S 37 · 117th Congress 2021–2023, ended

Preventing Future Pandemics Act of 2021

Fact sheet

Latest action · Jan 25, 2021 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Progress

Where this bill reached, and when. A stage with no date was not reached; one that failed a vote and later carried shows the date it carried.

  1. IntroducedJan 25, 2021
  2. Passed SenateNot reached
  3. Passed HouseNot reached
  4. To the PresidentNot reached
  5. Became lawNot reached

Summary

Preventing Future Pandemics Act of 2021

This bill establishes measures to address global public health risks posed by wildlife markets, which are commercial markets that sell or slaughter wildlife for human consumption as food or medicine in communities where alternative nutritional or protein sources are available.

Specifically, the bill prohibits importing, exporting, purchasing, or selling live wild animals in the United States for human consumption as food or medicine. The Department of the Interior must hire, train, and deploy at least 50 new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement attachés around the world, and the U.S. Agency for International Development must increase specified activities to address the threats and causes of zoonotic (animal-to-human transmission) disease outbreaks. Additionally, the United States must work with other United Nations member states to urge a global ban on commercial wildlife markets and enforcement of laws to end wildlife trafficking.

Further, the President may impose sanctions against a foreign country or foreign nationals that the Department of State has determined are taking certain actions that enable or facilitate commercial wildlife markets.

Among other reports required by the bill, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine must conduct a study and submit a report that includes an evaluation of (1) the impact that consumption of terrestrial wildlife as food or medicine has on the transmission of novel viral and other pathogens, (2) the role of consuming terrestrial wildlife as food or medicine in the transmission of microbes from animals to humans, and (3) the conditions at live wildlife markets that lead to this transmission.

Cosponsors 3

Members who signed on, in the order they did. All signed on Jan 25, 2021.

SeatCosponsorSigned on
D-NJCory A. BookerOriginalJan 25, 2021
R-NCThom TillisOriginalJan 25, 2021
D-DEThomas R. CarperOriginalJan 25, 2021

Actions 2

Everything that happened, newest first.

  1. Jan 25, 2021Introduced in Senate
  2. Jan 25, 2021Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Related bills 1

Companion bills and other measures the record links to this one.

BillTitleRelationshipLatest action
HR 151Preventing Future Pandemics Act of 2021Identical billMar 4, 2021

Subjects

Assigned by the Library of Congress. Policy area: International Affairs.

Text 1

Each version as it was printed, newest first.

  1. Jan 25, 2021Introduced in Senate

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Everything here is as published by Congress: the summary is the Congressional Research Service's, the action wording is the clerks', and the subjects are the Library of Congress's. How far it got is read from the actions themselves, taking the most recent one of each kind, so a bill that failed a vote and later passed is shown as having passed. Records come from this bill on Congress.gov and govinfo.gov.