Good morning animal lovers! As you may have seen from our previous emails, Social Compassion in Legislation is sponsoring bills to help dogs and cats, wildlife, and drive sustainability in our state and now is the time to have your voice heard!

Please visit our site to send your support letter for all of our sponsored bills. It’s easy! Our hearings will be coming up soon, and we must start gathering support letters ASAP!

Just click on the bills you want to support
Fill in your information
Click “support”

We then produce your letter and ensure they are received by the correct legislators and committees.

***Remember, if you are an organization, you must follow the instructions to register for an organization. The committees have new requirements we must fulfill in order to get your support registered in the committee analysis, which is very important.

Alternatively, organizations can send their letter which must be on letterhead and signed as a pdf to info@socialcompassion.org
Below is a list of the bills you can support when you visit our “How to Help” page, links to read the bills, fact sheets are all there too.

PLANT BASED / SUSTAINABILITY

AB 416 (Kalra) Deforestation-Free Procurement Act
This bill would require all companies contracting with the state of CA whose products come from tropical or boreal forests to have a strict sustainability “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” (NDPE) policy in place. It would also make public the corresponding data on the company that is implementing the policy.

AB 1289 (Kalra) The Smart Climate Agriculture Program
This bill would create a grant program to help animal agriculture farmers transition to plant-based farming if they choose to.

AB 558 (Nazarian) California School Plant Based Food and Beverage Program
This bill would incentivize California schools to provide plant-based lunches and beverages.

DOGS AND CATS

AB 702 (Santiago) Pet Breeder Humane Care Act
This bill creates a framework for legitimate and humane dog and cat breeders to differentiate from backyard/puppy mill types by requiring local jurisdictions to implement a breeder permit program.

AB 1282 (Bloom/Wilk) Pet Blood Bank Modernization Act
This bill would phase out closed colonies, where animals live caged at a facility for the sole purpose of giving blood. It would also allow humans to volunteer their pets to donate blood for other animals in need at a community blood bank.

WILDLIFE

AB 564 (Gonzalez) The Biodiversity Protection & Restoration Act The bill will ensure that the goals of biodiversity protection, including the “30 by 30” goal to conserve 30% of our wild lands and coastal waters by 2030, are not just aspirational, but are pursued by agencies as an official policy of the state. This bill would codify former Governor Brown and Governor Newsom’s executive orders into law.

AB 534 (Bonta) Whale Entanglement Prevention Act
This bill seeks to eliminate entanglements of endangered whales and sea turtles in California’s trap fisheries by requiring the use of ropeless fishing gear (also known as “on-demand” gear) in any trap fishery by November 1, 2025.

SB 376 (Stern) Wildlife Trafficking Bill
This bill will end all live sales of turtles or frogs known to spread zoonotic diseases or be an invasive species from being sold in live animal markets. It will also mandate the Department of Fish and Wildlife to restrict import permits of any wildlife known to spread zoonotic diseases.

NOTE 1: Please do not create petitions for any of our bills as they are not given any consideration by legislators. In the end, most online petitions make people feel they did something in support of the bill, when in reality it does not carry any weight. What we do need is one support letter per person or organization.

NOTE 2: We absolutely do not sell or share any of your information. We only deliver letters to appropriate members of the California state legislature.

We will keep our emails to a minimum, but will send as we need your help and give you updates as we move through the legislative process.

Please spread the word and get others to send support for the bills, and encourage them to sign up for our newsletter on our website. And please, consider making a donation to support our lifesaving work.

Deepest appreciation,
Judie Mancuso, Founder/CEO/President
Social Compassion In Legislation