, raise penalties to a level that creates real accountability, and add explicit welfare standards for animal fitness and vehicle sanitation. The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is positioned to translate those recommendations into law.

We respectfully urge you to move forward with legislation that closes these gaps — because strengthening these protections will ensure a better future for the animals, the industry, and the country that depends on both.

Sincerely,

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