Animal Law Podcast #105: Breaking the Rules?: Taxpayer-Funded Animal Research Outside the US

[00:00:07] Mariann Sullivan: It's great to have you. And I should say welcome back because you've certainly been on with a variety of different cases. And your client here is the White Coat Waste Project, which I always have trouble saying, but I will try to get it right. Let's start out by just talking a little bit about who they are.

[00:00:23] Vanessa Shakib: The White Coat Waste Project is a nonpartisan taxpayer watchdog group with a mission to find, expose and defund, cruel and wasteful animal experimentation. Most people don't know that the NIH is handing out $20 billion of tax payer money each year to laboratories in the US and around the world. Our taxpayer dollars are funding egregious acts of cruelty, wasteful acts of cruelty. The White Coat Waste Project is finding these experiments as exposing them, blowing the whistle and getting them defunded.

[00:01:04] Mariann Sullivan: Are they focused exclusively on NIH funded research? Is that their entire portfolio or whatever? Or are there other projects as well there?

[00:01:12] Vanessa Shakib: They're focused on government funded animal experimentation. The bulk of that is through the NIH, but their work is any government funded animal experimentation. Many federal agencies are funding experimentation from the VA to the NIH.

[00:01:28] Mariann Sullivan: Right. So getting back to the NIH, you mentioned how much money, which is pretty staggering. Do you have an idea of how many animals we're talking about or is it just uncountable?

[00:01:37] Vanessa Shakib: Well, here's the issue. Of that 20 billion dollars about a quarter of that money is received by foreign labs. The heart of our lawsuit is an illegal loophole excusing and exempting foreign labs from animal care committees, which would report information that among other things, bears on the number of animals that they have, the treatment of those animals, the use of those animals, deviation from welfare standards and the like.

So we're facing a complete information blackout because of this loophole. I can't tell you the number of animals at issue. What I can tell you is about 24 percent of that 20 billion is going abroad.

[00:02:24] Mariann Sullivan: I'm not as familiar as I should be with NIH's regulations regarding animal welfare. I'm much more familiar with the Animal Welfare Act process and procedure. But the statute we're talking about is not the Animal Welfare Act. It's the Public Health Services Act. Is that right?

[00:02:40] Vanessa Shakib: Correct. It's the Public Health Services Act. The portion that we're talking about was amended through the health research and extension act. So you might hear public health services act, or you might hear health research extension act, but that's what we're talking about. We are not talking about the animal welfare act, but I'll tell you, the good news is we have similar concepts here.

If you have studied the animal welfare act, you're probably familiar with the animal care committee that it requires, also known as an IACUC, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. And so, we have a similar concept of either the Animal Welfare Act or the Public Health Services Act requiring this Animal Care Committee, sometimes called an IACUC.

Let's be clear, the standards are low, right? It's very much limbo. How low can you go? It is low, but at the end of the day, all we have is this animal care committee. This animal care committee has a laundry list of obligations. They are to review and approve experiments on animals.

They are to monitor the experimentation to ensure those minimum welfare standards are met. Most importantly, they are to document deviations and report those deviations to the relevant federal agency. This is key because this is where the transparency comes in. If you are a member of the public, if you are a taxpayer watchdog, you can then access these records through the Freedom of Information Act.

That's exactly what my client does.

[00:04:20] Mariann Sullivan: So does this statute also lay out specific requirements the way the Animal Welfare Act does, or is it more of this procedural statute that it lays out this process of having the animal care committee and the way that you can find out information about what's being done? Or does it have specific, like, the Animal Welfare Act regulations aren't great, but they're a lot better than things would be if they didn't exist.

Is there also something like that on this side?

[00:04:47] Vanessa Shakib: It's analogous. So the federal statute itself expressly requires every entity receiving taxpayer money for biomedical and behavioral research maintain an animal care committee. The federal statute goes into a bit more detail, but then, as Congress often does, it directs the relevant federal agency to fill in the gaps.

And so here, the NIH has, in fact, filled in the gaps. So we have the federal statute requiring an animal care committee. We have the NIH fulfilling its role of gap filling, promulgating regulations and policies. But the reason we are at an impasse is because at the same time, NIH then issues rules exempting foreign labs from an animal care committee requirement

[00:05:44] Mariann Sullivan: So clearly the concern that you're addressing here is not with research that is going on in the United States. It does seem incredible, but for some reason the government seems to think it's okay to favor foreign... I would think American research institutions would be angry at this, like that it's okay to create lesser standards when they give money to foreign entities than when they give money to entities located in the United States.

But, that's not really your concern. Your concern is the difference in the requirements. Just one more preliminary question here, because I still don't have it exactly in my head. So NIH has all these regulations the way the Animal Welfare Act does, and they're imposing them, and then they're administered by these animal care committees, or IACUCs.

Are these same regulations about how many times the animal has to get fed and watered? You know, really basic stuff. Are they supposed to be applied by foreign research entities? And the issue is that the same procedural requirements don't apply or are none of these requirements being opposed on foreign research facilities?

[00:06:47] Vanessa Shakib: Because the foreign labs are exempted from having an animal care committee, it means there is no committee overseeing the welfare of animals and imposing the minimum standards and then importantly reporting deviations of those minimum standards to the agency, which is then information available to the public.

[00:07:10] Mariann Sullivan: So ostensibly, they're kind of supposed to comply with regulations, but there's just nothing to make them do that.

[00:07:17] Vanessa Shakib: There is an assurance that foreign labs need to fill out. It's essentially a wink, wink, we'll do what we need to. But as we all know, as animal advocates, the sure we promise to do what we're supposed to is insufficient. What we need as advocates is the paper trail. We need to be able to get from these agencies documents, giving us a window inside these laboratories.

[00:07:45] Mariann Sullivan: All right. So White Coat Waste Project became aware of this situation. I don't know whether that was hard to become aware of it, or whether it's really fairly clear because they do have different standards for foreign entities. But they became aware of it and decided to bring suit, is that right? And you bring it in D. C.?

[00:08:02] Vanessa Shakib: Yes, that's correct. We have a lawsuit pending in federal court in the District of Columbia for violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

[00:08:11] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And why D. C.?

[00:08:13] Vanessa Shakib: The agency is located in DC.

[00:08:16] Mariann Sullivan: And that's where most of this kind of litigation takes place, of course.

As you mentioned, you're suing pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, and almost all of the cases that we look at that have to do with the APA have to do with arbitrary and capricious, we're not talking about any of that here.

This is different parts of the Administrative Procedure Act, correct?

[00:08:33] Vanessa Shakib: It is a different part. And as I tell my students that arbitrary and capricious standard is a tough lift. The APA provides judicial review and a variety of circumstances. One of those circumstances is where a final agency action is arbitrary and capricious. It's tough because the courts give agencies discretion.

Another circumstance in which a litigant can access judicial review is when an agency acts in violation of law. And so that is a much cleaner standard because, at the end of the day, the power of an agency to administer a federal statute is only the power to carry into effect the will of Congress.

So the scope of an agency is defined by Congress. The moment an agency is out of its lane, we have a cause of action under the APA. Students in law school, they might hear the word ultra vires. That's what we're talking about here. We are talking about the agency acting beyond its legal power or authority.

[00:09:43] Mariann Sullivan: You're just saying that you only get to do what the statute lets you do, and the statute doesn't let you do this?

[00:09:49] Vanessa Shakib: And it's one step beyond because not only is the agency acting outside of the scope delegated to it by Congress, it is contradicting the express words of Congress. That's why I love this case. The relevant federal statute is so clear that every entity receiving this funding needs an animal care committee.

[00:10:13] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, that is crazy. You kind of have a backup argument that, if I understand how it works, you're making this argument, which is a strong argument and so far you're doing fine, but you also have a kind of a backup argument that assuming that somehow they were allowed to do this, they didn't follow any kind of procedure notice and comment procedure to do it.

But that's not backtracking on your first argument, which is they're not allowed to do this at all. Is that right?

[00:10:36] Vanessa Shakib: Exactly. You're exactly right.

[00:10:38] Mariann Sullivan: If you win, what do you get? What relief are you seeking?

[00:10:40] Vanessa Shakib: We are looking for enforcement of the law as Congress clearly wrote it. We are looking to knock out this foreign animal lab loophole. Wherever you are located around the world, if you are receiving US taxpayer dollars for your animal experimentation, you must have the animal care committee Congress requires.

[00:11:02] Mariann Sullivan: It doesn't seem like that out of line. It really doesn't. Like, if you're getting American money, you should be obeying American law, except that the American government is telling you you don't have to. Did you want to add something?

[00:11:14] Vanessa Shakib: No, I'm with you. This is a real head scratcher. The public policy implications of this loophole are perverse. It should not be easier for foreign labs to access and spend taxpayer money than domestic labs. Foreign labs should not have less transparency and accountability than domestic labs.

It's quite odd.

[00:11:35] Mariann Sullivan: Aside from the law, just politically, it seems very unattractive. We let these foreign labs do things that we don't let American labs do. Okay?

Unsurprisingly, as happens in so many animal law cases, the defendants, perhaps aware that their arguments are not that great, just argue standing.

That's almost always the first step. And so they brought a motion to dismiss on standing, and that motion has been decided and that's where we are now. So the case hasn't gotten further than that. That's my understanding. Correct me if I'm wrong. They like to think that they're immune from judicial review that nobody can sue.

Like, the animals can't sue, so we're fine, nobody can look at us. But there are arguments on both, if I understand, they brought arguments both on Article 3 standing and prudential standing. We don't see prudential standing too often, so that'll be interesting. But let's start with the Article 3 argument.

Just because not everybody listening does administrative law, can you just briefly remind everyone what standing means and what the standing requirements are in federal court under Article 3 of the Constitution. If you're doing animal law and you don't know this, you gotta catch up.

[00:12:38] Vanessa Shakib: Yeah. So in order for a court to have subject matter jurisdiction over a case, the plaintiff must have article three standing. So what is that? Well, it is a three part test which requires, in order to be heard, you must number one, have suffered an injury. In fact, this is a concrete and particularized injury that is actual and imminent.

Two, that injury must have a causal link to the defendant that you are suing. And three, that injury, in fact, must be redressable.

[00:13:19] Mariann Sullivan: An organization can bring more than one type of standing, but you're arguing specifically organizational standing. Is that right? And if that's right, can you explain what that is?

[00:13:28] Vanessa Shakib: Yes, I want to flag also why the standing issue is a big deal. It's because it is jurisdictional, so it can never be waived. So if you are a litigant and perhaps your opposing counsel is snoozing on the job, this can be raised later. The court can raise it sua sponte. So when you are developing any case, it is very important to think about standing.

And like I said, it is a three part test, but when we are talking about impact cases for animals, the hardest lift is step one, the injury in fact. So the question becomes, if you are a non profit advocacy organization, you do not own the animals that a federal agency is regulating. You are not industry.

You are not regulated by the federal agency. You are a third party advocate. So the question is, how are you injured by an agency within the meaning of the law? Because the law does not offer redress for every kind of injury, right? So we do have case law coming from the United States Supreme Court, which says a non profit advocacy organization suffers an injury in fact, for the purposes of article three, when it is harmed by an unlawful action and it diverts its resources to counteract that harm. Meaning, the non profit's daily activities must be perceptibly impaired by the unlawful action, and the organization must in some way divert its resources to combat the unlawful action.

[00:15:19] Mariann Sullivan: And this is what's known as Haven standing. Is that right? After the Supreme Court case.

[00:15:23] Vanessa Shakib: Exactly.

[00:15:24] Mariann Sullivan: So, what's your argument? How was Waste Coat? Oh my god... White Coat Waste Project... what is wrong with me? injured here.

[00:15:34] Vanessa Shakib: The claim for injury is really powerful. It's really extensive. It's quite detailed. And to paint the picture, let me take a step back. So as I've mentioned, my client's a taxpayer watchdog group with a mission to find, expose, and defund cruel and wasteful government funded animal experimentation. So the heart of the mission is the find. In order to have any campaign, they must find the waste.

How do they find waste? Their entire organization runs through accessing public records. But, oh, wait, we have this foreign animal lab loophole. These foreign labs have no animal care committee. Thus, they are not submitting records and reports to the relevant agency. And so the result is an information blackout.

White Coat Waste is not getting any information about these foreign labs. So we have this information blackout and it's causing a host of issues in terms of finding the waste. And because of that, White Coat Waste is having to spend so much time and money pivoting and trying to get any information that it can.

And so here we have multiple, very detailed declarations about what exactly White Coat Waste must now do because they cannot simply send a FOIA, which is proforma. It's simple and it's quick. They are scouring through multiple academic databases to find studies which may have been supported by the NIH.

They are then triangulating among and between multiple databases, they are researching animal welfare laws in the host country receiving the money, they are scouring foreign news outlets and social media for any reports of animal abuse. They have to hit up every repository that could possibly have any relevant information and before they can triangulate it much of these instances, they need to translate the language.

[00:17:40] Mariann Sullivan: Oh god. Yeah.

[00:17:41] Vanessa Shakib: So White Coat is undertaking all of this, as opposed to simply sending in a FOIA request. So it's doing all this extra work and the information that it's getting is not even the equivalent to what would be available under the Freedom of Information Act. So that's number one, there's this information blackout, and now my client is having to twist and turn in all sorts of ways, spend all sorts of extra time, spend all sorts of extra money to get a tiny fraction of information, which may or may not be accurate because it's not from the agency, that would have been available through FOIA had this recipient had the Animal Care Committee required by law.

So that's number one. Number two, we have the problem now that, as we know, reduced oversight increases animal welfare violations. So because these foreign animal labs have no oversight, their violations are increasing. So we now know this is going to be more work for the White Coat Waste Project.

And then on top of that, this has created such a huge problem, such perverse public policy implications, horrible results for animals in these foreign labs, that now White Coat Waste is having to push for remediation efforts. They have spent so much organizational time and resources reaching out and educating members of Congress on this lack of federal oversight and on this loophole.

As a result of their efforts, members of Congress demanded an investigation from the GAO, which the GAO, in fact, did and found that we have insufficient oversight over these foreign labs. So, this is creating a laundry list of problems and obstacles for White Coat Waste in achieving step 1 of its mission. Find the waste.

[00:19:34] Mariann Sullivan: So, one of the things that the court pointed out was that, and I always find this a little difficult in Haven's analysis, that diverted resources, which is the requirement in order to show injury, cannot consist of self inflicted harm. And you know, an organization with a mission can choose to do all sorts of different things.

And if they just choose to do this one, that would be self inflicted. What they have to show is that it has to be to counteract unlawful activity. Can you just explain if it's even possible to explain, exactly where that line gets drawn? When an injury is self inflicted by an organization and when it's in reaction to illegality?

[00:20:15] Vanessa Shakib: I think if you're an animal lawyer or you're studying animal law, you can look at many opinions on the issue of organizational standing and they don't always square.

[00:20:25] Mariann Sullivan: Oh God, like look at the ones in the 90s and you want to kill yourself. Sorry.

[00:20:29] Vanessa Shakib: So, right, so it's hard to say exactly where is the line, right?

[00:20:33] Mariann Sullivan: Vanessa, I'm so glad you're saying that because this always confuses me and you're kind of like just carrying that out that maybe we're still in an evolving situation where that line hasn't been completely drawn, but you can sometimes tell what things are definitely over the line.

[00:20:47] Vanessa Shakib: Yeah, I think that we can tell in a very clear case, right? Everything is a continuum, where there's a strong claim for organizational standing on the one end, and there's a really weak case or no case on the other end. The question is where on the continuum is enough? For me, I choose to represent clients that have very strong case for organizational standing.

I don't want to get in a gray or messy fact pattern. Here, White Coat Waste has a crystal clear diversion of organizational resources to offset the foreign animal lab loophole. I encourage students or lawyers who want to practice in this area to get very detailed with their client about what are their normal course of operations.

Step by step by step by step. And now, what is the course of operations in response to this illegal action? Step by step by step by step. So, I do encourage law students curious about this to email me for the briefing or pull up the briefing. The declarations in this case go into very minute detail.

[00:22:00] Mariann Sullivan: Yes, it's very detailed. I can attest to that, having looked at the papers. So tell us about the court's decision. What did it focus on? I thought it was a really well written decision myself. Not just because it came out the right way. You know, there wasn't a lot of extraverbiage.

It was a lot of clarity.

[00:22:17] Vanessa Shakib: We waited over eight months for this decision. When the ECF filing came, I stopped breathing. And I really was delighted and couldn't believe what I was reading because the court could have kicked this case if it really wanted to. Right? And so what we have also in the court's summation of the facts is a narrative that is congruent with plaintiff's interpretation of the facts.

So right off the bat, we haven't gotten anything wrong with our read of the federal law, our read of the agency's rules and policies. So that is very positive from the beginning for plaintiffs. This is teed up exactly as we see it. And the court is very clear going through the article 3 analysis that White Coat Waste does have organizational standing, cites PETA versus Purdue, cites other cases in animal law quite favorably, does a very clean analysis. And what I was also quite excited for beyond the article three analysis was the analysis on prudential standing because there are cases which state animal advocacy groups do have prudential standing with respect to the Animal Welfare Act.

We don't have that kind of case law for the Public Health Services Act. And so here we are really making law for animals.

[00:23:43] Mariann Sullivan: Actually, can we take a step back and explain a little bit more about what prudential standing is? It's not a constitutional issue the way Article 3 standing is.

[00:23:51] Vanessa Shakib: You are correct that Article 3 standing is jurisdictional, meaning a litigant must have Article 3 standing to be before the court. Prudential standing, by contrast, is non jurisdictional and it is also waivable. It is essentially at the court's discretion. Nonetheless, if a judge wants to throw a case out, a judge can do so through the lens of prudential standing, sometimes called statutory standing, sometimes called zone of interest. The question with prudential or statutory standing is whether the litigant in the case is within the zone of interest Congress intended to benefit or protect with the statute in question.

In other words, is the person before the court the right person to bring the suit?

[00:24:49] Mariann Sullivan: It isn't like there's only one right person, though. It's a fairly loose standard, right? I mean, courts aren't constantly throwing cases out because, oh, this other group would be kind of better to argue this. So it's pretty loose standard. Cases aren't getting thrown out all the time on prudential standing.

[00:25:07] Vanessa Shakib: The famous case thrown out on prudential standing is the Naruto the Monkey case. Because there the court said, while an animal might have Article 3 standing, Naruto the Monkey lacked statutory standing under the Federal Copyright Act. So there are cases that exist that make choices based on prudential standing.

Here, the judge asked, is White Coat Waste a suitable challenger to this agency action? The court found that yes, White Coat Waste is. The Public Health Services Act itself, its express purpose is to promote humane care and use of animals. And this aligns with the White Coat Waste mission.

[00:25:55] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, there were a couple of quotes in there that I really liked. One, it was quoting another case, but the organization instead must show that it is a suitable challenger, as you said, that is a party whose interests coincide systematically, not fortuitously with those of intended beneficiaries. I feel like the court is just trying to say, you can't just come completely out of left field and just because technically you somehow have an injury, and you meet article three, that means you're the person who should be in court. But it is rare that cases get thrown out on this.

I think that the other thing that I really loved about reading this decision is that the court was quoting PETA versus Purdue or citing PETA versus Purdue, but mentioned a couple of times that animals are uniquely incapable of defending their own interests in court.

You just did not used to see that kind of language in decisions, and I think there's a real sea change. Do you agree?

[00:26:47] Vanessa Shakib: I can speak only to this particular opinion and say that I think that it is powerful.

[00:26:53] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I might be overstating it. I agree.

[00:26:55] Vanessa Shakib: I, you know, I'm feeling quite energized to move forward in this case. We will be getting into cross motions for summary judgment this summer, and I do look forward to that.

[00:27:06] Mariann Sullivan: I just know reading the cases, especially the ones from way back in the 90s, which I think that they were citing a little, the other that the government was citing, it was one of those ALDF versus SB cases that... just no recognition of this idea that these laws are meant to protect animals and nobody can get them into court.

Just kind of luxuriating in that, yeah, we can throw this out because, you know, animals can't sue and you can't sue and nobody can sue, it's all fine. And just this idea that this court is recognizing that animals are different than anybody else. They are protected by the law and they can't sue.

So we have to look at this a little differently. I just loved it. I also love this quote, from top to bottom, the text of the statute makes plain that its purpose is to ensure proper care and treatment of animals used in federally funded research. Nicely said. What was the name of the judge on this case?

[00:27:56] Vanessa Shakib: Judge Nichols.

[00:27:57] Mariann Sullivan: Nicely said, Judge Nichols.

[00:27:59] Vanessa Shakib: Nicely said by Judge Nichols, appointed by President Trump.

[00:28:02] Mariann Sullivan: I know, I checked, because I liked the decision, I checked who he was. Federalist Society, Trump. And I'm like, you know? Animal law, you never know. It takes us in many different places. Let's see, I know what I wanted to ask. It actually is going back to Article 3, even though we'd moved on to prudential standing.

But if you will forgive me, because you mentioned earlier that Article 3 standing is an issue that the court can bring up, even if the defendant doesn't. The defendant, of course, did bring it up here, but did not bring up either causation or addressability, and the court did address that briefly and mentioned that it was entitled to bring it up itself.

It was just in a footnote, but can you just tell us a little bit about the particularly the redressability argument? I think that they were arguing it's not automatic redressability, they'll have to go through FOIA to make this work. Am I right?

[00:28:48] Vanessa Shakib: Yes, but the court found that there is a presumption that agencies will do as they are directed to do by law. And so although White Coat Waste does need to FOIA to get the information that would be reported by an animal care committee, there is a presumption that the FOIA law is abided by and so causation and redress ability are not an issue.

[00:29:11] Mariann Sullivan: And as to the injury, now I think you mentioned that you're arguing that it's both an informational injury and also an argue to your organizational interests, the Havens kind of argument. Did the court uphold both of those injuries?

I mean, I guess it didn't have to, it only had to find one.

[00:29:27] Vanessa Shakib: It was more explicit when deciding on the Article 3 injury, but as I read this, I find the court, impliedly greenlighting the informational injury as well.

[00:29:37] Mariann Sullivan: The court made a point of saying several times that it's standing decision at this juncture, and this is true in any case, is based on allegations made by you, and that can change if the factual situation emerges in a way that doesn't support standing. I mean, that's always the case. Did you read anything into the court anticipating, some possible block to standing here?

[00:29:57] Vanessa Shakib: I found that language to be interesting because while it may be true that complaints are generally assessed for their allegations at a motion to dismiss or demur the California state law equivalent. Here, we're not talking simply about a 12 B6, we are talking a 12 B1 factual challenge. In the case of a 12 B1 factual challenge to subject matter jurisdiction, the plaintiff is not limited to its complaint and in fact can use evidence outside of the complaint.

This is why we had hundreds of pages in declarations and exhibits in support of our claims of organizational injury.

[00:30:44] Mariann Sullivan: What do you make of the court saying this? I mean, it seems like you have set forth a very compelling statement of the facts, backing up why you believe that you have standing. Does that make it even more perplexing that the court would keep saying, of course, this is only at this juncture and, you know, things could develop in a different direction?

[00:31:03] Vanessa Shakib: Well, I suppose the court is being conservative, modest, and neutral, and it is in fact true that we can see additional evidence on our motions for summary judgment. I, as the lawyer litigating this case, though, take comfort because I know that we faced a 12B1 factual challenge. I know that if we did not have evidence in support of Article 3 standing, I'm confident we would have been kicked out.

I don't think the judge did us a favor. I think he's very fair.

[00:31:34] Mariann Sullivan: I guess it just struck me as odd because, maybe it was just kind of a belt and suspenders showing that, you know, it wasn't being precipitous, but it seems like he has all the facts on this issue. I mean, unless you don't have anything to back up what you've already said.

I don't know, but it does seem... what are the next steps? Is there a need for discovery here? Like, are there more facts to be unearthed?

[00:31:53] Vanessa Shakib: The NIH has produced the administrative record. We are in the process of reviewing that administrative record and we are currently meeting and conferring over our briefing schedule for a summary judgment. So, you can expect that briefing this summer. What I will be curious to see is whether the NIH challenges standing again at motion for summary judgment.

[00:32:18] Mariann Sullivan: I obviously don't see what arguments are left, but then I'm not in the middle of the case. So, the case will proceed and if you win, I assume that they will have to completely change their processes and require foreign labs to have the same minimal oversight that is provided in American laboratories.

Do you have anything else to add on your expectations of how it's going to be going forward?

[00:32:42] Vanessa Shakib: I can only say I'm really excited to litigate this case. I'm most passionate about issues impacting animals in laboratories. So this really is, I'm so passionate about this case. It's really put a lot of blood, sweat and tears in it. It means a lot to me. I really look forward to litigating it to its conclusion.

[00:33:00] Mariann Sullivan: It really does seem like a case that could have an enormous amount of impact. You know, I imagine, like, even if this case resulted in an effort for them to make an effort to change the law so that they didn't have to require this. I think that would be an enormous political disaster.

You know, it would bring the opportunity to put a lot of really horrifying stuff before the public about what's happening to these animals.

[00:33:24] Vanessa Shakib: Yeah, I don't see an appetite to change the requirement for an animal care committee because at its heart, beyond the fact that it is a welfare standard, it's also a transparency and accountability standard. I cannot think of one United States taxpayer who would want to ship out their taxpayer dollars with no strings attached.

[00:33:48] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, it is not a attractive political argument. So we mentioned that the judge who, as I mentioned, I looked up his background because I thought it was a really interesting decision. Do you think it demonstrates how much animal protection is a both sides of the aisle issue and the kind of issue that kind of belies the America is so divided trope that goes around all the time? People may be very divided on some issue, but animal protection, there's a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who care about it.

[00:34:18] Vanessa Shakib: I agree. I think most people would say generally that they care about animals. Our job as advocates and specifically as lawyers is framing the issue. This case is framed government gone rogue. And that has appeal across the aisle, regardless of anyone's interests in animals, because at the end of the day, if federal agencies are not only out of their lane, but expressly contradicting the will of Congress, we have a separation of powers issues here.

[00:34:51] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. No, I think this case has appealed to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons. I'm excited to hear what happens going forward. Thanks so much for sharing it with us, Vanessa. As always a model of clarity.

[00:35:03] Vanessa Shakib: Thank you so much for having me and I'm excited to update you.