The Senate's newly released version of the 2026 Farm Bill includes language that prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture from funding animal research laboratories in China, Russia, and other adversarial nations.
This provision, led by Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, appears as Section 7130 on page 495 of the bill and marks a major step toward protecting American taxpayers from subsidizing cruel and wasteful experiments in foreign laboratories.
American taxpayer dollars should never fund animal research in adversarial nations, including bizarre studies like cats-on-treadmills in Russia.
Section 7130, titled "Limitation on certain research in countries of concern," bars the Secretary of Agriculture from conducting or funding any research, education, or extension activities involving vertebrate animals in those countries or in collaboration with them.
A narrow waiver will be available on a case-by-case basis only when necessary for national security, animal or crop health, or public health, safety, or welfare, but any waiver requires at least 30 days' advance notification to congressional committees with detailed justification.
This restriction follows years of investigations that uncovered shocking examples of USDA money flowing to dangerous animal experiments abroad.
One major investigation revealed that the USDA had launched a five-year, $1 million collaboration with a Chinese institution to conduct gain-of-function experiments on bird flu viruses.
Young animals were infected and subjected to painful "severe" experiments without pain relief, often resulting in suffering and death.
After sustained pressure, the project was canceled, and a yearlong campaign led to the Trump administration's Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, making the announcement.
Another investigation exposed USDA funding routed through U.S. universities to a Kremlin-linked institute in Russia, where taxpayer dollars funded deadly experiments on silver foxes at a fur farm controlled by Russian authorities.
Between 2018 and 2020, the University of Illinois sent over $123,000 as part of a larger grant to study the foxes' social behavior, and the animals were ultimately killed and their brains dissected.
The House version of the Farm Bill, which passed in April, already included this same measure to cut funding for animal labs in adversarial nations.
It went even further by adding language to defund painful USDA experiments on dogs and cats and requiring all federal facilities to implement policies for retiring lab animals and making them available for adoption when testing ends.
White Coat Waste has celebrated the additions as a major victory, saying that Congress is now closer than ever to ensuring taxpayers aren’t funding foreign enemies' animal labs.
