H.R. 1675 · 119th Congress

Protecting Horses from Soring Act of 2025

Introduced on Feb 27, 2025 by Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-4). One cosponsor. Latest action (Feb 27, 2025): Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Stage
Introduced
Introduced
Feb 27, 2025
Cosponsors
1
0 from the other party
Policy area
Animals
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Progress

The furthest stage the measure reached. Simple and concurrent resolutions do not go to the President.

  1. Introduced
  2. 2Reported by committee
  3. 3Passed one chamber
  4. 4Passed both chambers
  5. 5Sent to the President
  6. 6Became law

Official title

To amend the Horse Protection Act to provide increased protection for horses participating in shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions, and for other purposes.

Summary

By the Congressional Research Service (Introduced in House, Feb 27, 2025). Public domain.

Protecting Horses from Soring Act of 2025

This bill establishes requirements to prevent the practice of soring horses at horse events (i.e., shows, exhibitions, sales, or auctions), including by requiring soring inspections to be overseen by a new organization that is formally affiliated with the horse event industry. Generally, the soring of horses includes certain actions taken on horses' limbs to produce higher gaits that may cause pain, distress, inflammation, or lameness.

The bill directs the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the Department of Agriculture to establish the organization. The organization must be governed by a board that is appointed by the walking horse industry. The organization must appoint inspectors for each horse event and license, train, and oversee inspectors to detect soring at horse events.

The bill also directs the management of horse events to disqualify horses for specified durations if the horses are determined to be sore by objective inspections conducted by veterinarians or veterinarian technicians using certain science-based protocols.

Currently, inspectors must be designated by the management of horse events and licensed by APHIS-certified horse industry organizations. However, an APHIS rule issued in 2024 established several requirements to increase efforts to protect horses from soring practices, including requiring inspectors to be designated by APHIS. In 2025, a court upheld the parts of the rule requiring APHIS-designated inspectors but vacated other parts of the rule relating to other requirements. APHIS subsequently delayed the effective date of the rule to December 31, 2026.

Sponsor and cosponsors

Cosponsors by party as of the day they signed on. Original cosponsors signed on the day of introduction.

Scott DesJarlaisR-TN-4Sponsor

Republicans · 1

Roll calls

Recorded votes on the measure. Most measures move by voice vote or unanimous consent, which record no individual positions.

No recorded roll call on this measure: it moved by voice vote or unanimous consent, or has not reached the floor.

History

Every action as published, oldest first. Roll calls link to how each member voted.

  1. Feb 27, 2025Introduced in House
  2. Feb 27, 2025Introduced in House
  3. Feb 27, 2025 · HouseReferred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Committees

Committees and subcommittees the measure was referred to.

Agencies in its committees' jurisdiction

Analisa's mapping of committee jurisdiction to federal agencies; the bill may touch others, or none of these.

Who lobbied on it

Organizations whose lobbying reports (LD-2) name this measure. Spending is what they reported for those quarters on all issues, not on this measure alone.

  1. TWSHO, Inc.6 reports
    $145K reported (all issues)

Reports filed in 2025, 2026.

Sources and method

Every figure on this page traces to these records.

  • Bill status: bills and resolutions, sponsors, actions, subjects and CRS summaries (U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo), from Congress.gov (Library of Congress))GovInfo Bill Status bulk data (Congress.gov; summaries by the Congressional Research Service) · data current to Oct 9, 2026 · loaded Oct 9, 2026 · license: Public domain (U.S. Government work, 17 U.S.C. § 105)
  • Members of Congress, their terms, committees and identifiers (The @unitedstates project (from the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, the House and the Senate))unitedstates/congress-legislators: legislators, committees and current committee membership · data current to Oct 3, 2026 · loaded Oct 3, 2026 · license: CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication)
  • House roll-call votes (Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives)Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, roll-call vote records · data current to Oct 3, 2026 · loaded Oct 3, 2026 · license: Public domain (U.S. Government work, 17 U.S.C. § 105)
  • Senate roll-call votes and DW-NOMINATE scores (Voteview (UCLA Department of Political Science))Lewis, Jeffrey B., Keith Poole, Howard Rosenthal, Adam Boche, Aaron Rudkin, and Luke Sonnet (2026). Voteview: Congressional Roll-Call Votes Database. https://voteview.com/ · data current to Oct 3, 2026 · loaded Oct 3, 2026 · license: Free to use with the required citation
  • Lobbying disclosures (LD-1 registrations, LD-2 quarterly reports, LD-203 contribution reports) (Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives)Clerk of the House, Lobbying Disclosure Act filings (organizations only; lobbyists' names are not loaded) · data current to Oct 9, 2026 · loaded Oct 9, 2026 · license: Public domain (U.S. Government work, 17 U.S.C. § 105)
  • Positions are shown only where a roll call recorded them; voice votes and unanimous consent record none.
  • Money and votes are shown side by side; neither explains the other.